Pro Publica exposé on Sean Noble and the 'Kochtopus' dark money network (Updated)

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic frequently decries "dark money" organizations on its editorial page, but it oddly is limited to concern about public employee union "dark money" organizations that attacked their boy, Phoenix City councilman Sal Diciccio. It's funny (not) how little attention the Republic pays to the vast network hub of "dark money" organizations operating out of Maricopa County. Maybe it's because these people are their friends, neighbors and asssociates whom they hang out with at cocktail parties and political events.

About the only place you can find any reference to Sean Noble* and the "Kochtopus"  dark money network he operates out of Maricopa County is here. This is a fundamental failure of the corporate news media to perform its constitutional function as the "watchdog of democracy."

Kim Barker and Theodoric Meyer at Pro Publica have a richly detailed new exposé on Sean Noble and the "Kochtopus" dark money network, The Dark Money Man: How Sean Noble Moved the Kochs' Cash into Politics and Made Millions:

For a brief, giddy moment, Sean Noble—a little-known former aide to Arizona congressman [John Shadegg]—became one of the most important people in American politics.

Plucked from obscurity by libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, Noble was tasked with distributing a torrent of political money raised by the Koch network, a complex web of nonprofits nicknamed the Kochtopus, into conservative causes in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Noble handed out almost $137 million in 2012 alone -- all of it so-called dark money from unnamed donors -- from his perch atop the Center to Protect Patient Rights, a group run out of an Arizona post office box.

Much of it was channeled to obvious destinations: Groups supporting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for example.

But with Noble as ringmaster, Koch money also poured into efforts that didn’t surface until long after Election Day: To a political committee backing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker against a recall attempt; to a group blaming President Obama for high gas prices; even to a legal challenge to Arizona’s redistricting plan.   

* * *

Noble appears to have lost his central position in the Koch empire, undone by poor election results and a California investigation that shined an unwelcome light on some of the Center’s inner workings, insiders say.

But his story shows how the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling has given rise to a new breed of power brokers who control a growing pool of money raised in secret and spent to influence politics in ways that voters can’t always trace.

Much of Noble’s work in 2012 remained invisible to the public until the Center and dozens of other Koch-backed nonprofits released their tax returns late last year.

An examination of those tax returns, along with court records and filings with the Federal Election Commission, shows that the Center to Protect Patient Rights bent state election laws and federal tax rules governing how such groups are supposed to operate.

Millions of dollars the Center told the Internal Revenue Service it gave to other groups only for “tax exempt education and social welfare purposes” were actually spent on election ads and other political activities. Experts on nonprofit law said it’s the donor’s responsibility to follow up on grants if they were not spent as required.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the Koch network’s money was Sean Noble himself, tax documents show. The Center paid three firms owned by Noble almost $24 million for consulting and other services in 2012—or more than $1 of every $6 it spent.

Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group that has written extensively about the Koch network, said disclosures from nonprofits come far too late to help voters and regulators.

“What we’re ending up with is information which is almost entirely useless to the voters,” she said. “Because it’s come so far after the election, so far after the fact that voters can barely remember what these organizations were doing and on behalf of which candidates or parties.”

There’s no indication that Noble or the Center are under scrutiny by authorities for violating tax or election laws.

Which is why Arizona needs: (1) genuine campaign finance law reforms, like California’s Fair Political Practices Commission; and (2) a new Secretary of State,  and (3) Attorney General who will aggressively investigate and prosecute "dark money" corruption in Arizona.

Continue reading The Dark Money Man: How Sean Noble Moved the Kochs' Cash into Politics and Made Millions.

UPDATE: Don’t miss the interactive graphic.

* See Sean Noble - SourceWatch for more information.

UPDATE: Mitch at Arizonaspolitics.blogspot.com delves into the Pro Publica report's revelations about the secretive GOP redistricting organization FAIR Trust, and how it was funded by "Kochtopus"  money through Sean Noble. BREAKING: Sean Noble Double-Uses Federal EIN To Help Hide FAIR Trust; How Koch Brothers' Money Made Its Mysterious Way Into Arizona Redistricting Fight.

Steve Muratore at Arizona Eagletarian, who has been chronicling the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, adds his take on these revelations. I'm Shocked, I tell you! David Cantelme lied? Connecting some DOTS with UNFair Trust.

This is all information that a reasonably competent investigative journalist could have been able to uncover if they were interested in finding it. The GOP-friendly Arizona political media is failing to perform its constitutional function as the "watchdog of democracy."

Comments

[Donna Gratehouse]

Didn't you coin the term Kochtopus?

[Frances Perkins]

The Pro. Publica article is brilliant. For the Arizona connection, it does not mention the Kirk Adams was Speaker of the Arizona House. It is also disgusting the efforts APS is going to discourage solar energy on the one hand, and the hypocrisy of APS bragging about their solar energy plants on the other. It would good to have someone in This State dig into the ACC race last time and see how the all republican panel is beholding to the Koch Brothers funding their campaigns. The fee on "electric grid maintenance" by individual solar panel owners is so bogus it has to be the oil and gas industries fueling it.

[AZ BlueMeanie]

I wish! I do not recall who coined the term originally, it has been widely used. It may have been The Economist, or The Nation, or The Atlantic. If you Google search "Kochtopus" check out "images for Kochtopus."