Courtesy of Pam Martens
Charles Koch, Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries (left); with Brian Hooks, Chairman and CEO of Koch Front Group, Stand Together. (Source: Koch Industries.)
Fossil fuels billionaire Charles Koch, the invisible hand behind the worst instincts of the Trump administration, has launched more deception with an apology tour, a new book and interviews last week with the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. But the folks who know Koch best are having none of it.
Jane Mayer, author of the 500-page Koch history tome, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, fired back on Twitter with this: “Oops says Billionaire Political Donor Charles Koch in new book. He now regrets corrupting American democracy, along with the planet.”
Medhi Hasan, British-American political journalist on Peacock’s news channel, had an even harsher assessment:
“If there’s a figure who could compete with Mark Zuckerberg for the award of most destructive influence on modern American political life, it would be Charles Koch. He and his late brother, David, are the hard-right, libertarian gazillionaires behind almost every cruel, malign, extreme, divisive campaign that the GOP has run on in recent decades. Anti-regulation. Check. Anti-union. Check. Anti-healthcare. Check. Anti-environment. Check.”
And, of course, there was the spot-on commentary from Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin, who perfectly captured the absurdity of the apology with this: “One of the worst people on earth has characterized his society-ruining mistakes like they’re akin to accidentally hitting someone’s side mirror with your car.” Levin further notes that the apology rings particularly hollow since Koch is “still actively writing giant checks to a party and candidates who won’t acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election, which some people might find kind of divisive-y!”
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