Below is a list of the covert gang of folks trying to take down the US government — the anti-government oligarchs who think they run the place. The Koch network of megarich political operatives has been anointing itself the true (shadowy) leaders of American politics for several decades.

Spearheaded by Charles Koch, the billionaire fossil fuel magnate who inherited his father Fred Koch’s oil business, the highly active and secretive Koch network — aka the “Kochtopus” — features a sprawling network of donors, think tanks, non-profits, political operatives, PR hacks, and other fellow travelers who have come to believe that democracy is incompatible with their ability to amass infinite amounts of wealth.

Despite their obvious and profligate success as some of the world’s richest people, they whine that the system of US government is very unfair to them and their ability to do whatever they want to keep making a buck — the environment, the people, and even the whole planet be damned. Part of an ever larger wealth cult of individuals spending unprecedented amounts of cash to kneecap the US government from any ability to regulate business or create a social safety net for those exploited by concentrated (and to a large extent inherited) wealth, the Koch network is the largest and most formidable group within the larger project of US oligarchy.

The Kochtopus

By 2016 the Koch network of private political groups had a paid staff of 1600 people in 35 states — a payroll larger than that of the Republican National Committee (RNC) itself. They managed a pool of funds from about 400 or so of the richest people in the United States, whose goal was to capture the government and run it according to their extremist views of economic and social policy. They found convenient alignment with the GOP, which has been the party of Big Business ever since it succeeded in first being the party of the Common Man in the 1850s and 60s.

Are we to be just a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries? Who will help stand and fight for our independence from oligarchy?

• Philip Anschutz — Founder of Qwest Communications. Colorado oil and entertainment magnate and billionaire dubbed the world’s “greediest executive” by Fortune Magazine in 2002.
• American Energy Alliance — Koch-funded tax-exempt nonprofit lobbying for corporate-friendly energy policies
• American Enterprise Institute — The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. Established in 1938, it is one of the oldest and most influential think tanks in the United States. AEI is primarily known for its conservative and free-market-oriented policy research and advocacy.
• Americans for Prosperity
• Harry and Lynde Bradley — midwestern defense contractors and Koch donors
• Michael Catanzaro
• Cato Institute
• Center to Protect Patient Rights — The Koch network’s fake front group for fighting against Obama‘s Affordable Care Act.
• CGCN Group — right-wing lobbying group
• Citizens for a Sound Economy
• Club for Growth
• Competitive Enterprise Institute — Right-wing think tank funded by the Kochs and other oil and gas barons
• Continental Resources — Harold Hamm’s shale-oil company
• Joseph Coors — Colorado beer magnate
• Betsy and Dick DeVos — founders of the Amway MLM empire, and one of the richest families in Michigan
• Myron Ebell — Outspoken client change denier picked to head Trump’s EPA transition team who previously worked at the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute.
• Richard Farmer — Chairman of the Cintas Corporation in Cincinnati, the nation’s largest uniform supply company. Legal problems against him included an employee’s gruesome death thanks to violating safety laws.
• Freedom Partners — the Koch donor group
• Freedom School — the all-white CO private school funded by Charles Koch in the 1960s
• FreedomWorks
• Richard Gilliam — Head of Virginia coal mining company Cumberland Resources, and Koch network donor.
• Harold Hamm — Oklahoma fracking king and charter member of the Koch donors’ circle, Hamm became a billionaire founding the Continental Resources shale-oil company
• Diane Hendricks — $3.6 billion building supply company owner and Trump inaugural committee donor, and the wealthiest woman in Wisconsin.
• Charles Koch — CEO of Koch Industries and patriarch of the Koch empire following his father and brother’s death, and estrangement from his other younger brother. Former member of the John Birch Society, a group so far to the right that even arch-conservative William F. Buckley excommunicated them from the mainstream party in the 1950s.
• The Charles Koch Foundation
• (David Koch) — deceased twin brother of Bill Koch and younger brother to Charles who ran a failed campaign in 1980 as the vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party — netting 1% of the popular vote. In 2011 he echoed spurious claims from conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza that Obama got his “radical” political outlook from his African father.
• The Leadership Institute
• Michael McKenna — president of the lobbying firm MWR Strategies, whose clients include Koch Industries, picked by Trump to serve on the Department of Energy transition team
• Rebekah Mercer — daughter of hedge fund billionaire and right-wing Koch donor Robert Mercer, she worked with Steve Bannon on several projects including Breitbart News, Cambridge Analytica, and Gab.
• Robert Mercer — billionaire NY hedge fund manager and next largest donor after the Kochs themselves, sometimes even surpassing them
• MWR Strategies — lobbying firm for the energy industry whose clients include Koch Industries, whose president Michael McKenna served on the Trump energy transition team
• John M. Olin — chemical and munitions magnate and Koch donor
• George Pearson — Former head of the Koch Foundation
• Mike Pence — Charles Koch’s number one pick for president in 2012.
• Mike Pompeo — former Republican Kansas Congressman who got picked first to lead the CIA, then later as Secretary of State under Trump. He was the single largest recipient of Koch money in Congress as of 2017. The Kochs had been investors and partners in Pompeo’s business ventures before he got into politics.
• The Reason Foundation
• Richard Mellon Scaife — heir to the Mellon banking and Gulf Oil fortunes
• David Schnare — self-described “free-market environmentalist” on Trump’s EPA transition team
• Marc Short — ran the Kochs’ secretive donor club, Freedom Partners, before becoming a senior advisor to vice president Mike Pence during the Trump transition
• State Policy Network
• The Tax Foundation
• Tea Party

Koch Network Mind Map

This mind map shows the intersections between the Koch network and the larger network of GOP donors, reactionaries, and evil billionaires who feel entitled to control American politics via the fortunes they’ve made or acquired.