Holtzman-Vogel alex

see HVJT

==

many in stop steal BS

==

huh?

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/09/10/vogel-law-firm-dakota-access-racketeering-tigerswan-conflict

...Energy Transfer Partners, owner of the Dakota Access pipeline, has filed a federal lawsuit against Greenpeace and others for alleged racketeering in their anti-pipeline activism related to Standing Rock. The company’s legal support comes from the firm Kasowitz Benson Torres :{LLP:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, whose attorneys also represent President Donald Trump in the ongoing Russia-U.S. election investigation.

However, federal court rules require that, in addition to the New York-based team at Kasowitz, Energy Transfer Partners must retain local legal counsel in North Dakota, where the lawsuit was filed. The bottom of the 187-page legal complaint filed on August 22 reveals that the corporation chose Vogel Law Firm, with offices in both Minnesota and North Dakota, for that job.

However, by serving as a law firm for Energy Transfer Partners, Vogel may have a potential conflict of interest. That’s because, at the same time, the firm is representing the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board in its ongoing lawsuit against TigerSwan. This private security firm worked on behalf of Dakota Access during the months-long protest movement at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

The Private Investigation and Security Board has sued TigerSwan for operating in the state without a permit — on behalf of Energy Transfer Partners.

...In the racketeering lawsuit, Vogel lawyer Robert Stock is serving as local counsel alongside the Kasowitz lawyers. In the case against TigerSwan, Vogel attorneys Monte Rogneby and Justin Hagel have filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Private Investigation and Security Board in Burleigh County, North Dakota civil court.

==

kim b propub:

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 werenever 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 Vogel Josefiak, 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.”

==

sw

Alex N. Vogel is a Partner at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti and the co-founder of Holtzman Vogel, PLLC.

Profiles

Vogel "served as Chief Counsel to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. According to his Holtzman Vogel profile, Vogel "continues to serve" as counsel to Frist's Volunteer PAC (political action committee).

Vogel "was responsible for political and legislative strategy on tort reform, technology, telecommunications, asbestos, entertainment industry issues and campaign finance reform." [1]

He "left Capitol Hill and teamed up with former White House technology policy chief Bruce Mehlman in May 2004 to form a lobbying shop with impeccable GOP connections.

"Vogel has been deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee and worked as a campaign lawyer for Bush-Cheney 2000 during the election recount. His access to the White House and senior Republican lawmakers will be critical to his clients as they seek last-minute tweaks to DTV, indecency and other media-related legislation heading to votes on the Senate and House floors," Bill McConnell wrote June 27, 2005, for Broadcasting & Cable.

"Prior to serving the Majority Leader, Vogel served as General Counsel for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). During Vogel's tenure, the NRSC waged an unprecedented campaign culminating in the historic recapture of the United States Senate majority by Republicans.

"Before joining the Senatorial Committee, Vogel served as Deputy Counsel of the Republican National Committee (RNC), where he was responsible for campaign finance and other political law issues. Specifically, Vogel advised the Republican National Committee and its state party organizations on issues relating to federal, state and local election and campaign finance laws and regulations. During November and December of 2000, Vogel served as counsel in the Presidential Recount, acting on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Florida and in Oregon.

"In 1999, Vogel served as General Counsel to Vice President Dan Quayle during the Quayle 2000 presidential campaign.

"Prior to serving Vice President Quayle, Vogel spent several years in the telecommunications, election law and government ethics practices of Wiley, Rein & Fielding.

"A frequent lecturer and speaker on politics and elections, Vogel has addressed diverse audiences including the German Marshall Fund, the CATO Institute, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Mr. Vogel has twice been named to Roll Call newspaper's 'Fabulous 50,' a listing of the most influential people on Capitol Hill. Vogel was also appointed to the American Bar Association's Advisory Commission to the Standing Committee on Election Law. Vogel is also a partner in the government affairs firm of Mehlman & Vogel, Inc.

"Vogel attended the University of California at San Diego, and received his J.D. from the George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the GW Law Review and a member of the National Moot Court Team. Vogel is resident in the District of Columbia office, and is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars."

Other Affiliations

Related SourceWatch articles

• American Center for Voting Rights
• Vets for Freedom

External links

• Bio: Alex N. Vogel, Mehlman Vogel Castagnelli.
• Josephine Hearn, "Former Frist aide combines lobbying, election know-how. Vogel built career keeping members ‘out of trouble’" (cache file) The Hill, September 21, 2004.
• Bill McConnell, "Washington’s Hidden Persuaders. A handful of players are behind every big decision, consensus or roadblock in Washington. With telecom, media and entertainment taking priority in the nation’s capital, here’s a look at who pulls the strings," Broadcasting & Cable, June 27, 2005.
• Bob Fitrakis, "Fake voting rights activists and groups linked to White House," Free Press, December 30, 2005.

Categories:

• Law
• Politics (U.S.)
• Elections (U.S.)
• Lobbying firms

 sw

HoltzmanVogel PLLCH is "a full-service law firm, providing counseling and compliance services to corporations, political action committees, candidates, and associations," its website states. [1]

Attorneys

• Alex N. Vogel
• Jill Holtzman Vogel
• Cathleen West
• Jason Torchinsky

Contact Information

Virginia Office

98 Alexandria Pike, Suite 53

Warrenton, VA 20186

Phone: 540 341-8808

Washington Office

1341 G Street, N.W., Suite 1100

Washington, DC 20005

Website: http://www.holtzmanlaw.net/

Related SourceWatch Resources

• Vets for Freedom

External links

• Josephine Hearn, "Former Frist aide combines lobbying, election know-how. Vogel built career keeping members 'out of trouble'," The Hill, September 21, 2004.

Categories:

• Law
• Politics (U.S.)

sw

Jill Holtzman Vogel is a partner in HoltzmanVogel PLLC.

Holtzman Vogel is "running for the 2007 Republican nomination for the [Virginia] State Senate seat [in the 27th District] now held by GOP Sen. Russ Potts. Holtzman Vogel ran for the same nomination in 2003, but withdrew in favor of Mark Tate." [1][2]

Profiles

According to her firm profile, Vogel "specializes in ethics, campaign finance and tax exempt organizations. In addition to managing the firm, in February 2004, she was named Chief Counsel of the Republican National Committee. As counsel, she led the national party’s legal effort during the 2004 Presidential election. Prior to founding the practice, she served as Deputy Counsel at the Department of Energy, overseeing the transition and working with the White House, Energy Secretary Abraham, and other Federal Agencies to implement Energy initiatives. Prior to that, she served as Deputy Counsel at the Republican National Committee. During November and December of 2000, she served as counsel in the Florida Presidential Recount, acting on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign in West Palm Beach and in Osceola County. She also served as staff counsel for the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego, California. Jill holds a B.A. in Government and Religion from the College of William and Mary, and a J.D. from DePaul University School of Law in Chicago, Illinois."

Contact Information

Campaign website links: http://jillholtzman.com/ and http://www.votejill.com/

Related SourceWatch Resources

• Bill Frist
• Vets for Freedom

External links

• Holtzman Vogel for Senate, VPAP.org.
• "RNC Chairman Names Jill Holtzman Vogel Chief Counsel at the RNC," GOP.com, February 23, 2004.
• "RNC tells TV stations not to run anti-Bush ads. GOP committee says MoveOn.org's spots are illegally financed," CNN, March 7, 2004.
• Josephine Hearn, "Former Frist aide combines lobbying, election know-how. Vogel built career keeping members ‘out of trouble’" (cache file) The Hill, September 21, 2004.
• "RNC Chief Counsel Jill Holtzman Vogel Returning To Practicing Law In Virginia," GOP.com, January 26, 2005.
• "Holtzman-Vogel in the 27th," Commonwealth Watch Blogspot, April 12, 2005.
• "Frist's Charity Under Scrutiny," CBS News, December 17, 2005.

Categories:

• Law
• Politics (U.S.)
• Elections (U.S.)

Jump to: navigation, search

Jason Brett Torchinsky has been a Senior Associate with HoltzmanVogel PLLC since March 2006. [1]

Torchinsky is "behind the Progressive Policy Council, the phony group behind a mailer that's gone out to an untold number of Pennsylvania voters in an apparent attempt to sour liberal voters on" Democratic Party candidate Bob Casey, according to TMP Muckraker's Paul Kiel [2].

"Records with the Virginia State Corporation Commission show that the group's charter was filed by a man named Jason Torchinsky of Holtzman Vogel," Kiel wrote October 31, 2006.

In July 2006, Michael Turk reported that he, Torchinksy, Frank J. Donatelli, Becki Donatelli, and Chuck DeFeo had "been working to put together" Rightroots (supported by ABC PAC Inc.), "the GOP equivalent of Act Blue - the Democrat’s online fundraising PAC."

The May 17, 2006, U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC.gov) "Status Report on the Voting Fraud-Voter Intimidation Research Project" quotes Torchinsky, from the American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund, on page 12 as being "the only interviewee who believes that polling place fraud is widespread and among the most significant problems in the system."

Torchinsky was identified as "Counsel to [the] American Center for Voting Rights" when he participated in an October 4, 2006, panel discussion at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.

In April 2006, Torchinsky, identified as a "Senior Associate, Holtzman Vogel PLLC", was a speaker at the Spring Forum of the National Conference of State Legislatures. [3]

His HoltzmanVogel bio states that, "[i]mmediately before joining the firm", he was "Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice."

Background

In 2005, Torchinsky was Executive Assistant to the Counsel to the President and Paralegal and a member of the Federalist Society [4], according to People For the American Way's "The Right-Wing Affiliations of Bush Administration Officials"[5].

During the 2004 election cycle, Torchinsky served as Deputy General Counsel to Bush-Cheney '04 and Deputy General Counsel to the 2005 Presidential Inaugural Committee. [6]

Torchinsky worked previously with Senator Bill Frist, running his Frist 2000, Inc. [7], which the FEC determined violated federal campaign finance laws.

According to an October 1996 The Virginian-Pilot article, Torchinsky had "worked on the campaigns of First District Congressman Herb Bateman, U.S. Senate hopefuls Oliver North of Virginia and Chuck Haytaian of New Jersey and New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman. He was also an intern on House Majority Leader Dick Armey's floor staff." [8]

Profiles

According to his firm profile (accessed October 23, 2006), Torchinsky, who recently joined Holtzman Vogel, has "a primary focus on campaign finance and election law. During the 2004 election cycle, Jason served as Deputy General Counsel to Bush-Cheney '04 and Deputy General Counsel to the 2005 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

"Immediately before joining the firm, Jason was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice. Jason has also served in other positions at the White House and at the United States Department of Justice. At the White House, he worked for now-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the Counsel's Office. At the Department of Justice, Jason served as a Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and in the Eastern District of Wisconsin as a Special Assistant United States Attorney.

"Jason has served as counsel for three federal jury trials, argued a number of motions and hearings before federal tribunals, and authored a number of briefs for United States Courts of Appeals, including the 3rd Circuit, 7th Circuit, 9th Circuit, and 11th Circuit.

"Jason's prior political experience includes the Republican National Committee Counsel's Office, the Dole-Kemp campaign, the 1996 Republican National Convention, and Congressman Herb Bateman's re-election campaign.

"Jason's most recent public appearance was at the National Conference of State Legislator's Spring Forum where he presented Vermont Republican State Committee v. Sorrell.

"He holds a B.A. in Government and Public Policy from the College of William and Mary and a J.D. from the College of William and Mary School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia Bar and the Federalist Society. Jason is resident in the Virginia office."

According to his Washington Council profile posted on the William and Mary website, Torchinsky was "currently working as an attorney with the Bush-Cheney '02 campaign. While an undergraduate, Jason spent significant time in Washington, including internships on Capitol Hill, at a lobbying firm and at a political consulting firm. While in law school, Jason worked for the Republican National Committee and then for the White House."

Related SourceWatch Resources

• U.S. congressional elections in 2006
• Vets for Freedom

External links

• Class Reunions: Class of 1998, William & Mary: Jason Brett Torchinsky.
• July 2001 Bar Exam Results, Virginia Lawyers Weekly: Jason Brett Torchinsky.
• "Behind the Scenes: W&M Student Gets Up-Close and Personal Look at How Campaign Works," The Virginian-Pilot, October 4, 1996.
• "The Conservative Movement Moves In. Tracking the migration of sponsored conservatives into the George W. Bush administration," Media Transparency, 2005.
• "Frist's 2000 Election Broke Federal Campaign Laws," Big Brass Balls Blogspot, June 2, 2006.
• Turk, "ABC PAC," Kung Fu Quip, July 7, 2006.
• Jason Torchinsky, "Rightroots," Powerline Blog, August 2, 2006.
• Alisa Ulferts, "Is photo ID law useless action? Of all of the problems with voting, fraud is at the bottom of the list, some say. Yet several states are addressing the issue," St. Petersburg Times, August 21, 2006.
• maynard, "Concerned about multiple vote voter fraud? Then ink voters' fingers," Daily Kos, September 23, 2006.
• Alonzo Fyfe, "Voter Identification Law," Atheist Ethicist Blog, September 24, 2006.
• Paul Kiel, "'Progressive' Nonprofit Repped by Bush-Cheney Vet," TPM Muckraker, October 31, 2006.

Categories:

• Law
• Politics (U.S.)
• Elections (U.S.)

200 stop steal BS

https://unamericanbar.com/voter-suppression-attorneys

Un-American Bar

Home

Lawyers

Firms

Lawsuits

Generator

Lawyers working to steal your vote

Stop the count! Donald Trump wasn't able to try and steal an election on his own, he needed lawyers willing to do his dirty work.

Viewing lawyers working on stealing votes in:

Name Firm State

C. Robert Barker III Law Offices of Robert Baker, P.C. GA

Brian W. Barnes Cooper & Kirk, PLLC DC

Thomas Basile Statecraft Law PLLC AZ

Tiffany H. Bates Consovoy McCarthy PLLC VA

Sue Becker Public Interest Legal Foundation MO

Josh Belinfante Robbins Firm GA

Jesse R. Binnall Harvey & Binnall, PLLC VA

Bryan Blehm Kolodin Law Group PLLC AZ

William Bock III Kroger, Gardis & Regas, LLP IN

James Bopp, Jr. The Bopp Law Firm, PCI IN

Gineen Bresso Holtzman VogelJosefiak Torchinsky PLLC MD

Thomas E. Breth Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham LLP PA

Christine Dial Buckler Caldwell, Propst & DeLoach, LLP GA

R. George Burnett Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry, S.C. WI

Brian C. Caffrey Scaringi & Scaringi PC PA

Alex K. Calaway Marquis Aurbach Coffing NV

Donald J. Campbell Campbell & Williams NV

Mark J. Caruso N/A NM

Kenneth J. Chesebro N/A TX

Rob Citak The Bopp Law Firm, PCI KY

Crystal H. Clark Pennsylvania Senate Republicans PA

Justin Clark Election Law LLC DC

Richard E. Coleson The Bopp Law Firm, PCI IN

William S. Consovoy Consovoy McCarthy PLLC VA

Jonathan Crumly Sr. Taylor English Duma LLP GA

Richard Cullen McGuire Woods LLP VA

Robert J. Cynkar McSweeney, Cynkar & Kachouroff, PLLC VA

Stephen S. Davis True North Law MO

Todd A. Dawson Baker & Hostetler LLP OH

Michael D. Dean Michael D. Dean LLC WI

Daniel J. Eastman N/A WI

John C. Eastman N/A CA

Ronald T. Elliott Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham LLP PA

Gregory M. Erickson Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson, PA. MN

Peter N. Farley McGuire WoodsLLP GA

Kenneth Ferris N/A PA

Danyll W. Foix Baker & Hostetler LLP MN

Michael Francisco McGuire Woods LLP CO

Kathleen A. Gallagher Porter Wright PA

Jeffrey P. Gallant The Bopp Law Firm, PCI VA

Russell D. Giancola Porter Wright PA

Benjamin J. Gibson Shutts & Bowen LLP FL

Susan E. Gillespie Marquis Aurbach Coffing NV

Rudy Giuliani N/A NY

Kurt A. Goehre Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry, S.C. WI

Jonathan S. Goldstein Goldstein Law Partners PA

Phillip M. Gordon Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC DC

John M. Gore Jones Day DC

James G. Gorman Kleinbard LLC PA

Maxwell Goss Maxwell Goss, PLLC MI

Tyler R. Green Consovoy McCarthy PLLC UT

Edward D. Greim Graves Garrett, LLC MO

Andrew M. Grossman N/A DC

David F. Guldenschuh David F. Guldenschuh, P.C. GA

Scott Hagerstrom N/A MI

Julia Z. Haller N/A DC

Nathan M. Hansen N/A MN

Joel F. Hansen Hansen & Hansen, LLC NV

Joel F. Hansen N/A NV

Todd A. Harding Maddox & Harding, LLC GA

Brian R. Hardy Marquis Aurbach Coffing NV

Matthew H. Haverstick Kleinbard LLC PA

Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II True North Law MO

Britain Henry Goldstein Law Partners PA

Ronald L. Hicks Jr. Porter Wright PA

Kurt R. Hilbert The Hilbert Law Firm, LLC GA

Bryan Hughes N/A TX

Bryan F. Jacoutot Taylor English Duma LLP GA

Brandon Johnson N/A DC

Brett W. Johnson Snell & Wilmer LLP AZ

Jack C. Jordan Great Lakes Justice Center MI

Lawrence J. Joseph N/A DC

Stefanie Lynn Junttila N/A MI

Erick G. Kaardal Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson, PA. MN

Christopher I. Kachouroff McSweeney, Cynkar & Kachouroff, PLLC VA

Stephen P. Kallman Great Lakes Justice Center MI

David A. Kallman Great Lakes Justice Center MI

Linda A. Kerns N/A PA

Bradley A. King King Legal Group, LLC PA

Thomas W. King III Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham LLP PA

Matthew Z. Kirkpatrick Kirkpatrick Law Office, LLC MN

Howard Kleinhendler Howard Kleinhendler Esquire NY

James A. Knauer Kroger, Gardis & Regas, LLP IN

Alexander Kolodin Kolodin Law Group PLLC AZ

Kevin D. Koons Kroger, Gardis & Regas, LLP IN

Kory Langhofer Statecraft Law PLLC AZ

R. Reid LeBeau, II Jacobson, Magnuson, Anderson & Halloran P.C. MN

Jonathan P. Lienhard Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC VA

Richard Limburg Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel PA

Harry W. MacDougald Caldwell, Propst & DeLoach, LLP GA

Jerome M. Marcus N/A PA

Bruce S. Marks Marks & Sokolov, LLC PA

Thomas R. McCarthy Consovoy McCarthy PLLC VA

Carolyn B McGee Porter Wright PA

Patrick M. McSweeney McSweeney, Cynkar & Kachouroff, PLLC VA

Jeremy A. Mercer Porter Wright PA

George N. Meros, Jr. Shutts & Bowen LLP FL

Erin E. Mersino Great Lakes Justice Center MI

Anita Y. Milanovich Milanovich Law, PLLC MT

Courtney Turner Milbank The Bopp Law Firm, PCI IN

Carey A. Miller Robbins Firm GA

Lee Miller Wilenchik & Bartness PC AZ

Cleta Mitchell Foley & Lardner, LLP DC

William F. Mohrman Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson, PA. MN

Matthew E. Morgan Election Law LLC DC

Nicki J. Moss Cooper & Kirk, PLLC NC

Karen L. Mueller Amos Center for Justice and Liberty WI

Craig A. Mueller Craig Mueller & Associates NV

Robert J. Muise American Freedom Law Center MI

Emily P. Newman N/A VA

Cameron T. Norris Consovoy McCarthyPLLC VA

Ian A. Northon Rhoades McKee PC MI

David O'Mara O'Mara Law Firm NV

Benjamin N. Pachito Jacobson, Magnuson, Anderson & Halloran P.C. MN

Loree Anne Paradise Taylor English Duma LLP GA

Stefan C Passantino N/A GA

Peter A. Patterson Cooper & Kirk, PLLC DC

Joseph W. Pizzo Joseph Pizzo & Associates, LLC PA

Dennis W. Polio Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC VA

Mark C. Post Mark Post Law, LLC GA

Alex Potapov Jones Day DC

Sidney Powell Sidney Powell PC TX

Richard B. Raile N/A DC

John M. Reeves Reeves Law LLC MO

David B. Rivkin Jr. N/A DC

Gregory J. Rohl The Law Offices of Gregory J. Rohl, P.C. MI

Stuart J. Roth N/A DC

Vincent R. Russo Robbins Firm GA

Marc A. Scaringi N/A PA

John B Scott N/A TX

Jay Alan Sekulow N/A DC

Jordan Sekulow N/A DC

William Lewis Sessions N/A TX

Mathieu J. Shapiro Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel PA

Shawn T. Sheehy Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC VA

Brandon M. Shields Gabriel & Shields PA

Jordan P. Shuber Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham LLP PA

Melena S. Siebert The Bopp Law Firm, PCI IN

Michael Smith N/A DC

Susan Shogren Smith Shogren Smith Law MN

Ray Smith, III Smith & Liss, LLC GA

Michael A. Snover N/A PA

Brooks H. Spears McGuire Woods LLP DC

Eric H. Spencer Snell & WilmerLLP AZ

David W. Spilsbury Spilsbury Law, PLLC AZ

Patrick Strawbridge Consovoy McCarthy PLLC MA

Lawrence J. Tabas Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel PA

Andrew Teitelman N/A PA

George J. Terwilliger McGuire Woods LLP DC

Gregory H. Teufel OGC Law, LLC PA

David H. Thompson Cooper & Kirk, PLLC DC

John W. Tienken N/A DC

Gregory G. Timmer Rhoades McKee PC MI

Jason B. Torchinsky Holtzman Vogel Josefiak Torchinsky PLLC VA

James R. Troupis N/A WI

Bryan P. Tyson N/A GA

Shohin H. Vance Kleinbard LLC PA

Nicholas A. Varone N/A DC

Johnny Vines Johnny Vines PC GA

Christopher Viskovic Kolodin Law Group PLLC AZ

Jane L. Volz Volz Law Firm, Ltd. MN

Joshua J. Voss Kleinbard LLC PA

Shana D. Weir Weir Law Group, LLC NV

Dennis I. Wilenchick Wilenchik & Bartness PC AZ

John "Jack" D. Wilenchik Wilenchik & Bartness PC AZ

J. Colby Williams Campbell & Williams NV

Devin A. Winklosky Porter Wright PA

L. Lin Wood L. Lin Wood, P.C. GA

Jeffrey S. York Shutts & Bowen LLP GA

Leah J. Zammit Shutts & Bowen LLP GA

Samantha G. Zimmer Kleinbard LLC PA

Walter S. Zimolong, III Zimolong, LLC PA

Contact us @UnamericanBar

not to be confused with America's Fut Fund?

almost all koch $

took out mark udall? raga2

ca primary 2018 [also dem superpac funding gop guy?!)

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-group-jumps-in-to-try-to-shut-dems-out-of-key-california-house-races

A  Republican super PAC is launching a last-minute effort to boost a handful of House GOP candidates in southern California. The goal is to block Democrats from getting a candidate into the general election in some key House races.

The American Future Fund, an Iowa-based GOP group, has dropped almost $700,000 to boost four GOP candidates in three districts, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday.

Their goals are to elevate some flagging Republicans and try to help them make the November ballot in districts that are key to Democrats’ hopes of winning the House this fall.

California’s “jungle” primary system allows the top two vote-getters to advance to the general election, regardless of party. That’s led to concerns among Democrats that their candidates could split the Democratic vote, allowing Republicans to finish in the top two spots in some congressional races and immediately costing them chances at a handful of winnable seats in the state.

National Democrats have been spending heavily to try to avoid that scenario.

Republicans had been surprisingly quiet in their response, considering how with some effort now they could guarantee victory in a few key House battles — as well as save themselves a lot of money in November in the expensive districts. But this buy suggests things may be starting to shift.

The GOP super-PAC’s buy includes almost $500,000 on advertising, direct mail and door-to-door voter outreach to boost Rocky Chavez and Diane Harkey, a pair of Republican candidates running for the seat currently held by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is retiring. That race is one in which both parties worry they might get shut out and fail to get a candidate through to the November election, though Democrats are more alarmed at the prospect.

The group is also spending $100,000 to boost Scott Baugh, a Republican running against controversial Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). That district is the one where Democratic concerns about being shut out, given their own crowded field, are most acute.

The GOP group is also chipping in about $100,000 to boost Young Kim, the GOP front-runner in the crowded race to replace retiring Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA).

The efforts for Kim and Harkey began last week, but this is the first evidence that the group’s push is to block Democrats out in some of these districts, rather than help out particular GOP candidates. The group didn’t respond to requests for an explanation of their strategy.

Republicans had expressed growing frustration that their party wasn’t doing more to meddle in these primaries to ensure the best results. Democrats already have spent millions on the races.

Issa told TPM on Tuesday, before these ads had become public, that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats were doing a better job organizing in the state, even in traditionally conservative enclaves like his district.

“Pelosi naturally gets us better. That’s not to say anything against Steve,” Issa said, referring to National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers (R-OH). “It’s just that the observation in my district is the Democrats are playing a game that could well get one of their candidates in that otherwise wouldn’t if both sides were playing.”

Other Republicans have also griped about the lack of national intervention to help them.

“You wish the party would recognize this opportunity and lift us up,” GOP strategist John Thomas, who’s working with candidate Shawn Nelson in Royce’s district, told TPM. “They just don’t understand the top-two dynamic.”

Democrats have been spending heavily against Nelson and Bob Huff to avoid them getting into the runoff with Kim, the GOP front-runner, and Republicans still have done little in response to help them.

But the American Future Fund’s late intervention could help move the ball back in Republicans’ direction in these key seat

==

New tax filings obtained by OpenSecrets Blog suggest that, of all the still-existing groups that have been exiled from the Koch network, American Future Fund has been the most successful at surviving — mostly, it appears, as a (c)(4)-for-hire, functioning as a conduit for establishment-leaning groups like Crossroads GPS, the granddaddy of politically active nonprofit groups that don’t disclose their donors.

Make American Future Fund Great Again

The Trump campaign’s statement alleges that American Future Fund “unlawfully coordinated with lightweight Senator Marco Rubio on these misleading commercials.” The release doesn’t offer evidence to back up the charge, and the Trump campaign didn’t respond to requests from OpenSecrets Blog to elaborate. If true, the coordination of strategy between the Florida senator’s campaign operation and AFF would be a violation of federal election laws, which require groups like AFF to act independently of candidates.

Coordinated or not, AFF’s pattern of ad buys does lend some credence to the idea that the group is at least acting as ground support for the Rubio campaign. AFF has spent more than any other nondisclosing “dark money” group in the election so far, $4.9 million, and often on targets other than Trump. Days before the Iowa caucuses, AFF put $1.5 million into ads attacking Gov John Kasich of Ohio, another GOP White House hopeful,  as a supporter of Common Core and a “cheerleader for Medicaid expansion” under the Affordable Care Act.

About two weeks later, in the run-up to the New Hampshire primaries, AFF spent another $1.5 million accusing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for being weak on national security.

And with outlays of $1.9 million on a series of ads hitting Trump, Rubio is the only one of the remaining GOP presidential contenders who hasn’t been attacked by AFF. He also happens to be the establishment’s favored candidate to lead the party into the November election.

Moving Closer to the Establishment

American Future Fund was one of the first politically active nonprofits on the scene after the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, which freed up 501(c) organizations to make electioneering communications — so-called “issue ads” run shortly before an election that often look like outright political ads. In the four elections from 2008 to 2014, AFF — and groups to which it funneled money via grants — spent more than $40 million bolstering Republican candidates.

Until late 2012, the vast majority of the group’s receipts — more than $77 million — flowed from donor hubs in the Koch network.

That changed after AFF was called out, with two other Koch network groups, in a cash shuffle that California regulators labeled “campaign money laundering.” Higher-ups in the Koch network — even more hush-hush then than it is now — weren’t pleased with all the attention the legal proceedings in California brought to their operations, and AFF and the two other groups involved were in effect thrown out in the cold.

Of the three organizations, though, AFF appears to have been the most successful in finding new sources of funds to keep its doors open. Revenues are less than they were in the days when Koch money was plentiful — about $6.9 million in 2014 — but the group managed to bring in about twice as much in 2013 and 2014 as American Encore, previously known as the Center to Protect Patient Rights; that organization, once the hub of Planet Koch, boasted receipts of more than $247 million over four years.

American Encore has found a second life as a sort of public relations outfit supporting Arizona Governor Doug Ducey.

But AFF — which has no employees and just two board members who each, according to the group’s filing, spend three hours per week on AFF business — appears to have become something of a dark money mercenary, a vehicle for political ads on behalf of donors who don’t want their involvement to be public.

North Carolina’s highs…

In the final days of the 2014 midterms, a series of web ads came out supporting longshot Libertarian Senate candidate Sean Haugh. The ads played on the sound of Haugh’s last name — which sounds remotely like the word “high” if you are, indeed, high. The ad showed young people holding signs saying, “Get High, Get Haugh,” with slogans like “More weed, Less War.” FEC documents show that the campaign cost $420,000 — get it? — and AFF was footing the bill.

Haugh himself wasn’t too happy, tweeting “While I appreciate the support, I now have a whole new reason to despise Koch brothers & their dark money.” Haugh could be excused for associating AFF with the Kochs, given that the only available information at the time — past tax filings from AFF and other Koch groups — showed overwhelming linkage.

It turns out that none of the core Koch organizations funded AFF in 2014. But another group with a big stake in the outcome of the Senate election in North Carolina did. Crossroads GPS, a politically active nonprofit linked to the GOP establishment, gave $2 million to American Future Fund, tax documents filed last year show.

Crossroads GPS was heavily invested in the Carolina race to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. The group ultimately spent $4.9 million supporting her opponent Thom Tillis, and the OpenSecrets Blog found last fall that GPS had provided nearly the entire budget of another nonprofit, Carolina Rising — which effectively spent close to 100 percent of that money supporting Tillis.

While Haugh wasn’t right about AFF being a Koch group anymore, he was right about one thing. GPS and AFF were probably using him to draw younger, more liberal voters away from Hagan.

“It’s all kind of surreal, frankly,” Haugh told NPR. “Obviously they want to try to use me to siphon votes away from Kay Hagan and maybe swing the election to Thom Tillis.”

GPS, then, funded two groups, including AFF, that mounted campaigns benefiting Tillis. GPS’ multifarious show of force ushered Tillis into the winners circle in 2014, helping swing the Senate into GOP control.

While GPS was its largest single supporter in 2014, AFF received more than $1 million apiece from two other donors; those three contributions made up 64 percent of AFFs revenue in 2014, according to the group’s latest tax filing.

One of those other donors, providing $1.35 million, was the Judicial Crisis Network (JCN), as OpenSecrets Blog has reported — which itself is entirely funded by another shadowy group called the Wellspring Committee. JCN and AFF, along with an AFF subsidiary called The Progress Project, then put $1.8 million into the Republican Attorneys General Association.

But, while electing conservative attorneys general around the country has been a focus of JCN’s efforts, it hasn’t been the only one. The group has spent heavily in judicial races over the last two cycles — including more than $600,000 in the lead-up to Arkansas’ court elections last week, in which JCN’s favored candidate was the victor. After the voting was done, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said that, “regrettably, a winner in yesterday’s campaign was dark money.” The group has also launched a “seven figure television, radio and digital advertising campaign” praising several Republican senators in tight re-election battles for promising to block consideration of any Supreme Court nominee submitted by the Obama administration to fill the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat.

…and Puerto Rico’s lows

Back in 2014, AFF rounded out its year with an ad campaign that had nothing to do with attorneys general or the congressional midterms, paying for a series of ads in Politico and the Wall Street Journal accusing the Democratic governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, of being a part of a “Culture of Corruption.” The ads were conspicuously timed to run just before a lawsuit brought by Doral Financial Group was to go to court, OpenSecrets Blog reported last year. Doral Financial Group won its suit, receiving a $230 million tax refund from the struggling Puerto Rican government, which is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

When AFF reported all of this spending to the IRS, it counted $3.4 million as “political expenditures” — just shy of the 49 percent limit the agency imposes on the political activity of social welfare groups. That’s assuming that AFF’s other expenditures on things like “production/writing” or “survey research” was for actual social welfare programs rather than supporting the group’s political agenda. And a larger question is whether the group provides an excessive private benefit to a candidate or party, in this case the Republican party.

Its unlikely that the IRS will ever answer that question, though, as it only audits seven out of each 1,000 returns filed every year.

The picture that has emerged of American Future Fund, post Koch, is one of a group that is something of a hired gun, where AFF — in the mold of other groups like Americans for Job Security — does the dirty work of others, particularly if it helps the GOP establishment.

“With the advent of the Internet…”

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/03/exiled-from-koch-orbit-american-future-fund-turns-to-gop-establishment-for-cash/

==

jcn 990

American Future Fund

400 Locust #300 Des Moines Iowa 26-0620554 501c4 $1 , 350, 000 $0 nla n/a general operations

==

BUSTED, fine

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 this list 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 Blogfirst 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.

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

gps dark $

GPS is worth highlighting for two reasons. First, because of the magnitude of its spending: Crossroads GPS has spent more in the last three election, just in terms of FEC reported spending, than all liberal nondisclosing groups combined have spent in every election since 2000. Second, unlike nearly every other group that has pushed the limits of nonprofit political activity, GPS has yet to receive recognition from the IRS as a social welfare organization. It has now been waiting well over five years for an official determination from the IRS, so the question remains whether it will ultimately get away with its activities thus far or have its application denied by the IRS.

No matter how that pans out, the folks at GPS have already found a way around the IRS application process by taking over a defunct nonprofit called Alliance for America’s Future. It has been rechristened One Nation, and it has already begun spending millions in the 2016 elections, none of which it has reported to the FEC.

==

2014

The Koch-backed American Future Fund is running a series of web-only ads urging Wisconsin stoners not to vote for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke, but instead to support the Libertarian Party candidate, Robert Burke. The ads feature caricatures of potheads urging viewers to "get Burke, get blazed," and to "light it up, take a puff, and vote for Robert Burke."

==

pro publ koch network

Center to Protect Patient Rights $49,182,409

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce $13,600,000

GRANTS FROM THIS ORGANIZATION TO:

The 60 Plus Association $4,550,000

California Future Fund for Free Markets $4,080,000

Citizen Awareness Project $1,500,000

Ending Spending $525,000

The Progress Project $455,000

The Hispanic Leadership Fund $20,000

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Future_Fund

American Future Fund is a 501(c)(4) conservative nonprofit largely dedicated to running television and web ads that promote conservative causes and influence elections. Like many (c)(4) groups, the Fund has been very secretive about who controls or manages it. AFF was founded in 2008 by Nick Ryan, who worked as an advisor on Rick Santorum's 2012 presidential campaign as well as founded the pro-Santorum Super PAC, Red White and Blue Fund. Their records indicate that they were incorporated by Alex N. Vogel and his wife, Jill Holtzman Vogel, who together run the consulting agency Holtzman Vogel. The first president of the group, Nicole Schlinger, was the former executive director of the Iowa Republican Party.[1] According to NPR, a large number of AFF's leadership were members of Mitt Romney's 2008 failed campaign for president.[2]

The American Future Fund received $1.1 million from the Center to Protect Patient Rights in 2011 after getting $1.3 million in 2009 and $11.7 million in 2010.[3]

[hide]

1 Influencing the 2012 Election

1.1 Influencing the 2012 Presidential Election

1.2 Influencing Arizona House Races

1.3 Influencing California House Races

1.4 Influencing the Nevada Senate Race

1.5 Influencing the North Dakota Senate Race

1.6 Influencing the New Mexico Senate Race

1.7 Influencing the Wisconsin Senate Race

2 Prior Political Activity

2.1 2010

2.2 2008

3 Ethanol Ties

4 Funding

5 Leadership

6 External links

7 References

Influencing the 2012 Election

AFF's outside expenditures in the 2012 election totaled more than $25 million, with more than $11 million going to support Republican Mitt Romney in his presidential bid, or to defeat Democratic Incumbent President Barack Obama.[4] In addition, the American Future Fund also ran ads targeting Democrats in close U.S. Senate and House Races. The sections below detail Patriot Majority's involvement in races in the 2012 election, along with examples of ads they have aired against candidates in those races. At the end of each section, a short summary lists every major ad buy the group made in that particular race.

Influencing the 2012 Presidential Election

"Fed Up"

AFF was very active in the early part of the 2012 election cycle, stating that "Conservative and free market principles will be under direct attack in America".[5] On January 23rd, they ran "The Real State of the Union", an attack ad that aired just before Barack Obama's actual state of the union address.[6]. The ad attack Obama for failing to cut the deficit and increase the supply of renewable energy, despite the fact that both were largely the fault of republicans in congress. A second ad, which aired in February, attacked Obama, claiming that "His White House is Full of Wall Street Bankers."[7] Several news sources including Factcheck.org have pointed out that the ad greatly exaggerates the number and imporance of Wall street bankers in the Obama White House.[8] Later in the campaign, AFF began airing ads in support of Mitt Romney and his nominee for Vice President, congressman Paul Ryan.

The Real State of the Union: January 15th, 2012: $150,000 [1]

Obama's Wall Street: February 27th, 2012: $4 Million [2]

On the Hook: April 24th, 2012: $2 Million [3]

What's at Stake: August 4th, 2012: $10,000 [4]

Young Guns: August 13th, 2012: $23,000 [5]

Blame: August 20th, 2012: $692,497 [6]

Janesville: September 13th, 2012: $200,000 [7]

Janesville(rebuy): September 13th, 2012: $796,075 [8]

Promises: September 25th, 2012: $500,000 [9]

Promises (web ads): September 25th, 2012: $694,300 [10]

Confidence: September 29th, 2012: $260,7000 [11]

Janesville(web ad): October 1st, 2012: $482,615 [12]

Four Years(online ad):October 1st, 2012: $500,000 [13]

Heartbeat: October 1st, 2012: $100,000 [14]

Out of Time: October 4th, 2012: $120,000 [15]

Security: October 8th, 2012: $347,000 [16]

Security(online): October 8th, 2012: $342,000 [17]

Laugh: October 12th, 2012: $358,000 [18]

Fed Up: October 16th, 2012: $1 million [19]

Real Solutions: October 16h, 2012: $630,000 [20]

A New Path: October 22nd, 2012: $545,000 [21]

Hands: October 26th, 2012: $769,000 [22]

Real Solutions(rebuy): October 29th, 2012: $227,328 [23]

Party Line: October 30th, 2012: $400,000 (estimate)[24]

Worried: October 30th, 2012: $400,000 (estimate)[25]

Everyday: October 30th, 2012: $400,000 (estimate)[26]

Real Solutions (rebuy): October 30th, 2012: $487,257 [27]

A New Path(rebuy): October 31st, 2012: $1.9 million [28]

Obama Receipt: November 1st, 2012: $120,000 [29]

Assorted Web Ad Buys: November 2nd, 2012: $433,336 [30]

Delphi: November 4th, 2012: $1 million [31]

Influencing Arizona House Races

"Changed"

During the 2012 election cycle, the American Future Fund spent almost $1.4 million influencing U.S. House races in Arizona's 1st and 9th Congressional Districts. In the 1st district, they spent $1 million supporting Republican hopeful Jonathan Paton, or attacking his rival, Democrat Ann Kirtpatrick, in the 9th district, they spent $300,000 attacking Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.[9] 1st Congressional District

Walk: October 1st, 2012: $411,000 [32]

Fought: October 1st, 2012: $169,000 [33]

Listening: October 21st, 2012: $500,000 [34]

9th Congressional District

Changed: September 18th, 2012: $308,250 [35]

Influencing California House Races

"Changed"

the American Future Fund invested at least $500,000 in a single attack ad against Democrat Julia Brownley, who was running for congress in California's 26th District. Their ad attacked Brownley for voting her staff pay raises instead of cutting spending. [10]

Raises: October 25th, 2012: $500,000[36]

Influencing the Nevada Senate Race

"Battle Born"

After the presidential race, American Future Fund's largest single investment in 2012 concerned the Nevada Senate Race between Republican Dean Heller and Democratic Incumbent Shelly Berkley. The American Future Fund spent $1.3 million in the Arizona senate race.

Battle Born: August 24th, 2012: $427,000 [37]

Battle Born (rebuy): November 4th, 2012: $750,000 [38]

Influencing the North Dakota Senate Race

"Tomorrow"

In North Dakota, the American Future Fund ran a single ad attacking incumbent Senator Heidi Heitkamp, and supporting her opponent, Republican Rick Berg.

Choice: August 20th, 2012: $163,000 [39]

Influencing the New Mexico Senate Race

"Tomorrow"

In New Mexico, the American Future Fund sunk at least $435,000 into defeating Democrat Martin Heinrich. They also ran at least one ad they did not disclose spending for.

the Heinrich Report: May 1st, 2012: $100,000 [40]

Frustrating: August 9th, 2012: Cost of ad not disclosed

Tomorrow: August 23rd, 2012: $335,000 [41]

Influencing the Wisconsin Senate Race

"Paper"

The American Future Fund spent at least $260,000 opposing the election of Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, who was running against former governor Tommy Thompson to fill a seat vacated by Democrat Herb Kohl. On October 26th, they ran a thirty-second ad targeting Baldwin for her support for the EPA's Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule, which the AFF claimed destroyed jobs by forcing paper manufacturers to conform to burdensome regulations. A key claim in the ad comes from an Op-Ed article by Jeff Landin of the Wisconsin Paper Council, who used figures from a 2010 study commissioned by the American Forest and Paper Association and Fisher International, a consulting and information services firm to the pulp and and paper mill industry. Laurie Johnson of the Natural Resources Defense Council has criticized the study for exhibiting "a lack of understanding of even introductory-level economics." [11] The AFF also spent at least $98,000 on a single ad supporting the election of Wisconsin Billionaire Eric Hovde, who was running in the Wisconsin Republican Primary. FEC Filings state that they produced and aired an ad called "Changed" in support of Hovde, but the ad does not appear to exist online. The AFF disclosed spending the money on August 8th, 2012.[12]

What the Wisconsin Flag Thinks of Tammy Baldwin: August 20th, 2012: no spending disclosed for this ad

Paper: October 26th, 2012: $520,000 [42] (the AFF classifies $260,000 as spent opposing Baldwin, and $260,000 as spent opposing Obama)

Prior Political Activity

2010

In the 2010 election cycle directed its efforts at 14 "liberal" politicians that sat on committees with jurisdiction over energy and agricultural policy.[13]

AFF has also actively campaigned vigorously against Obama's health care reforms. It created several ads targeting the bill, many of included factual inaccuracies.[14]

In total, AFF spent over 26 million dollars in 2010.[15] According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 7.3 million was spent advocating for the "election or defeat of candidates for federal office"[16]

The American Future Fund took at least 4.5 million dollars from PhRMA in 2010. [17]

2008

In 2008, paid for advertising supporting Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who at the time was the co-chair of the Senate Biofuels caucus. In the same year, the group released a radio advertisement criticizing the Indy Racing League for its decision to use Brazilian sugar-based ethanol for its cars.

Ethanol Ties

AFF was started in 2008 with seed money from Bruce Rastetter, co-founder and CEO of Hawkeye Energy Holdings, a large Iowa-based ethanol company.[18] According to the New York Times, in the 2010 elections, "hints of a possible agenda emerge from a look at the politicians on the American Future Fund's hit list. Most have seats on a handful of legislative committees with a direct say in the ethanol industry."[18] Founder Nick Ryan's Concordia Group also counts a number of ethanol industry clients.[18]

Funding

In 2008, its founding year, AFF is alleged to have receive $7.5 million in donations. [13] In the 2010 election cycle, AFF admitted to spending $25 million. [19]

Although AFF does not disclose its funders, contributions from at least three nonprofit organizations were revealed because they must disclose the identity of their grant recipients. The shadowy dark money conduit the Center to Protect Patient Rights gave AFF $1.1 million in 2011, $11.7 million in 2010 (about half their total budget), and $1.3 million in 2009.[20] The group also received over $2.4 million[20] in 2010 from the right-wing legal group American Justice Partnership, a Michigan-based 501(c )(4) affiliate of the National Organization of Manufactureres and who list its "partners" as including groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Heritage Foundation.[21] Also in 2010, the trade association Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, gave AFF $300,000.[22]

CPPR is run by Sean Noble, who Politico described as a Koch Operative [43], Nobel was hired by the Kochs to coordinate with other conservative superPACs to target Democratic representatives in 2010. [23]

Leadership

Sandra Greiner, a Republican state legislator in Iowa and farmer, is the current president of the AFF. [24]

The following individuals have held leadership positions within the AFF:[25]

Nicole Schlinger

Tim Albrecht

Lisa Lisker

Jan Van Lohuizen

Ed Tobin

Ben Ginsberg

Larry McCarthy

Phil Musser

External links

Cara Parks, Let the Attack Ads Roll! Your guide to the shady 527s who will be playing a major role in this year's presidential campaign, The New Republic, June 12, 2008.

Will Evans, Profile: American Future Fund, NPR, August 20, 2008

Campaign Cash: American Future Fund, Washington Post, 2010

References

↑ IRS, Exhibits in complaint against the American Future Fund, organizational website, February 1st, 2011.

↑ Will Evans, Profile: American Future Fund, NPR, accessed February 29th, 2012.

↑ Viveca Novak, Center to Protect Patient Rights Gave Millions in 2011 to Outside Spenders in Election, Open Secrets, Accessed 12/17/2012.

↑ Viveca, Novak, Center to Protect Patient Rights Gave Millions in 2011 to Outside Spenders in Election, Open Secrets, Accessed 12/17/2012.

↑ American Future Fund, About Us organizational website, Accessed February 29th, 2012.

↑ American Future Fund, The real state of the union, video upload, uploaded January 23, 2012.

↑ American Future Fund, Obama's Wall Street, video upload, uploeaded February 24th, 2012.

↑ Factcheck.org, Obama white house full of wall street executives, organizational website, Accessed February 29th, 2012.

↑ Opensecrets.org: Outside Spending Profile for Arizona's, First and Ninth congressional districts, Accessed January 8th, 2012.

↑ Opensecrets.org Outside Spending Report, California's 26th District, organizational website, Accessed January 9th, 2012.

↑ Sara Jerving, Koch-Linked Group launched Ad targeting Tammy Baldwin for Paper Jobs, PRWatch.org, October 26th, 2012.

↑ FEC: Independent Expenditure Report, American Future Fund, organizational report, Submitted August 8th, 2012.

↑ 13.0 13.1 Jim Rutenberg, Don Van Natta, and Mike McIntire, Offering Donors Secrecy, and Going on Attack, New York Times, October 11, 2010.

↑ Fackcheck.org, Future Fund’s Faulty Fusillade, organizational website, March 19, 2010.

↑ Viveca Novak and Robert Maguire, Dark Money Train Open Secrets, Accessed February 29th, 2012.

↑ Citizens for Ethics, CREW asks IRS to Investigate American Future Fund, organizational website, February 1th, 2011.

↑ Michael Beckel, drug lobby gave 9.4 million to nonprofits that spent big on the 2010 election, Nation of Change, accessed February 29th, 2012.

↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Jim Rutenberb, Don Van Natta Jr., Mike McIntire,"Offering Donors Secrecy, and Going on an Attack",New York Times, October 11, 2012.

↑ Factcheck.org, American Future Fund, organizational website, September 18, 2011.

↑ 20.0 20.1 Open Secrets, "Top Organizations Disclosing Donations to American Future Fund", Center for Responsive Politics, Accessed January 14, 2012.

↑ American Justice Partnership, Our National Partners, organizational website, accessed January 14, 2012.

↑ Viveca Novak and Robert Maguire,Donors to GOP's Nondisclosing Nonprofits Travel in Familiar Networks, Center for Responsive Politics, February 27, 2012.

↑ Lee Fang, Koch Operative Steered $55 Million To Front Groups Airing Ads Against Democrats; Ads Assailed Candidates Over Abortion, 9/11, Medicare, Republic Report, May 19th, 2012.

↑ Fackcheck.org, American Future Fund, organizational website, September 18, 2011.

↑ Will Evans, Profile: American Future Fund, National Public Radio, August 20, 2008.

This page was last modified on 23 May 2013, at 15:21.

http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/detail.php?cmte=American+Future+Fund&cycle=2010

The GOP nonprofits -- American Action Network, which spent $26 million on ads in the 2010 mid-term elections; Crossroads GPS, which spent $16 million; and the American Future Fund, which laid out $9.6 million -- are all organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. They and the individuals who run them have strong ties to some of the same political networks, research by OpenSecrets Blog shows.

One of the previously unreported donor groups, according to forms filed by nonprofit groups with the Internal Revenue Service, is the Republican Jewish Coalition, which gave $4 million in 2010 to Crossroads GPS -- perhaps the most well-known of the outside spending groups that were running ads in the 2010 cycle, with ties to GOP strategist Karl Rove.

Crossroads GPS launched several ads critical of President Obama as well as of Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill just this month. In December, it spent $1.1 million spent on ads eviscerating four Democratic Senate candidates, including McCaskill and two other incumbents. The super PAC American Crossroads -- of which Crossroads GPS is an offshoot with a different corporate form -- has raised more than $23 million in this cycle and has said it plans a major ad barrage against Obama.

News broke this afternoon that the American Future Fund -- a Super PAC affiliated with the Koch Brothers – has just put $4 million from secret donors behind Prop 32.

If any doubts remained about who is truly behind Prop 32, we now know with absolute certainty. It’s been reported that this organization is tied to the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove, and was originally bankrolled by an oil company CEO from Iowa. But since Super PACs aren’t required to disclose their donors, we’ll never know where it all came from.

Look what just arrived in the Friday-afternoon-news-dump: A $4 million contribution to Prop 32, which the unions are freaked out about because it would limit labor’s chief weapon for influencing the state’s politics – political donations – by preventing unions from using automatic payroll deductions from their members.

The same restriction would apply to corporations, but as the League of Women Voters said — this measure wouldhurt one side more than the other for reasons explained there.

So what’s the connection between the donor — the Des Moines, Iowa-based American Future Fund — and the billionaire conservative financiers the Koch brothers? Because of opaque campaign finance laws, tracing the money is a challenge. Politico makes the case here.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the connection is the Center to Protect Patient Rights:

“Based in Arizona, CPPR provided large grants (in 2010) to a cluster of well-known conservative organizations that operate under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which classifies them as “social welfare” groups and allows them to keep their funding sources from public view. Politics is not supposed to be their primary purpose, although critics say many of the organizations have stretched the rules too far. American Future Fund received the largest grant from CPPR, a total of $11.7 million for ‘general support.’”

As the LA Times reported earlier this year:

The Kochs have several ties to the center. It is run by Sean Noble, a Phoenix-based GOP consultant who is a key operative in the Kochs’ political activities, as first noted by the investigative blog Republic Report. One of the center’s original directors, Heather Higgins, is chairwoman of the Independent Women’s Forum, which has received funding from a Koch-controlled foundation. And Cheryl Hillen, a Connecticut-based consultant who raised $2.6 million for the center, was director of fundraising for the Koch-backed Citizens for a Sound Economy.

“Californians should be on high alert: shadowy out-of-state front groups like the ‘American Futures Fund’ don’t swoop into California elections unless they have a very specific agenda,” said the anti-Prop 32 spokesperson Brian Brokaw.

Now, don’t cry too hard for the unions — they are unlikely to be outspent on Prop 32. Before Friday’s money drop, according to the nonpartisan Maplight.com’s latest compilations, anti-Prop 32 forces have raised more than $28 million — or SEVEN TIMES as a much as the pro-32 side. Virtually all the opposition money is coming from unions.

Prop 32 spokesperson Jake Suski said that the campaign “(wasn’t) aware and have nothing to do with this committee.”

But if Prop 32 aims to reduce the influence of special interest (corporate and union) money in politics, doesn’t this fly in the face of that?

“Prop 32 goes as far as the Constitution allows to reduce special interest influence over elected officials,” Suski said. “Prop 32 cuts the money tie between politicians and their corporate and union donors, while ensuring employees’ political contributions are made voluntarily.”

This week, the dark money group American Future Fund (AFF) launched a misleading ad attacking Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin for supporting legislation that would allegedly shut down eleven paper mills and lay off 7,500 paper workers in the state, ignoring Baldwin's negotiations to protect Wisconsin jobs that might be affected by the rule and her strong record on trade policy and manufacturing.

Koch Linked Group Launches Ad That Targets Tammy Baldwin on Paper Jobs

by Sara Jerving — October 26, 2012 - 5:13pm

Topics: Labor

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This week, the dark money group American Future Fund (AFF) launched a misleading ad attacking Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin for supporting legislation that would allegedly shut down eleven paper mills and lay off 7,500 paper workers in the state, ignoring Baldwin's negotiations to protect Wisconsin jobs that might be affected by the rule and her strong record on trade policy and manufacturing.

The ad refers to Baldwin's vote against an effort to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule, which would tighten the pollution standards for industrial, non-utility, coal boilers. However, it relies on sloppy data and fails to acknowledge Baldwin's efforts to protect Wisconsin manufacturing jobs, particularly in the paper industry.

According to the EPA, the MACT standards, currently undergoing interagency review, "are meant to protect Americans from mercury, soot, lead and other harmful pollutants released by boilers and incinerators that can lead to developmental disabilities in children, as well as cancer, heart disease, aggravated asthma and premature death."

A key claim in the ad comes from an Op-Ed article by Jeff Landin of the Wisconsin Paper Council, who used figures from a 2010 study commissioned by the American Forest and Paper Association and Fisher International, a consulting and information services firm to the pulp and and paper mill industry. The ad extrapolates findings of the industry study which noted "at risk jobs" in the Midwest from the regulation. The study, according to Dr. Charles Kolstad, Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, "purports to estimate the increased costs borne by the industry from the proposed regulation, the number of mills that may be shut‐down from the rule, and the number of jobs that may be lost from the rule. Unfortunately, the methodology is fundamentally flawed in many respects; thus the results reported are useless." He added that "If I were grading this, I would give it an F. The economics is all wrong (lack of an incidence analysis or acknowledgement of its importance; failure to draw on the relevant literature), which of course would be my main concern." Laurie Johnson of the Natural Resources Defense Council echoed this statement: "a cursory examination reveals gross exaggeration of compliance costs and employment impacts, and a lack of understanding of even introductory-level economics."

The ad also does not note that Baldwin met with EPA's Lisa Jackson this spring to press for an extension to implementing this rule so that paper companies in Wisconsin and elsewhere can spread the associated costs of the rule over time, a move requested by the industry. The EPA is now in the process of updating the rule based on analysis of data and input from states, environmental groups, industry, lawmakers and the public. According to the EPA, the "proposed changes would achieve extensive public health protections while increasing the rule's flexibility, which would cut the cost of implementation by nearly 50 percent from the original 2010 proposed rule. The boiler standards are currently undergoing interagency review led by the Office of Management and Budget."

The ad is attacking one of Baldwin's strengths, her voting records on manufacturing issues. Baldwin has voted against every major job-killing free trade agreement proposed by any administration, Republican or Democrat. She introduced and passed the CHEATS Act which works to protect the state from unfair trade policies with China, by allowing the U.S. to impose duties to offset subsidized Chinese imports. According to the Economic Policy Institute, Wisconsin lost over 52,000 jobs from unfair trade policies with China. The Chinese government provided $33.1 billion in subsidies to its paper industry form 2002 to 2009, making it the world's largest producer of paper and paper products.

AFF is organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which does not disclose its donors despite being largely dedicated to running television and web ads that promote right-wing causes and influence elections. The group is currently running pro-Romney ads in Wisconsin, and spent over $4 million in California in support of the anti-union Proposition 32.

A large percentage of their 2010 funds came from a single source, the Center to Protect Patients' Rights (CPPR), another 501(c)(4) which made massive donations in support of various conservative groups for the midterm elections. The Center gave AFF $12 million, about half of their total budget for that year. CPPR is run by Sean Noble, who Politico described as an operative of the billionaire Koch brothers. Nobel was hired by the Kochs to coordinate with other conservative Super PACs to target Democratic representatives in 2010. One of Koch's subsidiaries, Georgia-Pacific, is a lead manufacturer of paper products in Wisconsin, including consumer tissue, towel and wiper products, corrugated packaging, and hardboard.

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