Noble, Sean kch

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discarded by koch after fail/outed? busted by cressmaN

(just a time out? cf Bayh and ed buckhon resurrection)

kingmaker in Az politics? ducey and AG (flank?) ; mess w/ CA props

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BOGUS ACA TOWN HALLS MOJO

This summer, town hall meetings to discuss health care reform have turned into battlegrounds—with fist fights, belligerent protestors, and at least one lawmaker reporting a death threat. Some Democrats have blamed the chaos on astroturf operations: fake grassroots groups funded by special interests. But are the forces whipping up the anti-health care frenzy really astroturf—or a new form of corporate-funded campaigning?

Most astroturf operations are semi-covert activities, precisely targeted at vulnerable or undecided lawmakers. Tried-and-true practices include phone banks in which paid callers posing as concerned voters read from prepared scripts, or phony citizens groups with few members, if any, but plenty of industry money to bankroll television ads and mailers. Particularly unscrupulous operators might mobilize a narrow constituency—like conservative Christians—on behalf of their corporate clients. The idea is to create the impressionof grassroots activism, but rarely to seriously attempt to influence broader public opinion. Michael Scanlon, a colleague of disgraced uberlobbyist Jack Abramoff, once captured the logic succinctly: “Simply put we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them.”

By that standard, some of the groups orchestrating town hall protests against Obama’s health care reform have adopted a new, hybrid model—one that blurs the lines between astroturf and grassroots activism. As far as it’s possible to tell, their financial base remains heavily dependent on corporate interests, and some of their tactics are familiar, too. But instead of furtively targeting selected lawmakers, they’re also mounting highly visible outreach efforts via public forums and Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools. In the process, they’re picking up at least some genuine support. It remains to be seen whether they can attract large numbers to their cause, but already they’ve helped to hijack the health care debate at a critical juncture. Here’s MoJo‘s guide to the major groups and their backers.

Americans for Prosperity

Americans for Prosperity is one of the most prominent groups opposing the Obama administration’s two key domestic policy goals: health care reform and cap and trade. The organization presents itself as a grassroots movement that espouses limited government. But a large portion of its money comes via staunch free-market conservative David Koch, part owner of Koch Industries, an oil and gas conglomerate that is perhaps the largest privately owned company in the US, with holdings in medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

Koch helped found AFP in 2003 and serves as chairman of its affiliated foundation. Its president is Tim Phillips, a master of the art of astroturf. Along with Ralph Reed, he cofounded Century Strategies, a PR and consulting firm known for effectively renting out Reed’s evangelical Christian allies to its clients—not to mention clients of Jack Abramoff. In 1999 and 2000, Century mobilized anti-gambling evangelicals to protest proposed casinos—but didn’t know Century was working for an Abramoff client, a casino-owning Indian tribe hoping to vanquish its competition. In a memo, an Abramoff colleague noted that Century’s Christian connections would ensure a “political effort that truly resembles a people’s movement” without the signs of a “paid political operation.”

This year, AFP is devoting its deep resources and strategic prowess to organize protests at Democratic health care town hall meetings, where activists hold signs like “Sorry Grandma, No Health Care for You.” But unlike most typical astroturf operations, AFP’s efforts seem intended to gather a broader base of supporters. To that end, the group makes use of social networking sites to reach out to potential followers. It posts information about local events and organizing strategies for its nearly 4,500 fans on Facebook, who share YouTube videos of protests. More than 1,000 people rallied at an August event in Scottsdale, Arizona, organized by AFP; the local fire department was called to handle overflow.

AFP sponsors two other groups advocating against the Obama administration’s proposed reforms, innocuously titled Patients United Now and Patients First. Both fund ads that make misleading claims. One Patients United Now television ad wrongly asserts that “Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the US.” Patients First also launched a 13-state bus tour that wraps up at the end of August. At one stop a speaker compared proposed reforms to the Stalin and Hitler regimes because they would lead to “physician-assisted suicide”—a blatantly false claim. But these outlandish accusations have proved convincing to some: More than 206,000 people have signed Patients First’s petition opposing current health care reform proposals.

FreedomWorks

FreedomWorks is headed by former GOP House majority leader Dick Armey, who left government in 2003 and became a heavy-hitting lobbyist for DLA Piper, whose numerous corporate clients include pharmaceutical firms.

FreedomWorks grew from a group called Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was founded in 1984 and whose resume includes orchestrating “grassroots” opposition to cigarette taxes on behalf of Philip Morris. In 2006, the Washington Post reported that the group had once duped nearly 16,000 people into swelling its membership rolls: Brokers for a company called Medical Savings Insurance Co. pitched patients on discounted insurance, and those who signed up automatically became members of Citizens for a Sound Economy. (A small part of their monthly bill also went to the group, eventually netting it more than $600,000.) In 2003, a spokesman acknowledged that two-thirds of the organization’s money came from corporations, as well as corporate-funded conservative foundations. The next year, CSE morphed into FreedomWorks. Last year, the organization was identified as the creator of AngryRenter.com, an amateur-looking website presented as a spontaneous effort from ordinary Americans opposing government mortgage relief for homeowners.

The arrival of the Obama administration has ushered in a busy year for FreedomWorks, which played a pivotal role in engineering “tea party” protests against government spending. The group distributed organizational tips and talking points and helped to coordinate gatherings around the country that garnered breathless media coverage. FreedomWorks operatives have urged followers to mimic the tactics of the grandfather of community organizing—and inspiration to Barack Obama—Saul Alinsky.

This summer, FreedomWorks is using those tactics to defeat health care reform. It claims a membership of more than 770,000 people and an email list of 400,000 readers. Its website provides numerous resources, including an “August Recess Action Kit” to aid supporters in exposing “the real intentions and the economic ramifications of the Cap and Tax and health care reform legislation on the table.” FreedomWorks has plotted locations of town halls on Google Maps; one memo encouraged supporters to “rattle” lawmakers at these forums. FreedomWorks is also sponsoring a march on Washington on September 12.

In mid-August, Armey abruptly announced that he was leaving DLA Piper after a flurry of media reports raised questions about whether FreedomWorks activities were related to the goals of the firm’s big pharma clients.

Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights

The Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights describes itself as a “nonpartisan, grassroots coalition of patients, healthcare professionals, advocacy groups, and engaged citizens.” Its source of funding is unknown. However, according to Think Progress, PR for the organization is managed by the DCI Group, a political consulting firm with a long history of rustling up phony advocacy groups to serve the interests of its corporate clients.

DCI’s managing partners have deep experience in the political dark arts. Tom Synhorst, for instance, is a former associate of Ralph Reed (as well as a former aide to GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa). Synhorst and fellow founding partners Doug Goodyear and Tim Hyde spent years working for or with the tobacco conglomerate RJR Nabisco, where they supported “smokers’ rights” groups.

In the 1990s, DCI generated fake “citizen” letters opposing the breakup of Microsoft, then under investigation for antitrust violations. At least two of the letters were from dead people. During the Bush years, DCI created fake “grassroots” groups to champion one of the administration’s pet causes, privatizing Social Security. And in 2005, Freddie Mac paid DCI $2 million to drum up opposition to a bill that would have reined in the mortgage giant and its sister, Fannie Mae—three years before they nearly collapsed under the weight of their subprime loans.

Its resume also includes several health care campaigns: In 2002, DCI was hired by the Health Benefits Coalition—an HMO trade association—to defeat a proposed “patients’ bill of rights” in Congress. In 2003 and 2004, DCI worked with Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) to pass the GOP’s Medicare prescription drug bill, going so far as to pay health care consultants to find elderly people to speak positively about the proposal.

The face of the Coalition to Protect Patients Rights (CPPR) is Dr. Donald J. Palmisano, a former American Medical Association president whose idea of protecting patients’ rights consists of trying to limit their ability to sue doctors for malpractice. A longtime shill for the tort-reform movement, Palmisano sits on the board of the Doctors Company, a medical liability insurance company, and founded a claims review company that serves physicians and hospitals.

This year, CPPR’s efforts to kill health care reform are more visible and more ambitious than many previous initiatives linked with DCI. It is aggressively seeking supporters for the anti-reform cause via press events, op-eds, a Facebook page, and its Twitter feed, which so far has a modest 1,485 followers. (Sample tweet: “POTUS says you will be able to keep your insurance…but will your insurance survive competition with a public option?”) CPPR has also organized a group of doctors to tour the country warning of the perils of single-payer care. At one recent press conference that it sponsored, a physician said that in countries with government-run health care, the “sickest patients” are denied treatment.

60 Plus

60 Plus presents itself as a “grassroots senior citizen organization.” Although it claims to be nonpartisan, it was formed with help from stalwart conservative direct-mail king Richard Viguerie and refers to its honorary chairman Roger Zion as “one of Washington’s leading spokesmen for the conservative cause.” This year, it’s run a more traditional astroturf operation opposing the administration’s health care proposals.

During the Bush administration, 60 Plus was linked to several dubious political campaigns, and had ties to Jack Abramoff. The investigation of the lobbyist revealed that in 2001, Abramoff told one of his clients, the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to give $25,000 intended for Tom DeLay’s political action committee to 60 Plus, although the tribe’s primary interest was in gambling legislation. (A lawyer for the tribe said that Abramoff advised them that the donation would help the tribe win clout with the Republican leadership in Congress.)

But for several years Big Pharma was 60 Plus’ major benefactor. According to a 2006 investigation by the AARP Bulletin, the pharmaceutical industry accounted for “virtually all of [60 Plus’] largest contributions” in the early years of this decade. In return, the group lobbied hard against state laws that would have reduced prescription-drug prices. On one occasion, the industry hired Bonner & Associates (a Washington strategic operation currently being investigated by Congress for forging letters opposing cap and trade and sending them to lawmakers). Bonner paid callers to read from scripts that identified them as members of 60 Plus and urged citizens to tell their governor to veto the legislation. Pfizer later admitted to funding the calls. Ken Johnson Sr., a vice president of PhRMA, told Mother Jones that the organization has not given 60 Plus any money since 2004.

This year, 60 Plus has been tirelessly working to torpedo Obama’s health care reform with a series of misleading and alarmist ads. On August 10, 60 Plus released a television ad warning that “The government—not doctors—will decide if older patients are worth the cost.” A recent mailing from 60 Plus told recipients that proposed changes to Medicare would mean “longer wait times at hospitals and doctors’ offices, less money for new treatments, restrictions on care, prescriptions and what’s best for you—the patient!” And a flyer distributed in Nebraska by 60 Plus features a picture of ailing elderly people and quotes Obama out of context saying, “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

Conservatives for Patients Rights

CPR was founded by discredited hospital executive Rick Scott, who has emerged as perhaps the most dogged opponent of a Medicare-style public option that would cover uninsured Americans. To sell its message, CPR has enlisted the services of the same PR firm that brought you the Swiftboating of John Kerry: CRC Public Relations. So it should come as no surprise that its million-dollar ads on television and talk radio feature highly questionable assertions to scare citizens into sticking with the status quo. In one ad, an announcer ominously intoned that reform “could put a bureaucrat in charge of your medical decisions, not you.” A CPR flyer referred to the public option as “Patient Enemy #1.”

Scott claims that he will spend as much as $20 million dollars to defeat health care reform—he has already kicked in $5 million of his own funds to jump-start CPR’s media blitz. As Mother Jones has previously reported, he owns an urgent care company called Solantis. That gives him a direct incentive to block the expansion of health insurance coverage. To that end, CPR has sought to whip up frenzies at town hall forums during the August congressional recess, issuing alerts for meetings around the country and posting video footage of heated exchanges on its website. Earlier this month, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denounced CPR for “organizing and manufacturing that anger.”

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7/16

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/07/fec-dark-money-fine-shows-limits-of-disclosure-again/

This week, the Federal Election Commission did the unthinkable. The agency most frequently characterized by its constant, crippling deadlock levied a substantial fine against three large politically active nonprofit groups.

The decision also required the groups to amend past FEC filings to disclose who provided their funding. But because the source was, itself, another nondisclosing group, the public has learned very little.

The fine — first made public by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which originally brought the complaint in 2014 — totaled $233,000 split among three groups:Americans for Job Security, American Future Fund, and the 60 Plus Association.

The penalty now ranks among the top 25 highest total fines ever brought by the FEC, and the largest ever brought for activity in a post-Citizens United election, according to thislist of cases maintained by the FEC.

The violations at the heart of the enforcement action stretch all the way back to the 2010 midterms and the Tea Party wave that flipped the House into GOP control. The complaint centers on a group called the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR), a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, now called American Encore, which at the time was the hub of the Koch donor network.

CPPR didn’t report any political spending to the FEC in 2010, but it did send $25.5 million to the three other groups, who together reported spending tens of millions of dollars supporting Republican House candidates.

Normally, AJS and the other organizations wouldn’t have to report that CPPR was the source of funds for the ads; disclosure would only be required if the grants were “earmarked” for specific expenditures in specific races. Such earmarking is rare, which is why 501(c) groups almost never disclose their donors — and, hence, are referred to as “dark money” groups.

The FEC found, however, that the operative running CPPR, Sean Noble, was engaged in the selection of which races should be targeted, and his firm, Noble Associates, was sub-contracted to “produce and develop” some of the ads. Noble’s substantial involvement in content selection for the ads and race targeting was sufficient grounds for the FEC to find that the contributions should have been disclosed as if they were earmarked.

The involvement of Noble Associates also highlights the close ties between Noble’s firms and the groups he runs, an intertwining that in the past has led to allegations that he has profited handsomely from the political activities of his nonprofits.

The CREW complaint itself only materialized in 2014 because Noble described the set-up in detail for the National Review. By then, Noble’s propensity to chat about his activities and get his groups into very public disputes with regulators had already led the Kochs to cut him loose.

While the three recipient groups will have to pay fines — $50,000 for 60 Plus Association, $140,000 for American Future Fund, and $43,000 for Americans for Job Security — they are getting what amounts to a pass on their disclosure. The conditions of their conciliation state that they must amend their FEC filings to identify CPPR as a donor in 2010, but that has long been public. When *OpenSecrets Blog*first discovered CPPR in 2012, we reported its contributions to these and other groups.

The FEC’s donor reporting enforcement in this instance amounts to little more than a nondisclosure disclosure, because while the groups that ran the ads must reveal CPPR as their donor, CPPR doesn’t have to reveal the sources of its own funds. The individuals or organizations that kept it in business as a major distributor of cash in the Koch network are still not known beyond what *OpenSecrets Blog* has been able to ferret out.

While Noble’s ties to the Koch network at the time are clear, it is impossible to specify to what extent the Kochs themselves funded the group or who else in their orbit may have provided the money.

The lack of information becomes all the more stark when one considers that the FEC’s decision has no bearing on the 2012 election, by which point CPPR was part of a network that raised more than $400 million and was responsible for at least 1 in 4 dark money dollars spent.

CPPR and its grantees aren’t the first to manage to keep their donors secret despite forced disclosure, and they won’t be the last. The dark money churn — basically, the transfer of assets among connected groups to provide multiple layers of anonymity — is what keeps a lot of these groups in business. The FEC’s action this week, while important, proves the strategy works.

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Tags: 60 Plus Association, American Future Fund, Americans for Job Security, center to protect patient rights,cppr, dark money, fec, Robert Maguire, Sean Noble, Shadow Money Trail}:

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mayer dk $:

Am Fut Fnd 501c4 soc welf

Noble tested $ laundering on Perriello va (also Boucher conserv dem but Saltvlle/olin in district 251; LuntZ did msg, Larry McC “serial offender” 253.

AFF McC ads ~ Braley iowa dem; ground zero mosque, no position; like house in Oz 258

10 The shellacking : dark money's midterm debut, 2010

Scott brown a shock, dems lost filibuster protection; Am Fut Fund and Am Job Sec dk $; actually CPPR w/ kendrick $; Noble promoted at aspen conf; 9up from incubator)

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-dark-money-man-how-sean-noble-moved-the-kochs-cash-into-politics-and-ma

The Dark Money Man: How Sean Noble Moved the Kochs’ Cash into Politics and Made Millions

Sean Noble (dclondon.com)

by Kim Barker and Theodoric Meyer

ProPublica, Feb. 14, 2014,

This story was updated on May 7, 2014 2:00 p.m.

For a brief, giddy moment, Sean Noble—a little-known former aide to an Arizona congressman—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.

“I must tell you that Sean Noble from your group has been immensely helpful in our efforts,” a California multimillionaire wrote to Charles Koch in October 2012, asking Koch to give several million to support an anti-union initiative in the state. “Thanks for any consideration.” [tony russo to miller on prop 32 busted? http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/810105-russo-miller-documents#document/p52/a128460 ]

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.

For this story, ProPublica interviewed dozens of people about Noble, from his high-school science teacher to fellow Republican operatives, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing possible backlash from fellow conservatives or the Kochs.

Noble did not respond to questions from ProPublica.

In an email, Rob Tappan, spokesman for Koch Industries, did not respond to specific questions from ProPublica about Noble or the Center, but acknowledged Noble “was a consultant for Koch in the past and attended Koch seminars.” Tappan likened Noble to Jim Messina, who was Obama’s campaign manager, and Paul Begala, a chief strategist for Bill Clinton in his first presidential run. Tappan said Noble was a consultant for “many other groups and issues.” (Read his entire response here.)

Most who know Noble, 43, saw him as an unlikely candidate to become the Kochs’ money man.

“There were plenty of people who had a lot more actual campaign experience,” said a Democratic operative who knew Noble in Arizona. “That’s a pretty big step up from Triple A to the majors, maybe Double A to the majors.”

An affable, handsome man with graying temples who favors jeans and eschews ties, Noble had an aw-shucks demeanor. He liked watching Little League baseball games with his family, leading his local Mormon ward and working tirelessly behind the scenes on campaigns for minor politicians.

Over the last two election cycles, though, Noble’s persona evolved. He flew first class, accumulated five homes and sat near the 50-yard-line at the Super Bowl. He rubbed elbows with top conservatives, from Sarah Palin to John McCain.

Even if Noble’s role in the Koch network is over, his story illuminates larger truths about how money changes both politics and the people who handle it.

“I think Sean at the end of the day is an anecdotal story of something that’s happening much bigger in the American electorate,” said a Republican consultant who knows Noble. “Mr. Noble goes to Washington.”

***

Noble was an unusual choice for the Koch brothers. He overshared. His blog, called Noble Thinking, was a bizarre mix of personal revelations (“I was a terrible dater”), bragging about his connections (attending a dinner “with a guest list that was right out of the Who’s Who D.C.-New York power corridor”) and fears about Obama (particularly, “the march toward socialized health care”).

The Kochs are known for valuing discretion and control.

Noble’s main credential was working for Arizona Rep. John Shadegg for more than 13 years, eventually becoming his in-state chief of staff. Though hardly a household name, Shadegg was influential in the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

At some point, Noble met Randy Kendrick, a lawyer by training who was on the board of the Goldwater Institute, a bastion of libertarian thought in the West. Kendrick and her husband, an owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, were big Shadegg donors. (The Huffington Post wrote about Kendrick and Noble in 2013.)“It’s important to understand the influence that John Shadegghad within Republican and conservative circles at the time,” a Democratic operative in Arizona told ProPublica. “That was his in.”

In spring 2009, when it became clear that Obama was pursuing a national health-care law, Kendrick turned to Noble for help defeating it. Noble had recently left Shadegg’s office to launch a consulting firm, Noble Associates, out of his Phoenix home.

“Sean got hooked up with Randy,” a prominent Arizona Republican said in an interview. “He became her local guy to manage everything. He became her political consultant.”

Kendrick was also close to the Koch brothers. “Randy Kendrick is in the inner circle of the Koch brothers’ network,” a Republican consultant told ProPublica, adding that she pushed the Kochs to back a new group targeting Obama’s health-care plan. As for Noble, “I think they liked the fact that he hadn’t been a political consultant before.”

Noble was no slick Washington insider. A self-described “hick from Show Low,” Ariz., a town of about 11,000, Noble married a woman he had met on his Mormon mission in Indiana and became a devoted father of five. He had tried living in the nation’s capital once, moving his family there for two years in the 1990s, only to move back to work in Shadegg’s Phoenix district again. He was the type of guy who said “good grief”and meant it.

Noble also had the right ideological background: He quoted Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and libertarian icon Ayn Rand. His first political memory was from 1976, when Jimmy Carter was elected president and his mother started to cry, saying, “We’re going to be beaten by the Soviets now.”

In 1994, when he was 24, Noble attended Rush Limbaugh’s freshman orientation in Baltimore for the 73 Republican members of Congress who had gained office in the so-called Republican Revolution. When he was 37, Noble was among the 2,200 mourners at William F. Buckley’s funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.

For years, Charles and David Koch, two of the richest men in America, had helped form and support a network of conservative think tanks, foundations and social welfare nonprofits that pursued a libertarian agenda. They seeded the ground for the Tea Party, and then cultivated the various groups that sprouted. In the 1980s, the Koch brothers helped form the group that split into two of the most influential conservative nonprofits now operating, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.

The Kochs raised money for their network in part at secretive semi-annual retreats. The media wasn’t invited and attendees weren’t supposed to talk about them, a kind of “Fight Club” for like-minded billionaires.

One donor who has attended the retreats told ProPublica in an email that he had only a sketchy idea of how money raised at the events was disbursed. He responded to questions on condition of anonymity, saying he feared backlash from the Obama administration and the IRS and adding that the Kochs resented any information from the events being disclosed.

“The people who attend these events have ultimate respect for the Founding Fathers and the Constitution,” he wrote. “The over-riding theme is that nothing worthwhile is achieved without hard work, coupled with integrity and humility. ... And the Kochs are not in this for any personal gain whatsoever as all they seem to get is vilification.”

By spring 2009, Noble had landed a job within the Koch network. On April 16, the Center to Protect Patient Rights was incorporated by a lawyer in Maryland who went on to work with other groups tied to the Kochs. Noble was its executive director, documents show. According to the group’s tax filings, he was paid no salary; his firm received $30,000 a month, he said in a sworn deposition in 2013.barnaby zall esq http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1007812-articles-of-incorporation-center-to-protect

Noble registered his firm to lobby on the Center’s behalf, but otherwise it flew beneath the radar. No one even seemed to know its precise name — the incorporation documentscalled it the Center to Protect Patient Rights. In lobbying documents, Noble said he was working for the Center to Protect Patients’ Rights.

Heather Higgins, a longtime Koch ally, was the group’s initial secretary, and Dr. Eric Novack, who had led the fight for a health-care proposition backed by Kendrick in Arizona in 2008, was the treasurer. Novack acknowledged he didn’t know much about the group’s activities. “My only involvement was, we were starting something,” he said in an interview. “They asked me because I was a body. I had no decision-making power. …I left very quickly.”

The usually voluble Noble, a man who blogged so much that he once blogged about how he hadn’t blogged in two days, didn’t discuss the Center to Protect Patient Rights publicly — ever. In a 2009 story in the Arizona Guardian, a political news website, Noble was described only as working on “a national campaign opposed to President Barack Obama’s healthcare initiative.”

In the 2013 deposition, Noble wouldn’t even say who hired him because of confidentiality agreements. “I can’t tell you who I do work for,” he responded to a lawyer’s question.

“Wait a minute,” the lawyer said. “I asked how your salary got set, and you’re telling me that you had a discussion with some people in 2009 and you're refusing to tell me who?”

“I am,” Noble replied.

***

If not for the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United, Noble’s work for the Koch network might have ended as soon as the fight over the health-care law was decided.

The decision helped to clear the way for corporations and unions to contribute unlimited amounts of money to outside groups — groups that operated independently from candidates’ campaigns and parties, but were free to buy direct political ads or pay for a broad spectrum of political activities.

“This is a total game-changer for federal politics,” Noble blogged about the decision, adding that he believed races later that year would likely be decided by outside interests. “Some will claim that this makes politics more dirty. I don’t. Politics has always been pretty messy.”

“Seriously, this will change campaigns in a big, big way,” he added.

In the Citizens United opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the influx of union or corporate cash would not corrupt elections because of laws requiring outside groups to disclose their donors. Voters could give appropriate weight to messages paid for by special interests.

But those laws didn’t apply to groups like the Center to Protect Patient Rights. As social welfare nonprofits, they didn’t have to name their donors. And they could spend as much as they wanted on politics, as long as, in the IRS’s view, social welfare remained their primary purpose.

After the Affordable Care Act became law in March 2010, the Center’s lobbying work related to health care ended, leaving Noble free to take on new challenges. As it happened, a key job was open in the Kochs’ network. Matt Schlapp, a former political director to President George W. Bush who had led the Kochs’ election efforts as vice president of federal affairs for Koch Industries’ lobbying arm, had recently left to form his own consulting firm.

Noble stepped in to fill the gap.

“My impression of the environment he found himself in, with the changes in the federal law, it created enormous opportunities,” said another Republican consultant who knows Noble. “He was in the right time, right place.”

Noble began attending twice-a-month strategy meetings in Washington, as one of the people representing the Koch network alongside other conservative powerbrokers, including top GOP strategist Karl Rove’s people, Politico later reported.

One national conservative operative said he heard about Noble and the Center in conversations in early 2010 about who was doing what that year. “They were going to be the primary vehicle for the Koch money, for the Koch network,” the operative told ProPublica.

In late June, Noble attended the semi-annual Koch retreat at the St. Regis resort in Aspen, Colo., along with Randy Kendrick and her husband, an event later described in stories by Think Progress and The New York Times.

Noble spoke on a panel called “Mobilizing Citizens for November” with Tim Phillips from Americans for Prosperity, Mark Mix from the anti-union nonprofit National Right to Work, and Karl Crow from Themis Trust, a voter database group. Noble was the only panelist of the four listed without an affiliation – there was no mention of his role at the Center to Protect Patient Rights.

By that time, he had no need to advertise. The Center had raised almost $62 million in 2010, giving out $44.6 million in grants to 22 like-minded groups, most of which then turned around and spent money on political activities.

The year brought huge gains for Republicans. The GOP recaptured the majority in the House, gaining 63 seats, and added six seats in the Senate. The party’s conservative wing did especially well: Almost one-third of Tea Party candidates in the House and half in the Senate won. Conservative dark money groups outspent liberal ones by about 10-to-1,research by the Center for Responsive Politics shows.

Noble predicted the outcome on Twitter days before the election.

“It’s official: 2010 will be an historic election for the GOP,” he wrote.

“Obama will lose mojo,” he added.

***

As the 2012 presidential election approached, the Kochtopus started adding new arms. Noble was a key player in expanding the network’s complicated web of nonprofits and limited liability companies.

At the top of the network were groups such as the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a trade association formed in late 2011, and the TC4 Trust, a social welfare nonprofit that said in a filing to the IRS it would “focus on the advancement of free markets, liberty and individual freedoms.” As is typical with such groups, the identities of donors did not need to be disclosed.

Money flowed from them to the Center, which acted as a sort of clearinghouse, distributing grants to dozens of smaller groups. Many of these nonprofits spent directly on politics, including election ads. Some also made grants to yet another layer of groups. Not all of Freedom Partners and TC4’s money flowed through the Center; they also gave some money to smaller groups directly.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, the Kochs then added another level of complexity to this already opaque set-up.

A dozen of the Koch-affiliated nonprofits included limited liability corporations -- LLCs – called “disregarded entities” that were considered part of the nonprofits for tax purposes. Many of the 20 disregarded entities in the Koch network had strings of letters for names: STN, POFN, SLAH, ORRA. Noble was the first person consulting for the Kochs to create a disregarded entity that was linked to one of the nonprofits. He called it SDN. Eventually, Noble changed the name to Meridian Edition, one of two disregarded entities of the Center to Protect Patient Rights.

This additional layer made it even harder to follow the flow of cash through the Kochtopus, political operatives and tax experts said. When the TC4 Trust, for example, passed money to the disregarded entity of another Koch network group -- say, Americans for Prosperity -- tax records showed the funds going to a company called PRDIST, rather than to the much better known Americans for Prosperity.

“I think it’s being used to disguise the source of their money,” said Marcus Owens, who ran the Exempt Organizations division for the IRS from 1990 to 2000.

The Koch network moved more than $204 million through disregarded entities in the last half of 2011 and before the 2012 election, according to tax documents filed last year. That included almost $115 million in grants from Freedom Partners, the trade association, to Corner Table, the Center’s second disregarded entity.

Noble helped to dispense this river of cash, sometimes with a knowing wink. The Centergave $320,000 — all from undisclosed contributors, of course — to a Colorado group called the Arioch Project. The project’s original name? Patefacere — the present infinitive of the Latin verb that means “to disclose.”

The tangle of groups made it seem as though Koch money was being diffused broadly, but tax records show it flowed into many smaller groups at a high level of concentration. At least 20 nonprofits across the country received at least half of their revenue from the Center, Freedom Partners or both.

Americans for Responsible Leadership, a group run by a friend of Noble’s, got $24.7 million in grants from the Center, or almost 98 percent of its revenue.

Noble helped to run or incorporate no less than three groups named American Commitment at one point or another. One of them got almost 97 percent of its $11.7 million in revenue in 2012 from the Center, Freedom Partners and Americans for Responsible Leadership.

The American Future Fund, which pulled in a whopping $68 million in 2012, got more than 92 percent of that money from Freedom Partners and the Center.

On their 2012 tax returns, signed under penalty of perjury, the Center and Freedom Partners told the IRS they were not engaged in politics, checking “no”to a question asking if they had spent money to influence elections. Freedom Partners said its grantswere “subject to express prohibitions or protections against the use of grant funds for electioneering purposes.” The Center said that it gave grants to groups for education and social welfare — not politics.

Yet, in fact, more than $30 million funneled through these groups ended up paying for political activities.According to tax and FEC records, the American Future Fund poured at least $19.8 million from the Center and Freedom Partners into elections. Americans for Responsible Leadership spent at least $9.3 million received from the Center. American Commitment spent at least $1.1 million of its grants from Freedom Partners and the Center on politics.

No one from Freedom Partners, Americans for Responsible Leadership or the American Future Fund returned calls and emails asking for comment.

Phil Kerpen, the president of American Commitment, told ProPublica that the allegation that American Commitment had spent grant money earmarked for social welfare purposes on politics was “false.” He described what the Center and Freedom Partners had said on their tax returns as “general characterizations” of their grants.

“All our political expenditures were out of our organization’s general treasury,” Kerpen said.

Nonprofit experts said groups like the Center are supposed to make sure their money is used as earmarked.

“The grantor is responsible for how the grants are used because it’s the grantor’s money,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in nonprofits and campaign finance.

If a grant is improperly administered, the group that gave it could become the subject of an IRS audit.

In some cases, voters had no way to know for more than a year after the election that the Koch network, aided by the Center, was behind particular political initiatives or messages – an outcome that underscored campaign-finance watchdogs’ worst fears about the corrosive effects of dark money.

It wasn’t until this year, for example, that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group, reported that Noble’s Center supplied all of the $80,000 raised in 2012 by All Votes Matter. During the election, the group had worked to change rules governing Pennsylvania’s electoral votes in ways that would benefit Republicans.

The Center also was a major backer of a group that spearheaded an effort toregister Americans in Israel to vote in U.S. elections, supplying more than half of its 2012 revenue, ProPublica found. The Koch network’s involvement in this initiative did not surface at the time, even though The Times of Israel ran stories spotlighting the group’s“I Vote Israel” project and questioning its refusal to disclose its donors.

The Center’s involvement in a contentious Arizona redistricting fight was also not known – until now. It provided $150,000 to a group called FAIR Trust—described as the “Fair AZ Independent Redistrict” on the Center’s tax return—which hired lawyers to sue Arizona’s redistricting commission in April 2012 to challenge new legislative and congressional districts. The Trust, which also sent lawyers to commission meetings, has repeatedly refused to identify its backers.

“Without knowing who they were representing, you couldn’t really fairly evaluate what they were saying,” said Linda C. McNulty, a Democratic member of the commission. “They clearly were doing somebody’s bidding, but they wouldn’t say whose it was.”

David Cantelme, one of the lawyers who represents the Trust, said he couldn’t talk about who hired him and had no information about the grant from the Center.

Voters in Wisconsin also had no idea the extent to which Koch network money fueled election ads urging them to oppose the recall of Gov. Scott Walker.

Until late 2013, when the Center filed its tax return, voters had no way of knowing thatNoble’s group supplied virtually all of the $510,230 raised in 2012 by the Coalition for American Values Action, another social-welfare nonprofit. The Coalition then donated more than three-quarters of that money to the PAC that paid for the ads. The PAC received no contributions other than the Coalition’s.

The day of the recall vote, Noble’s blog linked to one of the ads, calling it “a fascinating approach to a unique situation.” “If the good people of Wisconsin think like the folks in this ad, it’s going to be Walker by double digits,” he wrote.

He didn’t mention the Center’s role in funding the effort.

***

A hefty chunk of the Koch network money that flowed through the Center in 2012 went to Noble’s firms.

Noble’s earnings had risen swiftly as his ties to the Koch brothers grew, tax filings and other records show. In 2008, the year before he joined the Center, Noble earned almost $205,000, according to a later court filing, from consulting and his work for Shadegg.

By 2010, the year of the midterms, he earned almost $640,000, the filing said. He and his wife bought an investment property a couple miles from their Phoenix home, according to the filing and property records.

At the end of 2010, Noble established a second firm, DC London, to do “consulting and governmental affairs,” according to incorporation documents. Its name was largely aspirational; on Twitter, Noble noted that he’d never been to London. DC London opened an office in downtown Washington and went on to hire almost 30 staff members in a little more than two years.

Noble personally earned almost $2.3 million in 2011, court records show, impressive for a non-election year. Much of his income seems to have derived from having the Center to Protect Patient Rights hire his firms. The Center paid more than $6.3 million to DC London and Noble Associates for consulting, management and reimbursement for “consulting expenses paid to consultants without markup.” Free Enterprise America, another nonprofit run by Noble, paid DC London almost $400,000 for consulting as well. (Noble did not disclose that he partly owned DC London on that tax return, as required by the IRS.)

Noble Associates bought a condo in Washington, D.C., in 2011 for $665,000, property records show. The Nobles also bought a half-acre of land in Hurricane, Utah, then built a 9,000-square-foot house on it, a gabled concoction with eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms and five fireplaces.

Then came 2012, a record-setter for spending by dark money groups and Noble’s consulting businesses.

The Center paid a whopping $20.7 million to DC London for “consulting & other services,” according to its tax return. Of that, $15.8 million was for costs “reimbursed to DC London for the Center’s program expenses without markup.” What costs DC London could have incurred remain a mystery: The Center’s work mostly consisted of directing grants to other nonprofits, and it doesn’t appear to have offered any programs. (The Center also spent $50,000 on what its tax return described as “occupancy,” a term usually used to mean rent, even though the Center’s lawyer told ProPublica in an emailthat the group had no office.)

In addition, the Center paid consulting and management fees of $270,000 to Noble Associates and $2.8 million for “survey and phone programs” to Angler, a company incorporated in October 2011 and run out of DC London’s office. Noble was the president.

The Center disclosed its transactions with Noble’s firms on its tax returns, as required.

After the disappointing 2012 election results, many questioned how effectively the Koch network and other conservative organizations had deployed their resources. Filings with the FEC showed that conservative dark money groups had outspent liberal ones by at least $276 million to $29 million, to little apparent effect.

One Koch donor, who wanted to remain anonymous because he feared possible retribution from the IRS, said he had attended one Koch retreat and had given to the Koch network for several years. He said he remained impressed by the organization’s accomplishments in states such as Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. He also said he didn’t think the Koch brothers would tolerate a consultant steering such a large amount of money to himself.

“My guess is he’d be cut off pretty damn quickly,” the donor told ProPublica.

The payments to Noble’s firms were unusual, campaign finance experts said.

An analysis of tax returns filed by 100 other politically active nonprofits, including all the groups funded by the Koch network that have made their 2012 tax returns available, showed just 19 hired consulting firms owned by employees or board members.

For those 19 groups, the median payment to an employee-affiliated firm for consulting or other services was $108,000, a tiny fraction of the millions paid to Noble’s firms. For instance, the Republican Jewish Coalition paid $60,000 for consulting to the firm of then-board member and former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Most social-welfare nonprofits avoid insider transactions and pay their leaders fixed salaries instead. GOP strategist Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, one of the largest politically active dark money groups, raised almost $180 million in 2012 and paid its top executive a salary of $538,000.

Owens, the former IRS official, said social welfare nonprofits are not allowed to pay “excessive” benefits to people who control the organization or to companies they run.

“That’s probably an excessive private benefit right there,” Owens said, after ProPublica told him how much Noble’s firms earned in 2012. “That’s a huge amount of contracts for someone in charge to hand out to contractors he controls.”

Groups given grants by the Center to Protect Patient Rights also started hiring Noble’s companies. The Center gave grants to 25 nonprofits that reported political spending to the FEC or state authorities during the 2012 election cycle. Of those groups, 10 hired Angler, the company that operated from DC London’s office. The American Future Fund, for instance, paid Angler $5.3 million, mainly for social media advertisements. It’s possible that much of this money went to companies such as Facebook and Twitter, with Angler keeping a smaller commission.

American Commitment—which Noble was a board member of until June 2012—paid Angler $168,000 in 2012 for “media production.” Kerpen, who Noble hired at American Commitment, said he picked the group’s vendors based on merit, not because of Noble. “We’ve actually never received a contribution from any donor that asked for a particular vendor to be used,” Kerpen said.

Two groups that received grants from the Center appear to have paid Angler hundreds of thousands of dollars just to use a phone system to make calls to voters. The calls themselves were made by temps hired separately through an agency.

It’s not clear how much Noble personally earned in 2012, but his wife, Julie, estimated it was at least $3 million, according to court filings.

She said Noble received other perks as well. Noble Associates paid for his cell phone and his Washington, D.C., mortgage. He charged most meals in Washington to Noble Associates.

In the 2013 sworn deposition, Noble said the election year was unprecedented.

“The way that 2012 went, we’re never going to see anything like that again,” he said.

***

Noble’s prime position in the Koch network took a hit at the end of the 2012 campaign, when he and the Center circumvented California election laws in an attempt to influence two state ballot measures.

Noble first met California political strategist Tony Russo in Las Vegas in October 2011, according to a recorded interview Russo later gave to California investigators. Russo wanted Koch money for an effort to fight unions. Noble agreed to help, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to run focus groups, develop ads and reach out to voters, Russo said.

Russo hoped the Koch network would do even more. Russo later said he and Noble spoke more than 18 times in the run-up to the election, meeting once in Washington.

Meanwhile, Russo and Jeff Miller, another California consultant, raised $29 million from about 150 confidential donors to fight a proposition to raise taxes and to support another one limiting unions’ political power. They transferred the money to a Virginia-based trade association that had agreed to spend it on ads related to the initiatives. But as Election Day drew closer, the association, Americans for Job Security, balked at buying ads, worried that under California law, it would be required to disclose who had donated the funds for them.

Russo said he approached Noble and offered to transfer money from the Virginia group to the Center. In return, he asked Noble to tap separate resources to help in California. Noble thought he had groups that could help, Russo recalled.

“He said, you know, get me your money,” Russo said in his interview.

Americans for Job Security transferred about $4 million to the Center on Sept. 10. On Sept. 13, American Future Fund gave about $4 million to a California affiliate, the California Future Fund for Free Markets, which was spending money on the anti-union proposition.

Americans for Job Security sent another $14 million to the Center on Oct. 11. The Center then gave most of that money to Americans for Responsible Leadership, run by Kirk Adams, a friend and former client of Noble’s. On Oct. 15, Americans for Responsible Leadership sent $11 million to the Small Business Action Committee, a PAC spending on the initiatives.

Within days, a good governance group demanded a state inquiry into the contribution.

Still, Americans for Job Security gave another $6.5 million to the Center on Oct. 22. But no additional money from Koch-funded groups flowed back into the California initiatives fight – at Noble’s direction, Russo said.

California had launched an investigation.

“The explanation was, your regulatory guys are going crazy and I just don’t think we can do it,” Russo said.

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission sued Americans for Responsible Leadership on Oct. 25, 2012, seeking to force the group to reveal its donors. Six days later, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ordered that the group turn over the records to the state for an audit, saying that voters could suffer “irreparable harm” if they didn’t know who was behind the group before the election. Americans for Responsible Leadership appealed. The case made its way to the California Supreme Court, which on Nov. 4 unanimously ordered Americans for Responsible Leadership to turn over its records.

The next day, just before the election, Noble and Adams sent letters to the Small Business Action Committee as part of a settlement with regulators, admitting they had funneled money from Americans for Job Security to the Small Business Action Committee.

The state then accused the groups of money laundering based on their efforts to disguise the original source of the $11 million transferred to the Small Business Action Committee in October.

In his interview with investigators, Russo said he was “shocked” by the admission from Noble, because he believed that the money came from a pool of money unrelated to the funds Americans for Job Security passed to the Center.

Miller said he felt “just completely screwed” by Noble’s admission.

“I’m not sure how their network works, to be perfectly frank,” Miller later told investigators in a recorded interview. “But when he, when he started to get in the shit storm, he panicked and lied to you all about how it was done to protect his organizations. That’s what I think happened. I don’t know that, though. That’s what I think happened. I think that he panicked and to prevent your agency from opening up his books, he made, he lied.”

In total, the Virginia trade association had sent $24.5 million to the Center. Only $15 million ended up going to California for the propositions, which conservatives ended up losing by a large margin.

State regulators eventually slapped Americans for Responsible Leadership and the Center with a record fine, $1 million.

Individual donors to the effort were never disclosed, although the redaction was so poor, it was possible to determine that they included financier Charles Schwab, California philanthropist Eli Broad and Gap Chairman Bob Fisher, but not the Kochs or their companies.

Initially, it appeared that the California Attorney General’s office might open a criminal investigation into the donations. But the investigation never moved forward; Noble was never interviewed in the case.

As part of an agreement with the state, Adams and Noble were able to write off the $11 million transferred through their organizations to the Small Business Action Committee as a simple mistake. The failure to disclose the original source of the funds “was inadvertent, or at worst negligent,” their stipulation with California’s attorney general and campaign finance regulators said.

Yet Noble and the lawyers he worked with were hardly new to campaign finance. Attorneys at Holtzman VogelJosefiak, based on the East Coast, were national experts in dark money groups and election law, representing everyone from Crossroads GPS to the American Future Fund.

A lawyer and a paralegal there had helped incorporate two of Noble’s consulting firms and several Koch-connected social-welfare nonprofits, as well as handling the Center’s application for tax-exempt status to the IRS. Another Holtzman Vogel lawyer had even helped incorporate and dissolve the California Future Fund for Free Markets, the nonprofit that spent money on the anti-union measure.

“I would assume, given the high skill level at Holtzman Vogel, that their lawyers were familiar with California’s campaign finance law requirements,” said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington. “They’re good lawyers.”

***

The California investigation, coupled with poor election results, weakened Noble’s influence on the Koch network and shrank the Center’s role within it.

“There were growing rumors, frustration, through 2010, 2011 and 2012, that Sean was controlling everything, that it was too insular, that it was all about who Sean liked and knew,” a top national conservative operative familiar with the Koch network told ProPublica.

Noble’s life was also changing in other ways. No longer was he the Arizona outsider whoblogged about serving as the Mormon bishop in his ward, who preferred Waffle House to Washington’s pricey eateries, and who praised his wife for earning “sainthood for tolerating my work schedule.”

In April 2013, Noble filed for divorce. Though his wife of more than 20 years was a homemaker raising their five children, he argued in filings that she deserved no spousal maintenance. After they separated, he bought a condo in Phoenix for himself for $510,000 and another for his parents for $181,500.

Noble had become involved with Elissa Scannell, a former scheduler for Shadegg who was his partner at DC London, records filed as part of the divorce case show. Just before the 2012 election, the two flew to see the World Series. According to documents submitted by his wife, Noble spent more than $7,700 for a vacation for himself and Scannell in the Bahamas over New Year’s 2013. That March, he paid more than $3,600 for a trip for him and Scannell to Hawaii, records show.

Noble’s life with Scannell was centered in Washington, D.C., a city he once described as a “cesspool” on his blog. He posted a photograph to Facebook the night after the Jingle Ball in December, of the two of them alongside singer Enrique Iglesias.

The Koch network was changing, too. In 2013, it gave greater prominence to Freedom Partners, which has supplanted the Center as its primary distributor of cash to other groups.

Because Freedom Partners is a trade association, this move also helped the network sidestep IRS proposed limits on political activity by social welfare nonprofits. Those would define political spending as expenditures reported to the FEC and grants to other tax-exempt groups involved in elections, unless they specifically say the money won’t be spent on politics.

The dark money strategies Noble helped pioneer at the Center are likely to play a substantial role in the upcoming midterms. Targeted blasts of spending by outside groups could have far more effect on this year’s smaller slate of congressional and local races than they had on 2012’s megabuck national and statewide contests, campaign finance experts said.

Months after the 2012 election, Freedom Partners hired a new president, Marc T. Short,a longtime political operative and former Koch employee who tended Ronald Reagan’s ranch in California in his 20s. He is 43, the same age as Noble – and some say the most likely heir to Noble’s role.

The Kochs convened their first 2014 retreat for big donors at a resort near Palm Springs, Calif., in late January. On the agenda: Centralizing control and creating a more coordinated approach to winning elections, as opposed to the piecemeal one from past years, according to Politico. The Kochs plan to back candidates in primaries, to make sure that Republicans that agree with their philosophy make it to the general election.

Noble was not among the consultants listed on a one-page agenda for the meetingobtained by Mother Jones. Short and others from Freedom Partners were.

Noble’s biggest known client in recent months has been Arizona’s largest electric utility, Arizona Public Service, which DC London worked for in a contentious fight over solar energy. In a strange twist, the face of the pro-solar side was Barry Goldwater Jr., the son of Noble’s idol.

Last September, at a for a Republican conference in Michigan, Noble, wearing jeans, a light blue button-down shirt and a dark suit jacket, talked about the failures of the 2012 election. He said the Obama campaign won because of having so many people on the ground, knocking on doors and personally talking to people.

In the future, Noble said, conservative candidates needed to work harder to connect with voters, particularly young ones. Candidates also needed to face their critics.

“Ultimately, I think what we have to teach our candidates—and this is why I will never be a candidate—is that you just have to—you have to deal with it, I mean you have to take the arrows, you got to have thick enough skin that you can get in the game, you know, and do that kind of thing,” Noble said. “I would never do that because I’ve watched it up close"

**Koch World 2014**, Politico, January 2014

The network of politically active nonprofits — sometimes called dark money groups — with ties to billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch handed out almost $264 millionin the 2012 election cycle. In this story, reporter Ken Vogel outlines what the Koch network has planned for 2014 and beyond. The network has distanced itself from Sean Noble, the consultant who ran much of the operation in 2012, and is wading into Republican primaries for the first time. Since the story appeared in January, the Koch network has also launched a super PAC, which — unlike the network's dark money groups — must disclose its donors. They include a New York hedge fund billionaire and an Arkansas poultry magnate.

**The Dark Money Man: How Sean Noble Moved the Kochs' Cash into Politics and Made Millions**, ProPublica, February 2014

Sean Noble was a little-known chief of staff for an Arizona congressman before he was plucked from obscurity by Charles and David Koch. In the run-up to the 2012 elections, Noble distributed almost $137 million of anonymous cash as the head of the Center to Protect Patient Rights, the social welfare nonprofit at the center of the Koch network. The money found its way into elections all over the nation, from groups supporting Mitt Romney to a group blaming Obama for high gas prices. Along the way, Noble directed almost $24 million to his own companies. The earnings helped him buy a Washington condo and build an eight-bedroom, eight-bathroom vacation home in Utah with five fireplaces.

BUSTED koch dark $ CA:

California Secretary of State candidate Derek Cressman has made a career of fighting the billionaires who are trying to hijack democracy.

His biggest victory so far was a 2012 case that resulted in the largest fine for a campaign-finance violation in California history.

While he was working at Common Cause, Cressman and his colleagues discovered a dark-money trail that led directly from the Koch brothers to political work on twoCalifornia referenda, Prop 30 (which raised taxes on the wealthiest Californians), and Prop 32 (which limited unions' ability to raise money for political purposes). The discovery propelled a dramatic $1.3 million judgment, made headlines, and kicked off a new wave of campaign reform in the state.

Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill to make the sort of money-laundering subterfuge that case uncovered more difficult, and grassroots excitement is building for the prospect of real reform.

“Making Big Money Toxic”

Now, after twenty years of advocacy work with Common Cause and U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Cressman says people who care about the corrupting influence of money in politics need to take that message directly to the voters.

"The movement needs to be more election-focused," he says. "We need to show that candidates who are anti-reform … are losing candidates."

Disclosure is not enough, Cressman says. In California, "corporate Democrats" are winning races where both candidates take special interest money.

"Disclosing campaign contributions by itself doesn't give voters a choice, or present a downside to taking that money," he says.

"The only way to change things is to find a way for candidates to run without taking that money," he says. "We have to make big money toxic."

That's not such an outlandish goal in the Secretary of State race, which is a relatively low-dollar affair.

"Unlike Congressional races or even the state legislature, it doesn't draw nearly as much corporate money, because the office doesn't have the power to regulate any particular industry," Cressman points out.

Cressman's $500,000 in funds raised so far puts him second in a field of eight candidates. The frontrunner, Democratic state senator Alex Padilla, has outraised Cressman by a margin of 4-to-1, with $2 million.

Still, $2 million is a pittance for a statewide race in California, Cressman points out, where an effective TV ad buy costs $6 million per week.

Social media, word of mouth, and grassroots networking are critical to the outcome of the race.

Koch Brothers’ Network Partially Unmasked (and Fined)

Much of the energy behind Cressman's campaign comes from the high-profile case that exposed and turned back the Koch brothers' influence in California in 2012.

That story involved a dramatic unmasking of the corrupting influence of dark money groups in state and local politics.

Cressman was working for Common Cause in the fall of 2012 when he and his colleagues discovered $15 million in contributions from undisclosed donors to oppose Prop 30, which sought to raise taxes on wealthiest in the state, and to support Prop 32, a so-called "paycheck protection" measure to further limit how unions can raise money and spend money during election season.

"I noticed the donations were linked to a guy named Sean Noble--that name rang a bell from previous research I'd done into the Koch Brothers," Cressman says. "We started digging and found an address in Virginia for a group that turned out to be 'ground zero' for dark money groups."

Cressman uncovered an illegal money-laundering operation. Californians – including big names like Eli Broad, Charles Schwab, and the Fisher Family, who own the Gap stores – were laundering their contributions through an out-of-state front group, in order to hide their support for the ballot measure.

Under California law, donors who seek to influence the outcome of a particular ballot measure -- unlike those who give money to more general causes-- must disclose their contributions.

Charles Schwab Emailed David Koch, Noting "Your Man," Sean Noble, Was Key

Common Cause filed a complaint, and the California Supreme Court met in an extraordinary emergency session by conference call on the Sunday before election day.

"Literally, it was front page news in all the papers on election day 2012," Cressman says.

The articles exposed that the donors had violated campaign law. This was particularly important because one of the measures they pushed, the anti-union paycheck protection act, purported to be about campaign finance reform.

Ten months later the state's Fair Political Practices Commission imposed a record settlement of $1.3 million, the largest campaign finance violation fine in California history.

The Court found that an in-state network of donors had approached the Koch brothers’ network to launder money for them, so they would not be associated with the effort.

In one juicy email, Charles Schwab urged David Koch to become involved and noted "your man" Sean Noble was part of the effort. Schwab also wrote, "I look forward to seeing you on the golf course."

Following on the news of that case, Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to make such money-laundering subterfuge more difficult.

"That's important," says Cressman, "Because if they'd been slightly more careful, they could have got away with it. If it was a wink and nod: 'Here's $5 million and spend it how you want.' Then, 30 minutes later, 'Hey, we really care about this issue.'"

Under the new law those sorts of winking deals will be more difficult.

Whose “Return on Investment?”

Cressman is running on a platform that includes publicizing the "return on investment" corporate lobbyists get from the politicians they bankroll--including Padilla.

In the state senate, Padilla authored and passed "the most anti-consumer bill ever introduced in California," according to Mark Toney, executive director of the Utility Reform Network. The bill, which deregulates Internet-to-phone service, has the backing of the rightwing, pro-corporate American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC has been uncloaked by the Center for Media and Democracy’s ALECexposed.org project. The Center and ALECexposed.org are now part of Progressive Inc., the publisher of The Progressive and progressive.org).

"It takes the public utility commission out of Internet-to-phone, which is the future of phone service," says Cressman, who calls the bill "disastrous" for consumers.

Telecom firms gave Padilla $108,732, Cressman reports in a campaign document titled "Cumulative Return on Investments in the Padilla Portfolio Since 2006".

"The Secretary of State race is a rare opportunity to talk about these issues," Cressman says.

The Power of the Secretary of State: Remember Florida’s Reviled Katherine Harris

Cressman's run was propelled, in part, by the realization that the next secretary of state will make critical decisions about the future of democracy in California.

California is almost the last state in the union to create a statewide voter database. Even after getting a $40 million Federal grant for the purpose, state Secretaries of State have, for the last decade, failed to produce a database, a failure which prevents the state from implementing same-day voter registration and other important reforms.

It's part "bureaucratic ineptitude," Cressman says, and partly due to the fact that past Secretaries of State have been term-limited state legislators who, according to Cressman, lack the managerial experience or will power the job requires.

"The stakes are so high," Cressman says. "We've got to try something different than a termed-out state senator looking to use this office as a stepping stone to Congress."

Cressman: The State Democratic Party Is Filled with Activists on Campaign Reform

Meanwhile, Cressman is trying to capitalize in his campaign on the public sense that citizens can fight the corrupting influence of money in politics and win.

"I've been incredibly pleasantly surprised at the vibrancy of the grassroots within the Democratic Party," says Cressman. "As an outsider, you have this impression of a party full of hacks, where everything is rigged," he adds. "In California, that is not true. The party is full of activists, and my message has been incredibly well received."

In his stump speech, Cressman says he will hold hearings in every Congressional district on amending the U.S. Constitution to overcome the Supreme Court's Citizens United and McCutcheondecisions, which have opened the floodgates to corporate and non-profit money to influence who wins elections.

He also calls for adding the top ten donors to every candidate and ballot measure to the official "voter information guide," which the California Secretary of State sends out.

He has been getting a lot of spontaneous applause at campaign events for these ideas.

Even in the wake of the Supreme Court's McCutcheon decision, which further expanded uncontrolled spending on elections by wealthy donors, Cressman is hopeful.

An “’All of the Above’ Strategy” for Restoring Democracy and Reforming Campaigns

At Common Cause, he says, he spent the last few years working on anti-Citizens United ballot measures.

"One year ago we attempted a statewide referendum, and it completely died in the legislature," Cressman says. "But this year, it sailed through committee. We could have a statewide ballot measure in 2014 in California. I've been leading with this in my stump speech."

Cressman favors an "all of the above" strategy to fight money in politics: tough disclosure laws, a Congressional drive for a constitutional amendment, state and local ballot measures, and electoral campaigns.

"One thing that holds us back is that individual activist get too focused on one silver bullet approach," he says by phone from California, adding that he was on his way to join in a citizens march against Citizens United.

"We need protests, marches, ballot measures, campaigns. We need all of that," he says.

- See more at: http://progressive.org/node/187707#sthash.0ysCxB3M.dpuf

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 an Arizona congressman—became one of the most important people in American politics.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Noble did not respond to questions from ProPublica.

Most who know Noble, 43, saw him as an unlikely candidate to become the Kochs’ money man.

Even if Noble’s role in the Koch network is over, his story illuminates larger truths about how money changes both politics and the people who handle it.

***

The Kochs are known for valuing discretion and control.

“It’s important to understand the influence that John Shadegg had within Republican and conservative circles at the time,” a Democratic operative in Arizona told ProPublica. “That was his in.”

At some point, Noble met Randy Kendrick, a lawyer by training who was on the board of the Goldwater Institute, a bastion of libertarian thought in the West. Kendrick and her husband, an owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, were big Shadegg donors. (The Huffington Post wrote about Kendrick and Noble in 2013.)

“Sean got hooked up with Randy,” a prominent Arizona Republican said in an interview. “He became her local guy to manage everything. He became her political consultant.”

In the 2013 deposition, Noble wouldn’t even say who hired him because of confidentiality agreements. “I can’t tell you who I do work for,” he responded to a lawyer’s question.

“Wait a minute,” the lawyer said. “I asked how your salary got set, and you’re telling me that you had a discussion with some people in 2009 and you're refusing to tell me who?”

“I am,” Noble replied.

***

If not for the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United, Noble’s work for the Koch network might have ended as soon as the fight over the health-care law was decided.

“Seriously, this will change campaigns in a big, big way,” he added.

Noble stepped in to fill the gap.

Noble predicted the outcome on Twitter days before the election.

“It’s official: 2010 will be an historic election for the GOP,” he wrote.

“Obama will lose mojo,” he added.

***

As the 2012 presidential election approached, the Kochtopus started adding new arms. Noble was a key player in expanding the network’s complicated web of nonprofits and limited liability companies.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, the Kochs then added another level of complexity to this already opaque set-up.

“I think it’s being used to disguise the source of their money,” said Marcus Owens, who ran the Exempt Organizations division for the IRS from 1990 to 2000.

Americans for Responsible Leadership, a group run by a friend of Noble’s, got $24.7 million in grants from the Center, or almost 98 percent of its revenue.

The American Future Fund, which pulled in a whopping $68 million in 2012, got more than 92 percent of that money from Freedom Partners and the Center.

On their 2012 tax returns, signed under penalty of perjury, the Center and Freedom Partners told the IRS they were not engaged in politics, checking “no”to a question asking if they had spent money to influence elections. Freedom Partners said its grants were “subject to express prohibitions or protections against the use of grant funds for electioneering purposes.” The Center said that it gave grants to groups for education and social welfare — not politics.

Yet, in fact, more than $30 million funneled through these groups ended up paying for political activities. According to tax and FEC records, the American Future Fund poured at least $19.8 million from the Center and Freedom Partners into elections. Americans for Responsible Leadership spent at least $9.3 million received from the Center. American Commitment spent at least $1.1 million of its grants from Freedom Partners and the Center on politics.

No one from Freedom Partners, Americans for Responsible Leadership or the American Future Fund returned calls and emails asking for comment.

“All our political expenditures were out of our organization’s general treasury,” Kerpen said.

Nonprofit experts said groups like the Center are supposed to make sure their money is used as earmarked.

If a grant is improperly administered, the group that gave it could become the subject of an IRS audit.

The Center also was a major backer of a group that spearheaded an effort to register Americans in Israel to vote in U.S. elections, supplying more than half of its 2012 revenue, ProPublica found. The Koch network’s involvement in this initiative did not surface at the time, even though The Times of Israel ran stories spotlighting the group’s“I Vote Israel” project and questioning its refusal to disclose its donors.

The Center’s involvement in a contentious Arizona redistricting fight was also not known – until now. It provided $150,000 to a group called FAIR Trust—described as the “Fair AZ Independent Redistrict” on the Center’s tax return—which hired lawyers to sue Arizona’s redistricting commission in April 2012 to challenge new legislative and congressional districts. The Trust, which also sent lawyers to commission meetings, has repeatedly refused to identify its backers.