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

by Jane Mayer

The Democrats produced a scathing report exposing what they called an “audacious” scheme by undisclosed big donors to illegally buy elections in the final moments of the 1996 campaign. It was undertaken by a suspicious shell corporation called Triad Management Services that had paid more than $3 million for unusually harsh attack ads against Democratic candidates in twenty-nine races. More than half of the advertising money came from an obscure nonprofit group whose real source of funds was a mystery, the Economic Education Trust. The Senate committee’s investigators believed that “the ‘trust’ was in fact financed in whole or in part by Charles and David Koch of Wichita, Kansas.” The trust was a front group, according to the Senate report, designed to conceal the real donors’ identities, in violation of campaign-finance laws. The brothers, who had long opposed restrictions on their political spending, were suspected of having secretly paid for the attack ads, most of which aired in states where Koch Industries did business. In Kansas, where Triad Management was especially active, the funds were suspected of having tipped the outcome in four close races. The conservative Republican Sam Brownback’s race for the U.S. Senate received a special boost, which included a barrage of phone calls informing voters that his opponent, Jill Docking, was a Jew. The shady victories in Kansas had national impact, helping Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives, despite Pr...