9.3 C
New York
Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Dark Money Behind Trump’s Supreme Court Pick

Courtesy of Pam Martens

Brett Kavanaugh and His Family on the Evening of His Nomination to the Supreme Court, July 9, 2018 (Official White House Photo)

Brett Kavanaugh and His Family on the Evening of His Nomination to the Supreme Court, July 9, 2018 (Official White House Photo)

There is something revoltingly un-American about a man who stands with his wife and two young daughters to accept the nomination for the highest court in America, talks about feeding the homeless and coaching girls’ basketball – all the while knowing that a lot of very dirty corporate money lurks in the shadows of his nomination.

We’re talking about the fact that Trump made his Supreme Court nominee selection of Brett Kavanaugh from a list that was pre-approved by the Federalist Society – a receptacle for the dark money that flows from the billionaire Charles Koch’s network of corporate polluters and democracy-killing front groups that got the Supreme Court to rubber stamp unlimited corporate money in political campaigns via the Citizens United decision in 2010.

According to the Desmog, using data compiled by the Conservative Transparency project, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund are two of the largest dark money groups contributing to the Federalist Society. Donors Trust has given $13,494,100 in total while Donors Capital Fund has given another $11,366,368. The two nonprofits share the same address: 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 280, Alexandria, Virginia. The actual contributors behind those large sums remain anonymous as a result of the structure of the groups.

The Federalist Society has received another $4 million in total from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation and another Koch-related group, the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation.

In an exclusive report in 2010 we found that Charles Koch’s fingerprints were all over Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund. We reported the following:

“There are shades of Charles Koch all over Donors Capital and Donors Trust. Two grantees receiving repeat and sizeable grants from Donors Capital are favorites of the Koch foundations: George Mason University Foundation and Institute for Humane Studies. Another tie is Claire Kittle. A project of Donor’s Trust is Talent Market.org, a headhunter for staffing nonprofits with the ‘right’ people. Ms. Kittle serves as Talent Market’s Executive Director and was the former Program Officer for Leadership and Talent Development at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Then there is Whitney Ball, President of both Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust. Ms. Ball was one of the elite guests at the invitation-only secret Aspen bash thrown by Charles Koch in June of this year, as reported by ThinkProgress.org. Also on the guest list for the Koch bash was Stephen Moore, a member of the Editorial Board at the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Moore is a Director at Donors Capital Fund. Rounding out the ties that bind is Lauren Vander Heyden, who serves as Client Services Coordinator at Donors Trust. Ms. Vander Heyden previously worked as grants coordinator and policy analyst at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
 
“Legal counsel for the Kochs has declined to respond to two emails with a week’s lead time seeking clarification of the relationship the Kochs have to Donors Capital and Donors Trust.”

Continue Here

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Stay Connected

157,452FansLike
396,312FollowersFollow
2,280SubscribersSubscribe

Latest Articles

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x