Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right

by Jane Mayer

During 2011 alone, tax records show, the AAI, which soon changed its name to Freedom Partners, accumulated over a quarter of a billion dollars. The new business league, which was at first run by Wayne Gable, the head of lobbying for Koch Industries, was less than candid with the Internal Revenue Service about its intentions. According to its founding documents, it told the IRS it “does not currently plan to attempt to influence any election” and in the future might do so but only to “an insubstantial” extent. From the start, however, the organization financed many of the same political front groups that the Kochs had mobilized in the 2010 midterms. This time, though, their underground guerrilla war against Obama was waged by a “business league” and treated as a partially tax-deductible business expense. From November 2011 to October 2012, the Kochs’ new “business league” transferred $115 million to Sean Noble’s Center to Protect Patient Rights and $32.3 million to David Koch’s group, Americans for Prosperity.