WASHINGTON -- A nonprofit group funded by Charles and David
Koch to promote the reduction of national debt and government spending
has been pressed into service as a defender of the billionaire brothers,
who have come under attack by Democrats for plowing millions into
conservative causes.
Public Notice, a Koch-connected,
Washington-based nonprofit organized as a limited liability corporation
with 501(c)(4) tax status, sent opposition research on Senate Majority
PAC, a super PAC supporting Democratic candidates, and the candidates
the group supports to reporters on Friday. The research said Senate
Majority PAC's attack on the Koch brothers as out-of-state billionaires
was hypocritical, since Senate Majority PAC is funded by billionaires
from California and New York.
Public Notice's move into
opposition research suggests that the full network of nonprofits funded
by the Koch brothers and their allies may be deployed into the brothers'
political battles. Democratic candidates in this year's elections and
their backers, including the Senate Majority PAC, have begun
fierce attacks directly aimed at
the publicity-shy brothers in recent weeks, portraying them as
un-American villains whose massive spending is ruining the political
process.
Public Notice hadn't before publicly engaged in direct
political activity or targeted specific Senate campaigns. Its
involvement in opposition research on Senate candidates and super PACs
appears to be a change in tactics to help the broader fight waged by the
lead Koch group, Americans for Prosperity, which
has spent at least $25 million on television and radio advertising in Senate races in the past year.
A Public Notice spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment.
Public
Notice, founded in 2010, had been exclusively focused on promoting the
reduction of the national debt and slashing discretionary government
spending, and spending on safety net programs like Social Security and
Medicare. The organization also has pushed to repeal Obamacare and block
increases in the federal debt limit. Most of these efforts involved
paid television advertising and social media targeted at young people.
Like
most Koch-connected groups, Public Notice is organized as a confusing
string of limited liability corporations, disregarded entities and
nonprofits, obscuring the undisclosed "dark money" it accepts. At the
top of its organizational structure is a disregarded entity called POFN
LLC. Public Notice is legally registered as SGC4 Trust, but operates
under the name Public Notice. The group also operates a 501(c)(3)
educational nonprofit called Public Notice Research & Educational
Fund.
The structure of the Koch political network has been detailed by
the Center for Responsive Politics,
The Washington Post and
ProPublica. The tax forms referenced below were all accessed through
CitizenAudit.org.
Freedom
Partners Chamber of Commerce, the central node in the Kochs' political
money network, was the main source of funds for SGC4 Trust, the group
operating as Public Notice, in 2012. Freedom Partners provided
$5,466,250 to Public Notice from Nov. 2, 2011, to Oct. 31, 2012.
According to
Public Notice's tax forms covering the period May 1, 2011, to April 30, 2012, Public Notice raised $5.9 million.
During this period, Public Notice also received
$1.67 million from TC4 Trust,
another Koch-linked nonprofit acting as a grant-making bank for other
nonprofits. The TC4 Trust contribution came during a period from July 1,
2011, to June 30, 2012.
From May 1, 2010, to April 30, 2011,
Public Notice received funds from TC4 Trust and another grant-making
Koch-linked money bank, Center to Protect Patients Rights (now called
American Encore). During this period,
TC4 Trust sent POFN LLC $7.3 million while
CPPR provided $711,000. Public Notice
raised $11.9 million during this period.
The
links between the Koch world and Public Notice do not end with funding.
Public Notice's sole trustee and director Gretchen Hamel previously
worked
as program leader for TC4 Trust,
the Koch-linked group that has been the largest funder of Public
Notice. Hamel's employment at TC4 Trust was reported on tax forms
covering the period Aug. 28, 2009, to June 30, 2010. Public Notice's
first tax form states that the organization began operations on May 1,
2010.
Other Koch-linked groups that had mostly been on the
sidelines of political fights are now getting involved. According to the
Sunlight Foundation's Political Ad Sleuth, American Encore, previously
CPPR, has
purchased time on Minnesota airwaves to run
an advertisement
targeting Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) for his support of IRS rules
cracking down on excessive political activity by nonprofits like
American Encore.
CPPR had previously advertised on health care
issues. But it hadn't run advertisements mentioning specific members of
Congress, nor did its affiliated group, the Coalition to Protect Patient
Rights.
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