Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has received $15,000 from KochPAC since he voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. (Jason Andrew/Getty Images)

Koch Industries Is the Top Corporate PAC Donor to the ‘Sedition Caucus’ Since Jan. 6

by
in Sludge
on June 24, 2021

Four days before the 2020 elections, billionaire Republican megadonor Charles Koch gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal about how he was going to move beyond partisanship and would instead be “turning his attention to building bridges across partisan divides to find answers to sprawling social problems.”

He co-wrote a book on the topic as well, “Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World,” which the Journal says is part a mea culpa for his years of partisanship that also describes his plans to spend his remaining years as a philosopher and a unifier. “Boy, did we screw up!,” his book reportedly reads. “What a mess!”

Watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) put out a tracker yesterday that shows that the PAC of Koch Industries, where Charles is chairman of the board and CEO, has been the top corporate PAC donor so far this year to what it calls the “Sedition Caucus” — the 147 Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the election results and the political party groups that back them.

The Trump campaign and its Republican allies submitted at least 42 legal challenges since Election Day, all of which failed in court. The Republicans who objected to the Arizona and Pennsylvania results did not present any new evidence and seemed to be acting out of the kind of blind partisanship that would seem to be the kind of thing Koch had just said he was now against. 

Since January 6, KochPAC made donations to campaigns and leadership PACs affiliated with objectors including: Sen. John Kennedy ($15,000), Rep. Ron Estes ($5,000), Rep. Mike Johnson ($2,500), Rep. Glenn Thompson ($2,500), Rep. Adrian Smith ($2,500), Rep. Richard Hudson ($2,500), and Rep. Jim Banks ($2,500). 

KochPAC also since Jan. 6 donated $105,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is chaired by objector Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and exists to help re-elect Republicans. In April, Scott awarded Trump the NRSC’s inaugural “Champion for Freedom Award.”  

OpenSecrets reported on January 8 that KochPAC was the largest corporate PAC donor in the 2020 election cycle to the representatives and senators, and their affiliated leadership PACs, who would go on to vote against certifying Biden’s victory. 

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