Koch Facts Home

Tuesday, June 11th, 2013

Koch Responds to Comments by Former FCC Commissioner Reed Hundt

As we have discussed before, there have been many media stories and protests concerning Koch’s rumored interest in a newspaper acquisition. Over the past week, Reed Hundt, a former Federal Communications Commission Chairman under President Clinton, a self-described “progressive,” and a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Team, joined the ranks of those who have weighed in on the rumors. In so doing, Mr. Hundt attacked Koch and urged the FCC to change its rules with the hope that it would prevent Koch from possibly acquiring the Tribune Company, which includes the Los Angeles Times, among other newspapers.

Mr. Hundt claimed that he could not “imagine anything good from [Koch] owning the LA Times,” and falsely accused us of “distort[ing] the political discourse” and “dumb[ing] down the country.” He also stated that, “if this were Russia or China, they would have kept their mouths shut or long since have moved to London – the first resort of the stateless – unless Putin or the Politburo approved their propaganda.”

Mr. Hundt then advocated that the FCC do away with the rules limiting cross ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market so that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. could own the LA Times rather than Koch. Ironically, Mr. Hundt enforced those same FCC rules against cross ownership and never sought to relax them when he was FCC Chairman. Indeed, in 2003, he claimed that efforts to do so were “the culmination of the attack by the right on the media.” At that time, he advocated for maintaining the rules, as well as “market structures that provide multiple voices” and decried “regulations that tell people what to say.” However, Mr. Hundt has changed his point of view and now wants the rules against cross ownership relaxed so someone other than the Kochs, with whom he disagrees on political and public policy issues, can own the LA Times. Thus, while Mr. Hundt once claimed to believe that the public interest was served best by “market structures that provide multiple voices” and was against “regulations that tell people what to say,” he now wants to silence Koch’s point of view by changing the regulatory process.

Koch has and always will support freedom of speech, free markets, and individual liberties. We believe, as Mr. Hundt apparently once may have believed, that consistent with the First Amendment it is in the public interest for there to be more points of views in the media and in the marketplace of ideas. While we do not oppose removing government restrictions that would permit more competing market entrants, we object to Mr. Hundt’s disturbing proposal that the government change the rules in order to punish one group or individual and favor another group or individual because of a disagreement over their exercise of First Amendment rights of free speech concerning political and public policy views.

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Monday, June 10th, 2013

Notable Links Digest – Week of June 10, 2013

Chilling Effect
http://bit.ly/190wluf
By Ira Stoll
THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM

In a Bloomberg View column, William Cohan rehashes the controversy over the PBS “Park Avenue” documentary and the Koch brothers, which was covered here earlier. The column is headlined “David Koch’s Chilling Effect on Public Television” and concludes, “just like that, in this insidious way — a film censored here, some phone records seized there — the freedoms that we once took for granted and thought were guaranteed by our Constitution are slowly but surely eroded. This can’t be a good thing.”

Sorry, but it’s not “censorship” when a television station or network decides not to fund or air a documentary. If the editors at Bloomberg View don’t understand this, imagine that I pitched them a weekly column about the failures of Michael Bloomberg’s performance as mayor of New York, for which I would be paid $4,000 a column. If they said, “Thanks for the offer, but we’re going to take a pass on your proposal,” is that censorship or a chilling effect? Of course not. Nothing is stopping me from complaining about Michael Bloomberg on my own Web site, or at the Web site of some other news outlet that wants to run the column. But it doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution that Michael Bloomberg has to pay me to criticize him, any more than it says David Koch should be forced to underwrite documentaries that attack him and his company.

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Thursday, June 6th, 2013

Consistently Opposing Mandates and Subsidies

We have posted a letter that was sent today to select Members of Congress, in which we reiterate our consistent and longstanding opposition to government subsidies of all kinds.

Dear Member of Congress,

On behalf of Koch, I am writing to urge you to oppose the expansion of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandate. The RFS mandate previously created by Congress distorts the markets and has resulted in higher costs to consumers. For these reasons, we have consistently supported the full repeal of this RFS mandate and other similar mandates, even when we may benefit from them.

Unfortunately, there are some in Congress that are using attempts to “reform” the RFS as a way to expand this already unworkable and failed mandate.

H.R. 1959, the Domestic Alternative Fuels Act, will expand the RFS mandate by allowing natural gas to qualify as a renewable fuel. Natural gas does not currently qualify as a renewable under the RFS, nor do any other fossil fuels. It simply does not meet the definition of a renewable fuel.The effect of the government allowing natural gas to meet a government mandate and be treated as a renewable fuel will be to artificially create additional demand and increase natural gas costs for both businesses and consumers.

We have seen, time and time again, what happens when the government tries to pick winners and losers in the energy markets. Consumers and businesses lose, and more uncertainty in the economy is created. Natural gas should be priced by the markets, traded in markets globally, and yes, exported if that is its highest value.

Government should not mandate the allocation or use of natural resources and raw materials in the production of goods. An expansion of the mandate would increase the government’s control over the means of economic production. History shows that the free market, driven by consumer choice in the type of energy they use, is a far better way to allocate resources.

We hope you will oppose H.R. 1959 when it is considered in Congress.

Sincerely,

Philip Ellender
President, Government & Public Affairs
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

A PDF of the letter is available here.

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Thursday, June 6th, 2013

Koch’s Interest in the Media Business

Since March 12 there have been numerous news stories about Koch Industries’ possible interest in the acquisition of a media company.

In mid-May we posted this piece on KochFacts that included our statements on the potential acquisition of Tribune Company. It set forth facts about our company. As expected, there have been coordinated protests by political and organizational activists in several cities, including one that took place in Los Angeles on May 29. Captured on this video are comments from some of the protesters, including this remark by a Greenpeace activist saying: “Here’s the headline I want to see in the Los Angeles Times tomorrow: ‘Los Angeles to Koch Brothers: Drop Dead.’”

The video provides unfortunate evidence that the protesters are ill-informed about Koch’s beliefs and values as a company. Many of the attacks are personal, threatening, and unfounded. We hope these types of hate-filled demonstrations are a wake-up call for all who believe in civility, diversity, and respect, and who believe that free speech is a Constitutional right. For its part, Koch Industries does not and will never engage in hate speech. Koch will make investment decisions based on our own set of criteria and principles. In America, protesters have a right to protest; however we haven’t been intimidated by past politically motivated attacks, and we won’t be intimidated by these protests. The demonstrations carry no weight and have no influence on investment decisions we make.

Rather, Koch’s business decisions in any industry we consider are based on the value we believe we might offer to customers, or in the case of media, readers and or viewers. On June 3, Charles Koch and other executives at Koch Industries spoke to a Wall Street Journal reporter about the growth of Koch companies. We were asked about Koch’s potential interest in purchasing a media property. Mr. Koch told the reporter, “We think there are opportunities in various aspects of the media for us to apply our capabilities and create value. We’re in the early stages so we’re looking across a broad spectrum. We’re not ruling anything out at this point.”

The resulting June 5 story in the Wall Street Journal captures many of our on-the-record comments, including portions of this quote from Charles Koch:

“If we were to get involved in the media business, or more specifically in the newspaper business, our focus would not be to have a newspaper as a vehicle for what’s in our business interest or even our philosophical interest. We would have the best chance to succeed by, as we do with our other businesses, understanding what our customers value. Going in, we believe this would be to offer real news, not just selective news and not news with spin on it. The editorial page would be a marketplace of ideas where all sorts of approaches to public policy issues are vetted and contrasted and there could be ongoing debate. We think this approach would create much more interest, more readers, and would ultimately improve newspapers as a business proposition.”

Finally, Koch Industries’ CFO, Steve Feilmeier, offered these thoughts in relation to any potential media purchase:

“We see incredible change in media and where there’s significant change, it’s often difficult for companies to take a long-term view, especially when they are public companies. We can create and add value to those situations because we are private, well capitalized, and can help a company take a view that is longer term. This makes it a win-win – for customers, for the company, for the previous stockholders and the new stockholders.”

Whether Koch acquires a media company remains to be seen. No decision has been made on this matter, but as the WSJ story makes clear, we are not ruling it out.
Related links:

Kurtz on Kochs Buying Newspapers: Liberal Warren Buffett Does it Without Compromising Journalism
By Noel Sheppard
NewsBusters
06/09/2013

Koch Confirms Interest in Acquiring Newspapers
By James R. Hagerty and William Launder
Wall Street Journal
06/05/2013

Koch Confirms Interest In Newspapers As `Marketplace Of Ideas’
By Daniel Fisher
Forbes
06/06/2013

Zach Weissmueller Talks Anti-Koch Protest on Sirius XM’s Cam and Co. [Audio]
Reason Hit & Run
5/31/2013

Koch LA Times Buyout Enrages Protesters: What We Saw at the “Save Our News” Rally [Video]
By Zach Weissmueller & Tracy Oppenheimer
Reason Hit & Run
5/30/2013

Protesters explain: Kochs must not buy LA Times because … tolerance
By Ed Morrissey
Hot Air
5/31/2013

Why is Daily Kos so afraid of some speech competition from the Koch Brothers?
By William A. Jacobson
Legal Insurrection
5/09/2013

Why shouldn’t the Kochs buy newspapers?
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
5/08/2013

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Monday, May 20th, 2013

New Yorker’s Jane Mayer Distorts the Facts and Misleads Readers Again

There are many flaws, omissions, and inaccuracies in Jane Mayer’s article falsely claiming that David Koch manipulated programming decisions at WNET, New York City’s PBS affiliate. However, Ms. Mayer’s fundamental failure is that there is not a single fact in the piece showing any such conduct by Mr. Koch. That is because these facts don’t exist. No special treatment was ever requested or expected and Mr. Koch, on principle, has never interfered with WNET’s programming decisions.

In the absence of facts to support her imagined theory, Ms. Mayer once again misleads readers with a series of inaccuracies, omissions, and misstatements which are characteristic of her reporting on Koch. Here are some examples:

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Saturday, May 18th, 2013

Jane Mayer’s Agenda

As campaigns and attacks against Koch Industries and its shareholders go, the one led by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker has been consistent, if nothing else – consistent in its left-leaning bias, baseless accusations, and numerous inaccuracies.

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Friday, May 17th, 2013

Politically Motivated Attacks

Since August of 2010, Koch Industries and its shareholders have been the targets of an orchestrated and relentless campaign of attacks by the Administration and its allies. Participants in this destructive game have included President Obama, his White House advisors and staff, his fellow Democrats, radical activists and their organizations, and partisan news media. Theirs has been a campaign intended to intimidate, harass, and silence us and others who have exercised our First Amendment rights to disagree with the policies of this Administration and Congress. It’s a page straight from the Saul Alinsky playbook – “Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it,” with Koch being a primary target.

Some in the news media have spoken out against this targeting of private citizens and the Administration’s apparent disregard for freedom of speech and the First Amendment. Those who have written about the attacks include Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, and former solicitor general of the United States, Ted Olson. Unfortunately, their principled calls against government retaliation were unheeded – that is until recent coverage of the disgraceful IRS scandal.

At Koch, news of the IRS scandal came as no surprise because we have our own questions about whether our confidential tax information was illegally compromised. On August 27, 2010, Austan Goolsbee, who was then chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and a member of the White House Cabinet, falsely accused Koch Industries of not paying taxes and also made comments about Koch’s confidential tax structure during a press conference background briefing on corporate income tax reform.

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Monday, May 13th, 2013

Incomplete Reporting on the Tribune Rumor

If there was ever any doubt that news media, follow news media, follow news media, the stories about rumors of Koch buying Tribune newspapers are a case study.

Since March 12, when rumor of Koch’s alleged interest in Tribune properties was reported in LA Weekly, literally hundreds of stories and blogs have raced to cover the “news.” Starting on March 12, we began providing this statement to news media:

Koch Statement
“As an entrepreneurial company with 60,000 employees around the world, we are constantly exploring profitable opportunities in many industries and sectors. So, it is natural that our name would come up in connection with this rumor. We respect the independence of the journalistic institutions referenced in today’s news stories, but it is our long-standing policy not to comment on deals or rumors of deals we may or may not be exploring. “

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Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

Mother Jones Gets It Wrong… Again

The partisan writers at Mother Jones have consistently gone out of their way, even in the face of facts, to disparage Koch. Call it conspiracy-by-free-association, where the writer seizes on an unrelated tragedy in the news and then tries to blame Koch, no matter how far-fetched or dishonest. We have documented this irresponsible method many times before on this site.

Writer Tim Murphy has another such piece published in Mother Jones on April 22 in which he tries to fault Koch for the circumstances that caused the tragic explosion at a fertilizer facility in West, Texas. The facts of that terrible event are still unknown and are under investigation. But even as memorial services are underway for those who lost their lives, Murphy expresses no empathy for lives lost. Instead, he uses the tragedy as a platform to promote his and his magazine’s partisan views.

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Monday, March 18th, 2013

Notable Links Digest – Week of March 18, 2013

Obsession with the Koch brothers clouds the left
http://bit.ly/143lyzt
By Grant Bosse
CONCORD MONITOR

David and Charlie Koch are also the most active and influential libertarians in the country. David Koch was the Libertarian candidate for vice president in 1980, but the brothers have since avoided party politics and concentrated on nurturing libertarian ideas. Charlie Koch helped found the Cato Institute, and the brothers are major donors for free-market think tanks across the country. The Koch Family Foundation also supports cancer research, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York City Ballet. Those monsters!

Somehow the modern left has drawn itself deeper and deeper into a conspiracy theory that the Koch brothers are secretly controlling the entire Republican Party in an effort to bring about some sort of anarchist utopia. This despite thousands of articles about the Koch brothers’ political activities and copious evidence that the Republican Party isn’t that serious about sticking to the principles of limited government. It’s the least effective, most well-publicized secret plan you’ve ever seen.

Liberals don’t seem to have a problem with the billionaires who give them money. They aren’t worried about George Soros corrupting democracy. And they certainly don’t turn down grants from the Tides Foundation, the juggernaut behind every left-wing cause since the 1960s. Washington Examiner Executive Editor Mark Tapscott found that despite handing out nearly six times as much money as the Koch brothers, Tides has gotten just a fraction of the coverage from the New York Times, Washington Post and Common Cause.

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Monday, March 11th, 2013

Notable Links Digest – Week of March 11, 2013

Why Do the Koch Brothers Get All the Sunshine?
http://bit.ly/YSvKFw
By Mark Tapscott
WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Here’s a couple of data points that bear serious thought this week by transparency advocates celebrating Sunshine Week and by everybody else who cares about protecting and preserving a free and independent press:

1,130 – Number of results for search term “Koch Brothers” on The New York Times web site. 64 – Number of results for search term “The Tides Foundation” on The New York Times web site.

For the few stray souls out there who don’t know, the Koch Brothers are Charles and David, principals of the Koch corporate conglomerate and chief bete noirs of President Obama, liberal journalists covering national politics and Citizens United obsessives everywhere.

It’s equally certain that few reading this post know anything at all about the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, even though its roots go deep into the radical student movement of the 1960s and it has helped fund or startup virtually every significant liberal, progressive and radical cause in the years since.

Click Here For Full Post »

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Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

Notable Links Digest – Week of February 25, 2013

The Kochs Take on Politico
http://bit.ly/128v2cM
By CJ Ciaramella
FREE BEACON

Koch Industries, Inc., is disputing an article published in Politico that claims the manufacturing conglomerate with more than 50,000 U.S. employees played a role in a California referendum fight last fall.

The article, “Koch World Reboots,” written by Politico campaign finance reporter Ken Vogel, detailed shake-ups inside organizations that have been previously supported by the company’s owners, the major philanthropists Charles and David Koch. The article is factually inaccurate and relies on questionable sources, representatives of Koch Industries told the Free Beacon.

“It looks like it is some conservative operative from the way the source is described by Vogel—we don’t know who it is—but it sounds like someone who’s unhappy with us and has a vendetta to make everything we do sound sinister,” Koch Industries General Counsel Mark Holden told the WFB.

Politico Smears, Can’t Back It Up
http://bit.ly/YvqMvv
By John Hinderaker
POWERLINE

When Politico was founded in 2007, it purported to be a high-quality, non-partisan source of news about politics. But, while it does have a limited degree of diversity among its reporters, Politico has proved to be, for the most part, just another Democratic Party cheerleader, no better than the New York Times or the Washington Post.

A case in point is the “reporting”–rumor-mongering, really–that Politico’s Ken Vogel has done on Koch Industries and its owners, Charles and David Koch. Vogel is a lefty who worked for George Soros’s Center for Public Integrity before he joined Politico. He has used his Politico perch to smear conservative talk radio, Clarence Thomas, and other conservative figures, but his bete noire is the Koch brothers, about whom he has written one unflattering piece after another. Worse, his articles are largely based on anonymous sources that purport to have insight into the brothers’ strategies and motivations.

Politco’s Koch Brothers Obsession Marches
http://bit.ly/XxKsS6
By John Nolte
BREITBART

Just imagine if, instead of obsessing over what private citizens do with their own money, Politico and Vogel were to pour the same energies and talents into, I don’t know, Libya? But if it’s money-in-politics that gets you turned on, how about government waste?

Even more than the Koch brothers and George Soros, no one person or corporation spends as many millions as the media does to affect our nation’s politics. So maybe Vogel could look into the financing and political manipulations going on at, say, Politico? That might actually be an interesting story that gets a little traction and makes a difference.

Blocking the Keystone Pipeline: Who Benefits?
http://bit.ly/138Nod8
By John Hinderaker
POWERLINE

If the Obama administration holds firm on blocking Keystone, the big loser will be TransCanada Corporation. But who will the big winners be? American railroads:

And of them, the biggest winner might just be the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Obama supporter and Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett. In December, the CEO of BNSF, Matthew Rose, said that his railroad was shipping about 500,000 barrels of oil per day out of the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and that it was seeking a permit to send “crude by rail to the Pacific Northwest.” He also said the railroad expects to “eventually” be shipping 1 million barrels of oil per day.

There is a real irony here. It has been an article of faith on the Left that the Keystone Pipeline is intended to benefit their beta noire, Koch Industries, even though Koch has no interest in, or use for, the pipeline, and has not even taken a position on whether it should be built.

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Friday, February 22nd, 2013

Confronting Inaccuracy and Journalistic Misconduct by Politico’s Ken Vogel

Multiple stories and blog posts have been written about Koch and its shareholders over the past several years. Unfortunately, a great deal of what gets said is blatantly false or spun to confuse readers and leave a wrong impression. A Politico story written by Ken Vogel, a former employee of the left-leaning and George Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity, is the latest in a long line of examples.

Although the reporter reached out to a number of others in formulating his story about Koch, and relied on anonymous sources, none of us at Koch were contacted by him. There were a number of inaccuracies in Vogel’s story, as well as a continuation of his practice of using anonymous sources to attack or speculate about Koch’s alleged activities. Rather than take on all the inaccuracies, we asked for a specific correction on one matter – the false linkage of Koch to a recent California ballot proposition.

As the email chain below illustrates, the reporter twice refused to correct his story. Finally, we sent a third email asking him to at least include a statement from us in his piece. Again, he refused. In all the interactions we’ve had with news media these past several years, we’ve never had an outlet refuse to include our comment.

To set the record straight, here is Koch’s statement On California’s Proposition 32 refuting the reporter’s piece:

“We have been on the record, since November 5th 2012, as definitively not involved in the Prop 32 issue in California. We did not support, either directly or indirectly, this ballot initiative which would have restricted public and private sector employees’ rights to contribute to candidates.”

Finally, we provide a link to the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and include a few of their standards as a reminder of the conduct that should guide conscientious and balanced reporting.

Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.
Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.
Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources’ reliability.
Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.
Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.
Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.

Emails between Koch and Politico

—– Original Message —–
From: Ken Vogel
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 06:32 PM
To: Tappan, Rob
Subject: RE: Today’s article on Koch

Hey Rob:
Sorry we didn’t connect this afternoon; I was handling a breaking story.
I would welcome the chance to get coffee sometime next week or the following, and also to give you a tour of Politico and introduce you around, if you’re interested.
Regarding Koch Industries’ stance on Proposition 32, we don’t feel an update is justified, because our story does not assert that Koch Industries took a stance on Proposition 32.
Thank you for taking the time to correspond on this point — I look forward to meeting you in person!
Ken
________________________________________
From: Tappan, Rob
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 5:21 PM
To: Ken Vogel
Subject: RE: Today’s article on Koch

Ken:

Thanks for your note. Sorry we weren’t able to connect by phone this afternoon.

On the contrary, I would most definitely like to take you up on your offer to meet for coffee sometime in the near future.

With regard to the item that we’ve been trading emails on for the past day or so, it looks as though we agree to disagree. The repeated references to Koch certainly could lead a reader to believe the Kochs were somehow involved in Prop 32, and I would think a responsible journalist and a respected news outlet would want to make sure there was no such confusion if we’ve stated that we were not.

Let me make a suggestion that might suit both of our respective viewpoints.

I ask that you please post this short statement as either an update to your story or as an addendum at the end of the piece. In that way, we can put this particular matter in your story to rest:

Statement by Koch Industries regarding California Proposition 32 (2012):

“We have been on-the-record– since November 5th 2012– as definitively NOT involved in the Prop 32 issue in California. We did not support, either directly or indirectly, this ballot initiative which would have restricted public- and private-sector employees’ right to contribute to candidates.”

I think this is a reasonable request. Happy to discuss. Thanks.

Sincerely,

–Rob Tappan

________________________________________

—–Original Message—–
From: Ken Vogel
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 12:33 PM
To: Rob Tappan
Subject: RE: Today’s article on Koch

Thanks for emailing me back, Rob.
I take it from your response you’re not interested in getting that coffee.
Just to keep you in the loop, after I emailed you last night, I reached out to [a Koch consultant] to ask whether I should continue routing Koch-related inquiries through him. He said I should, so perhaps you and he could figure this out on your end, and then let me know the resolution.
As for your puzzlement with my response, it may stem from your mischaracterization of it. I did not write, as you assert, that I “did not make ‘any kind of an assertion’ as to Koch concerning this issue.”
I wrote something quite different: “we did not make an ‘incorrect assertion’ – or any kind of assertion – that the Kochs or Koch Industries took a stance on Proposition 32, nor did we make any assertion that the Kochs or Koch Industries ‘contribute[d] to any group with the intent of passing or defeating Proposition 32 in California.’”
The above is accurate, as is the language in the story regarding this issue, so, again, a correction would be inappropriate.
As to your comment that you had “many issues” with the piece, if you would be so kind as to identify specific instances in which you believe there were errors, I will address them specifically, as I have done above.
My invitation for that coffee and tour of Politico still stands, as does my willingness to address any additional concerns on this or any other story.
Thanks again,
Ken

________________________________________
—–Original Message—–
From: Rob Tappan
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 10:44 AM
To: Ken Vogel
Subject: RE: Today’s article on Koch

Dear Ken:

Thanks for getting back to me.

With regard to your inquiry to [a Koch Consultant], [he] is not a Koch employee. In the past, you have contacted us directly on occasion and I ask that you contact me in the future if you have any questions concerning Koch.

We had many issues with your piece yesterday, but that is not unusual, given, among other things, your reliance on your prior flawed reporting as support for many assertions in the piece, as well as your typical practice of using anonymous sources to comment on what they believe motivates Koch.

Rather than go through all of that, we instead decided to focus on the issue I raised in my email to you concerning the false linkage of Koch to a recent California ballot proposition. I am puzzled by your response that you did not make “any kind of an assertion” as to Koch concerning this issue. If you didn’t make any assertion concerning Koch and the California issue, then why did you even mention it and why did you use language that suggests, at a minimum, Koch was involved in some way in the activity that the California Fair Political Practices Commission is investigating? It appears that you were trying to raise the specter of some connection with Koch through your detailed discussion of it or otherwise falsely link us to the issues, which is why we believe it is important to clarify that Koch had no involvement in those issues.

From your response, it appears that you are admitting that you knew Koch had no involvement in these issues, so we would ask that you amend your story to clarify this issue so as to avoid any confusion among those who might happen to read your story. Indeed, as discussed below, given that Koch previously made a statement concerning this very issue back in November, at a minimum, you should include reference to that in your story, and it is irresponsible to do otherwise.

Thanks.

–Rob Tappan

________________________________________
—–Original Message—–
From: Ken Vogel
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 9:13 PM
To: Rob Tappan
Subject: RE: Today’s article on Koch

Hey Rob:
Thanks for contacting Maggie, then me, and sorry it took a few hours to get back to you. Busy day.
I reached out to [a Koch consultant] on Monday as I was writing the story with a request for comment and some specific questions, but he didn’t provide any response. In the future, should I reach out to you, instead?
Either way, I would welcome the chance to chat with you over a cup of coffee, and would be happy to give you a tour of Politico and introduce you to some folks here, if you’re interested – and don’t mind trekking out to Rosslyn!
As for the concerns you expressed in your email to me, below, we did not make an “incorrect assertion” – or any kind of assertion – that the Kochs or Koch Industries took a stance on Proposition 32, nor did we make any assertion that the Kochs or Koch Industries “contribute[d] to any group with the intent of passing or defeating Proposition 32 in California.”
So we don’t believe a correction is appropriate.
Please let me know if you have any additional concerns on this or any other story, or if you’re amenable to grabbing that cup of coffee.
Thanks again for reaching out,
Ken

________________________________________

—–Original Message—–
From: Tappan, Rob
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 5:42 PM
To: Ken Vogel
Subject: FW: Today’s article on Koch

Dear Ken:

We’ve not yet met formally. I work here in the DC offices of Koch Industries, and I sent a note earlier to Maggie regarding an aspect of your piece that appeared in today’s edition and online.

Please take a look at the note below and let me know if you’d like to discuss. We’re looking for a correction to an incorrect assertion that was made in the piece.

Many thanks.

–Rob Tappan

________________________________________

—– Original Message —–
From: Maggie Haberman
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 03:43 PM
To: Rob Tappan
Subject: Re: Today’s article on Koch

Hey Rob – I looked again at the story and I really think you need to talk to Ken. Sorry I can’t be of more help here.

Sent from my iPhone

________________________________________

—–Original Message—–
From: Tappan, Rob
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 4:32 PM
To: Maggie Haberman
Subject: Today’s article on Koch

Dear Maggie:

Thanks for speaking with me earlier today regarding the piece that appeared in today’s Politico.

As I mentioned to you, one inaccuracy in particular compels us to write you and request that you run a correction to the story.

· As we discussed, this has to do with the false implication that Koch was involved in some way with the California Proposition 32 initiative that was up for consideration in this past November’s election. That is clearly not the case, as we have been on-the-record– since November 5th 2012– as definitively NOT involved in the Prop 32 issue. We did not support, either directly or indirectly, the recent Proposition 32 ballot initiative that would have restricted public- and private-sector employees’ right to contribute to candidates. Proposition 32 would have prohibited both unions and corporations from using any payroll deductions from employees’ paychecks for political purposes.

· Here is the link to our Nov. 5th statement: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/11/koch-brothers-california.html

· We have consistently fought for the protection of Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech and to participate in the electoral process. We believe that government-imposed restrictions on free speech and political activity will destroy a free society.

· To reiterate, we did not contribute to any group with the intent of passing or defeating Proposition 32 in California.

Please feel free to reach out to me if you would like to discuss this further. Thanks.

–Rob Tappan

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Sunday, February 17th, 2013

Notable Links Digest – Week of February 17, 2013

American Women, not Koch Brothers, birthed the Tea Party Movement
http://bit.ly/VXg5aS
By Leslie Eastman
LEGAL INSURRECTION

Most of the original “Tea Party” organizers joined the developing national-scale protest in 2009 because we were deeply concerned about our children’s futures. Between the enormous expenditures of the Toxic Asset Relief Program and the “Stimulus Package”, many of us were reeling over the fact our taxpayer concerns were being ignored, and the result would be making our children indentured servants of the state to pay off the enormous debt.

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Friday, February 8th, 2013

UK’s The Independent and Editor Steve Connor Mislead Readers about Koch

Two slanted articles by Steve Connor in the UK Independent published on January 25 got many basic facts about Koch wrong. In response, we submitted a letter pointing out the errors and omissions in Connor’s stories. Unfortunately, the newspaper edited our letter without our knowledge and without notice to its readers, in the process censoring key information and important context. Here below is the full version of what we sent to the Independent, and here is a link to the altered letter that appeared in the newspaper.

Dear Editor:

Two stories in your January 25 issue by Steve Connor were predictable in repeating tired and debunked partisan accusations about Koch Industries and its shareholders, Charles Koch and David Koch. The approach starts with a reporter working hard to “prove” his theory about the Kochs and climate change, thus offering readers just one side of the story. This is called advocacy journalism.

The pieces are littered with language intended to demonize the subjects of the stories and rally activists by using loaded words such as “secretive,” “anonymous,” “billionaire,” “undermine,” “closet skeptics,” and so on.

The reporter asserts that much of the Kochs’ funding given to a wide variety of organizations is tied to “promote skepticism towards climate change.” He states this with no evidence, only innuendo to support his theory. Quite to the contrary, Charles and David Koch believe it is important to understand the primary and secondary effects that proposed costly initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases will have on the earth’s overall climate and public health, relative to the cost of implementation.

Are Charles Koch and David Koch secretive? No. Like the owner of The Independent, they own and operate a private company. If the reporter had done some research, he could easily find that the Kochs have openly advocated for free-market principles for 50 years, including in Charles Koch’s 2007 book, The Science of Success. Recently, too, Charles Koch and David Koch have done in-depth interviews with Forbes magazine, the Weekly Standard magazine and other media outlets. Not exactly secretive.

Moreover, the Kochs are advocates of the critical review that is the foundation of sound science, as everyone interested in furthering discovery should be. Climate science is a complex and ever-changing issue.

We end by reminding the reporter of his own words written on June 3, 2011: “Science is a messy business. We like to think that it can give us clear-cut answers to difficult questions, but like any human endeavour it can frequently lead us up the wrong path.” Clearly, Mr. Connor’s story led him up the wrong path.

To learn more about Koch, a company that employs 60,000 people throughout the world, I encourage your readers to do their own research at www.kochind.com and www.kochfacts.com.

Sincerely,

Thomas Dubois
International Government & Public Affairs
Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC
Geneva, Switzerland

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Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

Statement by Koch Regarding False Assertions About Virginia Redistricting

During these uncertain economic times, when the U.S. is still struggling to get back on its feet, it is unfortunate that Virginia State Senator Donald McEachin falsely and irresponsibly attacked Koch Industries, a company which employs nearly 1,600 people in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The downstream multiplier effect of those jobs, the total number of people employed as a result of Koch’s operations in the state, is about 5,700 people.

Sen. McEachin encouraged people to “tell the Koch brothers to get out of Virginia,” while falsely accusing Koch of being actively involved in efforts to “rig the electoral map” in Virginia. The Kochs have done no such thing. In fact, what Senator McEachin calls the “scheme to rig the electoral map” was actually perpetrated by his own party, according to Blue Virginia, a blog supportive of the Virginia Democratic party and its politicians. Senator McEachin’s attacks are just the latest in the ongoing orchestrated campaign against Koch by the Democratic party and its allies who oppose Charles Koch and David Koch’s longstanding 50-plus year advocacy for individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom. As has been documented here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, Koch and its owners have been subjected to an ongoing series of political attacks designed to intimidate them and silence their exercise of their First Amendment rights of free expression.

We urge Sen. McEachin to cease his irresponsible attacks against Koch and its employees in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and to stop trying to stifle constitutionally-protected free speech. Senator McEachin should stop these attacks which are inconsistent with Virginia’s long history and tradition of promoting and protecting freedom of speech and individual liberty. Instead of irresponsibly and falsely attacking Koch, Senator McEachin should focus his efforts on promoting policies that will stimulate jobs and prosperity in his state.

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Friday, January 11th, 2013

Notable Links Digest – Week of January 11, 2013

Koch Industries to expand Wichita headquarters, add jobs
http://bit.ly/UnisgH
THE WICHITA EAGLE — By Jerry Siebenmark

Koch Industries is ramping up its hiring and plans to add a 210,000-square-foot building to its 37th Street North headquarters campus, the company said Thursday.

The three-story building will be on the northwest side of the campus and will stretch across 37th, requiring the company to reroute a section of the street by a quarter of a mile north. Koch said it would pay for the cost of moving the road and is working with the city of Wichita to do that.

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Tuesday, December 18th, 2012

Statement on the Sandy Hook Tragedy

We are deeply saddened by the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. Our prayers go out to the innocent victims whose lives were cut short, and to their families and friends.

This is a time when all Americans should come together in support for the victims and their families. Sadly, some in the far-left, partisan media have chosen to exploit this tragedy with lies and innuendos that any fair and decent person would find despicable. They have falsely asserted Koch was somehow involved in the tragedy through its membership, along with many other companies, in ALEC. Koch has had no role in any ALEC-sponsored legislation concerning gun laws. Any assertion or insinuation to the contrary is a malicious lie.

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Wednesday, November 7th, 2012

The 2012 Elections

Statement from Philip Ellender
President, Government & Public Affairs  Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC

With the election behind us, the real work for our nation begins. Our elected representatives need to work together to balance the budget, rein in unbridled government growth and spending, end cronyism, and create an environment that rewards principled entrepreneurship and strives for economic freedom and opportunity for every American.

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Monday, November 5th, 2012

Notable Links Digest – Week of November 5, 2012

MSNBC President Apologizes For Matthews Calling Koch Brothers ‘Pigs’ But Won’t Force Him To
http://bit.ly/SOYNGU
NEWSBUSTERS — By Noel Sheppard

On Thursday, during a phone call with Holden, Griffin apologized for Matthews’ “crass language” aimed at the Kochs, and advised Holden that the Hardball host has been talked to about such behavior in the past and even disciplined. Holden thanked Griffin, but asked for Matthews to also be required to apologize. Griffin didn’t believe such a thing would happen, but repeatedly asked Holden to get the Kochs to be interviewed on MSNBC. This prompted Holden to ask if MSNBC was badgering the Kochs in order to get them to come on the air; Griffin didn’t answer. On the plus side, Griffin agreed to formally correct on the air the inaccurate statements made by Markey during Tuesday’s broadcast regarding Koch’s position on energy subsidies

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