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

by Jane Mayer

To run this more political side of the operation, the Kochs hired Tim Phillips, a political veteran who had worked with Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition. Reed was regarded as the religious Right’s savviest political operative. He and Phillips had co-founded Century Strategies, a dynamo of a campaign-consulting firm that became notorious for its close and lucrative business ties to Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist who went to prison for defrauding millions of dollars from Native American casino owners, among other clients. Phillips was not charged in connection with the scandal but had helped create a religious-sounding organization that in fact handled casino cash for Abramoff. Phillips was part of a tough, hardball-playing group, far from the wonky, intellectual mists of Charles Koch’s early libertarian musings. Both Reed and Abramoff were early protégés of Grover Norquist, the influential Washington-based antitax activist famous for proclaiming his hope of shrinking government to the size where he could “drown it in the bathtub.” Norquist had confided once that he regarded Reed and Abramoff as his two greatest students. “Grover told me Ralph was his Trotsky, and Abramoff was his Stalin,” recalls Bruce Bartlett, the conservative economist.