In a letter to the Koch network — a group of evil billionaires who chip in to buy politicians — the Koch brothers crowed about how Donald Trump (whom they considered replacing with Paul Ryan in a backroom deal at the 2016 RNC) has been a pliable servant to them and their political goals during his year in office.
The Kochs cheered Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord on climate change; his evisceration of the EPA Clean Power Plan; his plan to gut the inheritance tax; the GOP’s tax bill and its transfer of billions from the poorest Americans to the very wealthiest few — 13 points in all.
To win support for the Republican tax legislation, the Koch network claims that it organized over 100 rallies in 36 states, contacted over 1.8 million activists, and knocked on over 33,000 doors. The group also spent freely on digital and television advertisements, with $1.6 million in TV spots to support the legislation in Wisconsin alone.
As The Intercept previously reported, the Koch network told its surrogates to downplay concern over the deficit, a major issue they raised during the Obama administration, in order to convince lawmakers to support the package.
Days after the tax bill passed, Charles Koch and his wife donated $500,000 to Speaker Paul Ryan’s joint fundraising leadership PAC, which has a heightened threshold for donations.
Koch Document Reveals Laundry List of Policy Victories Extracted from the Trump Administration [Lee Fang and Nick Surgey/The Intercept]
(Images: Donkey Hotey, CC-BY-SA; Trump’s Hair)