marc short bak

main format  problem

---

an 12 23

just weeks after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unsealed documents revealing U.S. Congressman Scott Perry's (R-PA) conversations in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge on Tuesday gave the Department of Justice permission to access almost "1,700 records recovered" from the Pennsylvania lawmaker's cell phone, The Washington Post reports.

Politico reported a few of Perry's interactions, including:

{A Dec. 12, 2020, text exchange with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel discussing efforts to challenge Joe Biden’s victory in the election.}:

{A series of exchanges between Perry and a former DOJ colleague, Robert Gasaway, between Dec. 30, 2020, and Jan. 5, 2021, in which Perry embraced a plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence 'admit testimony' prior to the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Perry agreed to 'sell[] the idea' with a call to Trump, Pence and Trump adviser John Eastman, but Perry later alerted Gasaway that Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, 'will not allow access.'}:

The "most revealing" interaction, Politico noted, was a conversation the GOP leader had with ex-U.S. Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark — and Donald Trump Georgia co-defendant — in which Perry told Clark that Trump was upset with Clark for using the Justice Department to defend Pence against a lawsuit brought by another House member, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)."

Per the Post, on Tuesday, "Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of Washington, D.C., gave investigators access to 1,659 records and withheld 396 others after a federal appeals court directed him to individually review 2,055 communications from Perry's phone to decide which were protected by the Constitution’s 'speech or debate' clause, which grants members of Congress immunity from criminal investigation when acting in their official capacities."

According to the report, "Tuesday's order will determine which messages investigators with special counsel Jack Smith can actually use as potential evidence in any case, pending an expected renewed appeal by Perry, part of legal fight that has tied up the records for more than a year."

READ MORE:You are the man': GOP rep’s 'extraordinary web' of exchanges pushing election reverse revealed

---

https://www.alternet.org/**2022/05**/trump-administration-meat-industry-covid/

former President Donald Trump's administration colluded with top-level meatpacking industry executives to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in order to drive up prices and downplay the severity of the emergency, according to an exhaustive investigation released on Thursday by the United States House Select Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

Representative Jim Clyburn (D-South Carolina), the House Majority Whip and chairman of the Subcommittee, said in a statement that "the shameful conduct of corporate executives pursuing profit at any cost during a crisis and government officials eager to do their bidding regardless of resulting harm to the public must never be repeated."

The probe began last year and uncovered a spider web of corruption and flagrant disregard for human life involving American corporate titans and individuals in the highest ranks of the federal government.

Officials at the Department of Agriculture – including Secretary Sonny Purdue and Under Secretary for Food Safety Mindy Brashears – "collaborated" with corporate bigwigs to prioritize profits and production over the safety of employees and the public despite being fully aware of the hazards.

"Infections and deaths among workers for five of the largest meatpacking companies—Tyson Foods, Inc. (Tyson), JBS USA Holdings, Inc. (JBS), Smithfield Foods (Smithfield), Cargill, Inc. (Cargill), and National Beef Packing Company LLC (National Beef)—were significantly higher than previously estimated, with over 59,000 workers for these companies being infected with the coronavirus andat least 269 dying," the report states.

The powerful cadre also "engaged in a concerted effort with Trump Administration political officials to insulate themselves from coronavirus-related oversight," it explains.

In one instance, the chief executive officers of the conglomerates told Purdue on a phone call that their workers “should not be entitled to unemployment benefitsif they are otherwise able to work through the pandemic” and cautioned against “creat[ing] an incentive, much less a path, for food industry workers to choose unemployment overproducing food.”

In that same conversation, they "implicitly acknowledged how dangerous plants were, asking for liability protection against lawsuits if workers were infected on the job."

There was also an aggressive campaign to skirt "pesky" local, state, and federal regulations that would have kept workers and their products safe and healthy.

"Companies lobbied the White House to make clear that—despite concerns by state and local health departments—meatpacking companies should not have to address coronavirus risks if it would impact productivity," the investigation revealed.

Alarmingly, the CEOs managed to successfully lobby Trump to draft and sign an executive order in April of 2020 that "would insulate meatpacking companies from oversight by state and local health departments and provide legal protection against lawsuits for worker illnesses and deaths."

The edict led to Trump "invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure meatpacking plants 'continue operations.'"

Shortly thereafter, records handed over to the Subcommittee show that "meatpacking industry representatives and companies—Smithfield and Tyson in particular—engaged in constant communications with Trump appointees at USDA, the National Economic Council, and the White House, including calls between Smithfield CEO Ken Sullivan and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; a joint call with Sullivan, Meadows, and Tyson CEO Noel White;a call between White and Vice President Pence’s Chief of StaffMarc Short;and a call from Meadows to White asking if White would be willing to meet with President Trump."

Trump subsequently "held a call with officers of the meatpacking companies who had lobbied for it on the morning the order was issued."

After Trump granted their wish, an effort was undertaken between the administration and the industry to "coordinate closely on messaging concerning the order and its effects, apparently hoping to generate positive press coverage" for the ex-commander in chief.

Worker fatalities, meanwhile, were swept under the rug.

In a particularly egregious example, an outbreak at Foster Farms in Livingston,California that infected "at least" 392 workers and killed eight in August of 2020 prompted the company to "intimidate" the Merced County Department of Public Health from shutting down the plant.

"Foster Farms attempts to obfuscate the death count by labeling fatalities as 'resolutions,'" investigators learned. "MCPH officials told the Select Subcommittee that an unidentified person on the call from either Foster Farms or USDA said these cases could be considered 'toe tag resolutions,' referring to the toe tag that is often put on a corpse at the morgue. MCPH said that Brashears asked this individual to 'stop' and said they would 'talk about this separately.'"

Operations at Foster Farms in Livingston were eventually temporarily suspended on August 31st.

Read the full report here.

new

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/28/860927054/pence-chief-of-staff-owns-stocks-that-could-conflict-with-coronavirus-response

no docs lnx vid

Pence Chief Of Staff Owns Stocks That Could Conflict With Coronavirus Response

May 28, 2020

TIM MAK

Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Pence, listens during a coronavirus briefing with health insurers at the White House on March 10.]

Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Pence, owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of individual stocks in companies doing work related to the Trump administration's pandemic response — holdings that could run afoul of conflict of interest laws.

Many of the medical, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies – including 3M, Abbott Laboratories, Gilead Sciences, Procter & Gamble, Medtronic, Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson – in which Short and his wife hold stock have been directly affected by or involved in the work of the coronavirus task force chaired by Pence.

Other companies among his holdings, such as CVS, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Walmart and Roche, have been publicly touted by the White House for their work with the federal government on the coronavirus response.

Short declared at least some of his stock holdings — more than 100 listings of individual stocks across a range of economic sectors — to be potential conflicts of interest after he joined the vice president's office last year. But he did not divest those holdings after being denied a tax break often granted to government officials who must sell stock to comply with ethics laws.

Short still holds the stocks — some in trusts for family members — which he disclosed in public records reviewed by NPR. The White House contends he has followed administration guidelines to avoid conflicts of interest.

"Marc Short has followed all applicable ethics laws, and even sought to divest from potential financial conflicts," said Pence spokesman Devin O'Malley. "Additionally, on several occasions, including since the formation of the coronavirus task force, Mr. Short has worked with legal counsel to implement appropriate recusals."

Watchdogs — including the former top lawyer for the Office of Government Ethics, which handles conflicts of interest issues — say that in order to comply with the law, Short needs to divest or recuse himself from issues that may impact his personal financial holdings.

There is a law that requires executive branch employees to resolve conflicts of interest before participating in any decision — or even deliberations — affecting particular companies or specific industries in which they are invested. Violations carry potential civil and criminal penalties. The law extends to the holdings of spouses and minor children.

It is unclear at this point whether Short has participated in any governmental policy decisions that could affect the companies or sectors in which he holds personal financial interests.

But recusal may be difficult because of Short's expansive list of responsibilities as the vice president's chief of staff — and in any case, there is public evidence that he is actively engaged in the Trump administration's coronavirus response efforts.

Short is a longtime political operative who has served as Pence's chief of staff since March 2019. He has also taken on a public role in the coronavirus task force operations. And on at least two recent occasions, his work has led him to mention companies in which he holds stock.

On March 18, he mentioned the vice president's trip to a 3M manufacturing plant to illustrate a point about liability protections. Records show that he holds between $65,002 and $150,000 worth of 3M stock. On March 20, he publicly hailed the work of Honeywell in producing respirator masks. According to public disclosure records, he holds between $50,001 and $100,000 worth ofHoneywell stock.

The former director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, said he thinks an independent investigation should be launched. Since leaving the OGE in July 2017, Shaub has become a frequent critic of the Trump administration on ethics issues.

"This is now a red alarm. We have enough information to know that there is a serious possibility of a conflict of interest and a very realistic chance that he may have participated in matters affecting his financial interests," said Shaub, now with the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. "We won't know unless the FBI or the Public Integrity Section for the Justice Department do a proper investigation."

According to public disclosure forms first obtained by CREW and subsequently verified and reviewed by NPR, Short owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of stock in companies that have been specifically identified or otherwise involved in the federal government's coronavirus response. Public disclosure forms do not show precise values of stock holdings, only ranges.

O'Malley, the spokesperson for the vice president's office, said that Short sought what is called a certificate of divestiture from the Office of Government Ethics. The certificate is not necessary to divest from stocks, but it does approve a tax break that allows the deferment of capital gains tax and is designed to reduce the burden of complying with federal ethics laws.

The application for a certificate of divestiture is in itself an acknowledgement that the likelihood of potential conflicts of interest exist. In order to apply for the certificate, federal employees need to attest that they have possible conflicts of interest that make it necessary to divest, according to Don Fox, a former general counsel and acting director for the Office of Government Ethics.

"There has to be an underlying conflict of interest, and OGE has to determine that there is, in order to even be eligible for a certificate," Fox said. This is done so that executive branch officials cannot take advantage of the tax deferment unless necessary for ethics purposes.

O'Malley said Short's certificate was not approved.

Not receiving a certificate of divestiture is not a permissible reason under the law to avoid divesting from stock. In fact, regulations require an employee requesting a certificate to commit in advance to divesting, whether or not OGE grants the request.

"Seeking a certificate of divestiture is not seeking approval. It's seeking a tax break," Shaub said. "The nonissuance of a certificate of divestiture does not prevent you from divesting. It prevents you from getting a tax break."

Short's application for a certificate of divestiture was not rejected because he was deemed to not have a conflict.

The ethics office rejected his application because some of his stocks are held in trusts that would be difficult to divest from. Some of Short's holdings were in trusts created to benefit family members, and OGE would not grant tax breaks for Short unless all potentially conflicting holdings were divested.

[

Justice Department Closes Investigations Of 3 Senators; Burr Inquiry Continues

Social Media Usage Is At An All-Time High. That Could Mean A Nightmare For Democracy

THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Social Media Usage Is At An All-Time High. That Could Mean A Nightmare For Democracy]

"OGE would not grant a certificate of divestiture covering individual equities because, after such a divestment, the stocks held in irrevocable generation-skipping trusts — established for the benefit of his children over which Mr. Short has no independent control — would remain," O'Malley said.

The Office of the Vice President did not provide a statement on why Short has not divested potentially conflicting stocks outside the trusts. Without a certificate of divestiture, Short would not qualify to defer capital gains taxes on sales of his stocks, and would be forced to pay these taxes.

Former ethics officials say that difficulty divesting does not excuse an employee from complying with the conflict of interest law.

"Ultimately, the responsibility is on the public official to take all necessary steps to make sure they're either free from potential conflicts of interest or to stay away from any issues that could conflict with those personal financial interests," said Fox.

The Office of Government Ethics declined to comment on Short's situation.

"OGE is committed to transparency and citizen oversight of government. However, OGE does not respond to questions about specific individuals," said spokesperson Patrick Shepherd.

Both of Short's predecessors as chief of staff to Pence — Nick Ayers and Joshua Pitcock — requested and obtained certificates of divestiture. Unlike Short, neither Ayers nor Pitcock appear to have held significant numbers of individual stocks during their time in that office, according to their public disclosure records. Short holds dozens of different stocks across a wide variety of sectors.

Other high-ranking officials have divested their stock holdings despite very complex financial situations. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pledged before entering office to divest from 156 companies he held a financial interest in. In an ethics agreement hammered out before the start of the Trump administration, Tillerson, a former CEO of Exxon Mobil, gave up more than $4.1 million in cash bonuses as well as retiree medical and dental benefits.

Which States Are Reopening? A State-By-State Guide

CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS IN EACH STATE

Which States Are Reopening? A State-By-State Guide

Coronavirus Maps: How Severe Is Your State's Outbreak?

SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS

Tracking The Pandemic: How Quickly Is The Coronavirus Spreading State By State?

Fox said that selling individual stocks is often the only way for government officials like Short to resolve potential conflicts. Recusal from possible conflicts of interest is often difficult in a position like Short's because his responsibilities as a member of the White House's senior staff would be diverse and touch on a wide range of topics and sectors.

"It's not uncommon for somebody in those positions to essentially divest themselves of all common stock... because you really can't anticipate what kinds of information or what kinds of decisions their principals — their bosses — are going to have to make," Fox said. "If you're going to be in this kind of job, you have to be able to act on anything without having to worry about conflicts of interests or recusals or workarounds."

The vice president's office would not point to any specific cases of recusal.

Short is the most senior staffer to the vice president, who has headed the coronavirus task force since late February. Short has repeatedly been involved in the White House response to the coronavirus crisis.

In the past, Short has set the agenda and sent out the White House Situation Room seating chart for the coronavirus task force meetings, according to an April 11 story by The Washington Post. "We meet every morning at nine o'clock," he told CNBC in March, regarding the coronavirus task force.

He answered questions from reporters about the coronavirus on Feb. 4 and March 20. In the latter instance, he cited the work of Honeywell, in which he holds between $50,001 and $100,000 of stock.

"We are actually encouraged that the partnership with private sector can meet many of these needs," he said, referring to the logistics of obtaining health care supplies. "As some of you know, Honeywell is wholly retrofitting one of their factories to produce more respirator masks."

Credit: C-SPAN

On Fox Business on March 18, he cited 3M, a company in which he owns between $65,002 and $150,000 worth of stock. "A few weeks ago, the vice president took a trip to 3M manufacturing in Minnesota," Short said, referring to The 3M Company as one of the "primary producers" of respirator masks.

Fox Business YouTube

He also addressed the federal government's coronavirus response on CNBC March 20 and March 24, on Fox News March 19 and March 21, and on CNN March 25.

In these television interviews, Short discussed personal protective equipment manufacturing, therapeutic pharmaceuticals, public-private partnerships and negotiations over the coronavirus relief package.

Scott Amey, general counsel of the government watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said Short's work is clearly covered by conflict of interest laws.

"There's a potential here that the vice president's chief of staff has a conflict of interest in the fact that he is working on the issues, and participating in meetings, and making presentations to the public based on things he's learned through the pandemic [response] and what's coming into the White House," Amey said.

A source familiar with Short's stock holdings said that earlier this month, the Office of Government Ethics reviewed Short's ethics program as it relates to the coronavirus task force with the vice president's legal counsel.

"Earlier this month, Mr. Short asked OGE to revisit the issue," the source said.

On May 1, the Office of Government Ethics took the unusual step of sending a memo out reminding executive branch ethics officials that stocks can pose a conflict of interest.

OGE had no comment on whether the memo was sent out in connection with any case in particular.

==

https://www.citizen.org/news/44-trump-administration-officials-have-close-ties-to-the-koch-brothers-public-citizen-finds/

NOVEMBER 30, 2017

44 Trump Administration Officials Have Close Ties to the Koch Brothers, Public Citizen Finds

Nov. 30, 2017

44 Trump Administration Officials Have Close Ties to the Koch Brothers, Public Citizen Finds

New Report Details How Allies and Former Employees of Republican Megadonors Are Influencing Trump Administration Policy

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite a rocky relationship during the 2016 presidential campaign between Donald Trump and the Koch brothers, the two Republican megadonors have infiltrated the Trump administration, with 44 Koch allies staffing the White House and other agencies, a Public Citizen report (PDF) finds.

More than one year after Trump’s election, political operatives and policy experts who have worked at numerous Koch-funded organizations have fanned out through the Trump administration. They are taking jobs influencing policies about taxes, the environment, energy, education and health care – in service of the hard-right anti-government agenda espoused by right-wing organizations created by the Kochs.

Public Citizen’s review of the Koch brothers’ connections to the Trump administration and policy agenda in Washington, D.C., finds that:

• 44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.

• Of the Koch allies who are working in the administration, most are in the White House, with 21 officials working there or nominated for White House jobs.

• Koch allies also are staffing jobs at the EPA, the Interior Department, the Energy Department and the Treasury Department. The positions they are advocating overlap with the Kochs’ economic interests in weakening regulatory enforcement, lowering corporate taxes, loosening environmental regulations and opening up public land to oil and gas extraction.

• The Kochs already have achieved the majority of goals contained in “Roadmap to Repeal” – a policy document published in January 2017 by Freedom Partners, a Koch group.

“Donald Trump is turning the Koch brothers’ corporate extremist fantasies into reality,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. “Climate change denialism, enabling corporate wrongdoing, removing regulatory restraints are, literally, straight out of the Kochs’ playbook, and leading Koch operatives say the pending tax cuts for corporations and the superrich are the ‘most significant’ effort they have ever undertaken.”

“Our government should work for the people, rather than the interests of two of the wealthiest people in America,” said Alan Zibel, research director of Public Citizen’s Corporate Presidency Project and the report’s author. “Over several decades, the Kochs have built an elaborate structure of organizations, academic centers and donors to advance an anti-government agenda that most Americans do not support.”

Public Citizen’s analysis includes officials who have worked at Koch-created groups such as Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners, Libre Initiative, Concerned Veterans for America and Generation Opportunity. The analysis includes lawyers and lobbyists who have represented Koch businesses or political groups. It also includes individuals who worked at think tanks, advocacy groups and academic centers with Koch funding and close Koch ties.

[vid]

==

entine LI scrape 1219

==

open secrets revolver:

Featured Revolver

Marc Short

Chief of Staff to Vice President Pence

Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, has come under scrutiny for owning up to $1.6 million worth of stocks in companies working with Pence's coronavirus task force to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Short, a veteran Republican operative, joined Pence's office in 2019. He also worked as the White House director of legislative affairs in 2017 and 2018. Short previously served as chief of staff to former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) and directed the House Republican Conference.

For eight years, Short served as executive director of Freedom Partners, the conservative organization funded by the Koch brothers that was dissolved in 2019.

Short has also worked for lobbying firms, most recently for Guidepost Strategies in 2018.

Wallace corners Pence aide on Russia attacks: ‘You can’t say it didn’t happen — and then say they leaked it’

David Edwards / Raw Story

Fox News host Chris Wallace called out Marc Short, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence.

==

Fox News’ Chris Wallace corners Pence aide after ‘imbecile’ Trump says late Rep. Dingell could be burning in hell: ‘You talk about morality’

David Edwards / Raw Story

Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday refused to condemn President Donald Trump for suggesting that a deceased Democratic lawmaker is burning in hell.

==

trump not racist, he hired chao

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pences-incoming-chief-of-staff-marc-short-disparaged-aids-victims-for-repugnant-gay-sex-in-college-column

==

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/marc-short-pence-chief-staff.html

Feb. 19, 2019

Vice President Mike Pence has chosen Marc Short, who served as President Trump’s legislative affairs director for most of his first two years in office, to be his chief of staff, a person familiar with the announcement said Tuesday.

In returning to the administration he left last June, Mr. Short will fill the role that was left vacant by Nick Ayers when he resigned earlier this year. Mr. Short has a long relationship with Mr. Pence, and served as his chief of staff when the vice president served in the House and was on his staff during the 2016 campaign.

Mr. Short’s new job was announced at the vice president’s staff meeting on Tuesday morning. He could not immediately be reached for comment. He is expected to start in a few weeks.

With Mr. Short’s return, the White House will deepen its roster of seasoned veterans as the president heads into what is expected to be a grueling re-election campaign. Mr. Short also has extensive experience dealing with a divided Congress, and was seen as an establishment voice in the West Wing. Before he left last year, he had been among the bluntest voices in the president’s circle warning about the grim prospects for House Republicans in the midterm elections.

As the legislative affairs director, he was involved in the White House efforts to pass the tax bill that the president backed in 2017, as well as the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Short, in the past, has also been a useful asset to the president on television, often making appearances on Sunday shows to promote the administration’s policies. When aides depart the White House, Mr. Trump often likes to tell people that they will return. But Mr. Short, is the first senior administration official who has actually done it.

After leaving the White House, Mr. Short became emblematic of the controversy some former aides have faced over working for Mr. Trump. He was hired as a fellow by the University of Virginia, which had been the site of the infamous Charlottesville white nationalist rally that left one woman dead in 2017. Mr. Short’s hire by the university drew criticism.

Mr. Short, a veteran of Virginia politics, spent several years working for the sprawling political apparatus created by the brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch before joining the administration.

The hire comes as the Trump re-election campaign organization announced a series of new positions.

Mark Lotter, Mr. Pence’s former press secretary, will serve as the campaign’s director of strategic communications, the campaign said Tuesday. Kayleigh McEnany, the former spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee and a former CNN contributor, will serve as the campaign’s national press secretary. And Tim Murtaugh, who most recently worked in communications for Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, will be director of communications.

In her first day on the job, Ms. McEnany put out a statement about Sen. Bernie Sanders’s announcement on Monday that he was running for president again, saying that “every candidate is embracing his brand of socialism.”

The campaign also announced that Cole Blocker will serve as its finance director, after serving in the East Wing as a deputy director of the White House visitor’s office. And Megan Powers, who most recently served as a press secretary for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, will join as director of administrative operations.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/12/marc-short-trump-departure-white-house-713453

...Trump’s legislative affairs director is heading for the exits just as the White House gears

up for a major Supreme Court nomination battle and approaches a daunting midterm election landscape.

Marc Short, one of the administration’s longest-serving senior aides and a frequent spokesperson for the president on television, is planning to depart by July 20, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Short, who declined to comment on the record, is taking a position at Guidepost Strategies consulting firm and will teach at the University of Virginia’s business school, where he received his MBA, and will also serve as a senior fellow at the university’s Miller Center.

Short took the job as Trump’s top liaison to Capitol Hill after serving as a senior aide to Vice President Mike Pence on the 2016 campaign. A veteran of Republican politics, Short was seen as an establishment voice within the decidedly anti-establishment administration. He was in the center of Trump’s key legislative fights, from the failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act to the rewrite of the tax code and the marathon efforts to reshape the judiciary.

Unlike past legislative affairs chiefs, Short took on a significant media profile, regularly appearing on cable news and Sunday shows to defend the White House and advocate for the president. But unlike other White House faces, from former press secretary Sean Spicer to counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, Short largely managed to avoid making the type of controversial statements or embarrassing gaffes that have become commonplace in Trump’s orbit. Like other former officials, Short may continue to make television appearances.

At Guidepost, Short will serve as a partner alongside Phil Cox, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, and Marie Sanderson, who was policy director at RGA. The firm does consulting, lobbying and communications for an array of corporate and nonprofit clients, including the tobacco company Reynolds American, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, BMW and the American Petroleum Institute. Short himself will not be doing any lobbying.

“Marc brings that unique combination of policy depth and political expertise, which is a hallmark of our firm,” Cox said in a statement to POLITICO. “Marie and I are excited to have him join our team.”

Short is slated to begin his fellowship at UVA on Aug. 1.

“It’s an honor for me to welcome Marc Short to the Miller Center," Miller Center director William Antholis said in a statement to POLITICO. “Marc is widely respected in both parties. We had the privilege of getting to know Marc through the presidential transition and the Trump Administration’s first year, and have been impressed by his professionalism, effectiveness, and collegiality.”

Short is among a large cadre of senior White House staff members to leave before the president’s two-year mark, as Trump’s White House has seen an unprecedented level of staff turnover. Already, Trump has cycled through a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, four communications directors, a press secretary, a chief strategist, two national security advisers and a number of midlevel aides.

==

nbc

Two key officials in the White House's Office of Legislative Affairs will leave in July, as the administration gears up to confirm President Donald Trump's second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

White House Legislative Director Marc Short will depart July 20, a White House official confirmed to CNBC.

Top White House economic advisor Shahira Knight will replace Short.

Eamon Javers | Tucker Higgins

leadership of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs is getting shaken up just as the administration gears up to confirm President Donald Trump's second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

White House Legislative Director Marc Short will depart and be replaced by top economic advisor Shahira Knight, the White House said Thursday afternoon.

Knight previously served as deputy director of the National Economic Council and helped to usher the GOP tax bill through Congress last year.

Taking on the legislative affairs position is a change in plans for Knight, who said last month that she would leave the White House to join Clearing House, a lobbying group focused on banking. Knight worked as a lobbyist working primarily on tax issues for more than a decade before joining the Trump administration.

“Marc was an integral part of the White House staff. He and his team helped the President rebuild the military, pass historic tax reform and achieve unprecedented legislative successes," Chief of Staff John Kelly said in a statement. "We will miss his profound expertise, commitment to the taxpayers, and leadership.”

Another key official in the legislative affairs office, special assistant Andy Koenig, will also be leaving the White House. Koenig, whose departure has not been previously reported, will exit on Friday. He joined the White House in March of 2017.

There was discussion of Short staying on to help with the Supreme Court nomination effort, but he ultimately decided to resign after the White House Counsel's office pushed for a larger role in the process, a White House official told CNBC.

White House Counsel Donald McGahn has been instrumental in Trump's appointment of federal judges, and was the leading force pushing for the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, who Trump announced Monday would be his nominee to the high court.

In a statement, Short said he would be "forever indebted" to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

Short faced a deadline to commit to his new teaching job at the University of Virginia, where he will teach courses in the business school and serve as a senior fellow at the university’s Miller Center. Short is also taking a position at the consulting firm Guidepost Strategies, according to POLITICO.

==

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/07/30/leading-scholars-quit-u-va-center-over-hiring-of-former-trump-official/

no lnx

Grade Point

Leading scholars quit U-Va. center over hiring of former Trump official

Former White House director of legislative affairs Marc Short, shown in January, accepted a position as a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By Susan Svrluga

July 30

Two leading historians resigned Monday from the University of Virginia’s Miller Center to protest the appointment of a former Trump administration official to a senior fellowship.

The selection of Marc Short, who served as President Trump’s legislative affairs director until earlier this month, has roiled the university, with a petition signed by more than 2,000 people demanding his appointment be revoked.

Last week, Short said it was ironic that professors at the university Thomas Jefferson founded were trying to silence debate, but his opponents saw it as a principled stand in favor of scholarship, democracy and civil discourse.

The professors who are stepping down, Melvyn P. Leffler and William I. Hitchcock, jointly announced their decision to leave the Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate of U-Va. focused on studying the presidency and public policy.

Leffler is a history professor, former dean of U-Va.’s College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the university’s most prestigious award for scholarship and service. Hitchcock is a history professor whose book about the liberation of Europe was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009.

Leffler and Hitchcock wrote in their resignation letter that they would welcome Short to speak at the center. But granting him a senior fellowship position — one they learned of through a press release — runs “counter to the Center’s fundamental values of nonpartisanship, transparency, openness, a passion for truth and objectivity, and civility,” they wrote. The appointment comes almost a year after white supremacists marched at the school and in the city of Charlottesville, resulting in violent clashes with counterprotesters that the president blamed on “both sides,” events that seared the community.

“Democracy today in the United States is in peril,” they wrote. “… We must not normalize or rationalize hateful, cruel and demeaning behavior. When we see things to be wrong, we must speak out and take a stand.”

[Hire of departing Trump official draws ire of U-Va. professors and students]

Short did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Short worked on Oliver North’s 1994 Senate campaign in Virginia and served as chief of staff for former senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.). He led Freedom Partners, a political nonprofit with ties to influential conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, and served in the Trump administration for the past year and a half.

William J. Antholis, director and chief executive of the Miller Center, said Monday he was saddened by the resignations. The work of the center’s scholars to understand the U.S. presidency is more important than ever, he said.

Antholis said Short would help keep Miller scholars on the cutting edge, joining a roster of former administration officials from both parties.

“One of the things that drives concern about this appointment and this presidency is that it’s not just a disruptive one but a dangerous one, dangerous to our democratic institutions,” Antholis said. At times, he said, he shares that concern about Trump’s presidency. But in appointing Short, Antholis said, he made a judgment about an individual, concluding Short falls well within the bounds of normal political debate.

Antholis served in the Clinton administration and knows there were conservative critics who felt Bill Clinton undermined democracy. “I feel an obligation to understand the Trump presidency in the best way we possibly can while still respecting legitimate debate,” Antholis said.

[‘Never has our work been more important than now’: U-Va. leader defends hiring of outgoing Trump official]

Hitchcock said some at U-Va. felt Short’s appointment was a big win for the center. But he said that he believes Short’s career as a political operative suggests he will not mesh with the Miller Center’s emphasis on nonpartisan inquiry and that faculty should have reviewed the appointment.

“We believe that scholars at think tanks should be allowed to do scholarly work,” he said, “that they should be trusted, that their experience and their knowledge should be put to use, rather than ignored in favor of the glittering attraction of powerful people. … It’s through scholarship we’re going to learn better about the nature of the Trump administration.”

Hitchcock will remain a tenured faculty member at U-Va. but said he is sad to be leaving the Miller Center and the opportunities it afforded him.

Leffler, who will also retain his university post, said the decision to resign from the Miller Center was difficult because he values engaging policymakers across the political and ideological spectrum. But he felt compelled to step down “because I think that it is absolutely wrong to legitimize and normalize and reward and honor a person like Marc Short at the Miller Center.”

The professor said that he could have accepted Short as a guest at the center expressing his views but that the senior fellowship was not merited by Short’s career and violates the values of the center.

“Many people feel that Marc Short is a facilitator and a defender of an administration that assails truth and objectivity every day,” Leffler said.

The center has long represented informed dialogue, said Douglas Blackmon, a Miller Center faculty member and incoming senior fellow, but in this case, it didn’t follow its principles. “It was a highly unwise thing for the Miller Center to barrel ahead extending its imprimatur and its brand to a person whose record is really unknown other than his public commentary — which may have been what Marc Short really believed, may have been what he was directed to say, may be somewhere in between,” said Blackmon, who is remaining at the center.

L.F. Payne, a former Democratic congressman from Virginia with deep ties to the university and who serves on the Miller Center’s governing council, said he knows Short from when they were colleagues at the law firm McGuireWoods and has tremendous respect for him. Short, a graduate of U-Va.’s Darden School of Business, is someone whom Payne described as deeply thoughtful, with integrity, strong convictions and respect for other viewpoints.

Given the center’s study of the American presidency, Payne said, “the opportunity to have someone like Marc who had been in the Trump administration very close to the president to join us as a senior fellow is something I was very enthusiastic about and still am. I was surprised and saddened by the reaction and subsequent resignation by two of our really prized faculty members.”

Payne said the anniversary of last August’s Unite the Right rally is at the forefront of people’s minds in Charlottesville, and Trump’s comments about the clashes still rankle.

Antholis, who lives a couple of blocks from the statue of Robert E. Lee that drew white nationalists and others to Charlottesville a year ago, said it was important that someone who is a U-Va. graduate and cares about the university would join the center to foster understanding about the Trump administration.

It’s a difficult time for the country, he said, “and for that reason, it’s important to do the hard things.”

Read the resignation letter here:

pension plan fail?

july 2018

https://www.yaf.org/news/uva-yaf-denounces-uva-faculty-and-administrators-for-intolerance-regarding-marc-short/

community UVA petition calls for university to rollback decision to hire recent White House Legislative Director Marc Short

Charlottesville, VA—University of Virginia Young Americans for Freedom—UVA YAF—stands with Marc Short. We are extremely disappointed with the closemindedness and intolerance of leftists at UVA, including staff, professors, and administrators.

On Thursday, several petitions on change.org spread throughout the UVA community urging the university to reverse its decision to hire recent White House Legislative Director Marc Short. A few weeks ago, Short announced his July 20 departure from the White House, noting he had accepted the position of senior fellow at the school’s Miller Center—a nonpartisan center for study of the Presidency. He will also be teaching at UVA’s business school (of which he is an alumnus).

The University of Virginia is a community that prides itself on diversity, inclusion, and openness. This double standard regarding conservative viewpoints and conservative leaders is astonishing and very apparent.

Fellow UVA alumnus and 67th Governor of Virginia George Allen echoed UVA YAF’s concerns:

I suspect that many students at UVA would like to hear from a diversity of perspectives and experiences. Indeed, that was a benefit I appreciated when I was a freedom-loving student formulating my understanding of various subjects.

Students in the University of Virginia School of Business will be fortunate to learn from Marc Short. I know Marc as a courteous, knowledgeable and thoughtful person who will impart his valuable experiences and wisdom to his students and the Miller Centers scholarly research. A few loud, intolerant people won’t thwart this wise decision by Mr. Jefferson’s university to recruit respected Marc Short.

The sentiment that Marc Short should be run out of the UVA community is insulting to the conservative students of UVA YAF as well as those students who are too afraid to speak out for fear of enduring similar attacks from the Left.

Administrators and faculty members who have signed this petition are making a statement that conservative ideas and perspectives are not welcome in the UVA community.

Members of Young Americans for Freedom at UVA—the chapter affiliate of Young America’s Foundation—are not going to stand for such intolerance, which fosters animosity and hate.

UVA YAF Chairman Kevin McMahon stated,

It is clear there are some members of the UVA community that have no interest in intellectual diversity. Marc Short is a stand-up man, a patriot, and a fantastic conservative leader.

Having previously served in the White House, as a senior Capitol Hill staffer, and executive director of Young America’s Foundation, Marc Short represents the conservative principles and ideas of the students of UVA Young Americans for Freedom, who are also students of the University of Virginia. We look forward to welcoming Marc Short and his ideas on UVA grounds.

UVA YAF calls on President Sullivan and President-Elect Ryan to support intellectual diversity on campus, starting by publicly supporting their decision to hire Marc Short.

The bias at UVA is evident, and UVA YAF is no stranger to leftist hostility and obstruction.

Just last winter, after threatening a lawsuit, UVA YAF was finally approved as an official campus organization.

It is our hope that UVA will become a community more open to conservative ideas, and it is our mission to pursue the principles of limited government, individual liberty, strong national defense, free markets, and traditional values.

For further information or to request an interview contact YAF Spokesman Spencer Brown via email (sbrown@yaf.org) or phone (800-872-1776).yaf bs

==

==

ENERGY HOLDINGS PERMEATE TRUMP STAFF: Six of President Donald Trump’s senior advisers together own between $3.7 million and $12.3 million in energy company stocks, Pro’s Ben Lefebvre reports. Those officials — Ken Juster, Marc Short, Chris Liddell, Kathleen "KT" McFarland, Stephen Munisteri and Greg Katsas — have holdings in energy giants Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Kinder Morgan and a host of other companies. Watchdogs say that could create major conflicts of interest for a White House that has pledged to grow the nation's fossil fuel production.

[ad: chev heart nature]

Overall, about a dozen White House officials have some stake in energy companies, according to POLITICO and Center for American Progress analysis of financial disclosure forms. And the holdings would violate conflict of interest laws if any of these Trump staff try to shape energy policy, according to Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at government watchdog Common Cause. “It becomes a legal problem if it causes a conflict of interest. They would have to say, ‘Nope, sorry boss, can’t work on that,’” he told Ben.

==

inner circle:

On December 14, there was a meeting to discuss the outside group in a glass-walled conference room on the 14th floor of Trump Tower. Brad Parscale sat at the head of the table. Around him were roughly 12 people, including Rebekah; Kellyanne Conway; David Bossie; Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer; Jason Miller, then Trump’s senior communications adviser; and Marc Short, Mike Pence’s senior adviser. Parscale was known to be livid that Alexander Nix had gone on a PR blitz after the election, exaggerating CA’s role. Even worse, Parscale had heard that Nix had been telling people, “Brad screwed up. We had to rescue Brad.” (Nix denied this, saying, “Brad did a brilliant job.”)

And so when Rebekah pushed for CA to run the new group’s data operation, Parscale pushed back. “No offense to the Mercers,” he said, according to multiple attendees. “First, this group is about Trump, not about the Mercers. Second, I don’t have a problem with hiring Cambridge, but Cambridge can’t be the center of everything, because that’s not how the campaign ran.” (He did, however, suggest that Rebekah be on the board.) “No offense taken,” Rebekah replied.

But she would subsequently complain about the exchange to Bannon and others, and continued to lobby for CA to be at the center of the new organization. The situation became so testy that before the inauguration, Jared Kushner brought in Steve Hantler, Rebekah’s friend, to referee. Hantler, a quiet, gentlemanly sort, proposed that the venture be led by someone he knew would be acceptable to both sides: Nick Ayers, a senior adviser to Pence. The “outside group” is now named America First Policies. Parscale is a member, and its first national TV ads have appeared. Ayers has also been cultivating a friendship with Donald Trump Jr., who, sources say, may eventually want to lead the group himself.

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/01/13204/marc-short-koch-dark-money-operative-trump-legislative-director

When the history of Donald Trump's administration is written, people may point to the appointment of a Koch Brothers' operative to a little-known White House position as a turning point in Trump's evolution from unorthodox Republican candidate to doctrinaire corporate politician.

Meet Trump Legislative Director Marc Short

Think of it as a merger, or an acquisition. His administration hires suggest that Trump, who ran a heterodox and intermittently populist (if consistently bigoted) campaign, has been joining forces with the more established corporate extremism of the Republican Party establishment.

Consider Marc Short's appointment as Director of Legislative Affairs. According to the White House website, the Office of Legislative Affairs "serves as the President's primary liaison to the United States Congress, and is responsible for advancing the President's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill."

The Director of Legislative Affairs has typically been an obscure figure, plucked from a staffer job on Capitol Hill. And while the position calls for "working with Senators, Representatives, and their staffs to promote the President's priorities" (as the White House website puts it), Great Britain's Prince Phillip may have captured a key aspect of the job more pithily when he was introduced to one of Short's predecessors some years ago:

"Ah," Prince Philip said, "the spear catcher."

But Marc Short, who is reportedly Donald Trump's choice to fill the position, is more accustomed to doling out cash than he is to catching spears. It's true that Short has some Hill experience, as chief of staff to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and then-Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN).

Short isn't really a policy wonk. He's an operative in Republican and right-wing circles. After serving as finance director for Oliver North's failed senatorial campaign, Short reportedly helped Pence run the House Republican Conference, managed the Reagan Ranch, and was a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security under Bush.

The Kochs' Dark Money

Short is best known for his tenure as president of the Koch Brother's Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the political fund organized by the Koch Brothers to advance their far-right, pro-corporate, anti-environmental agenda. While the group describes itself as a "business league," CMD noted that its fundraising cycles much more closely resemble those of a political party, complete with high-tech voter lists and opposition research.

The Washington Post described the organization as "carefully constructed with extensive legal barriers to shield its donors" and said it operated "de facto banks" that were "feeding money to groups downstream."

Freedom Partners has reportedly cut checks for as much as $63 million to support campaigns and causes beloved by the Kochs and their allies, including anti-environmental groups, the National Rifle Association, and two different groups working to repeal Obamacare, the 60 Plus Association and the Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR) run by Koch money man Sean Noble (who renamed the group American Encore.)

CPPR/American Encore created some bad headlines for the Kochs.

It was forced to pay huge fines as part of a settlement with California Attorney General–now Senator–Kamala Harris for activities that were described as "campaign money laundering," although Noble and the Kochs denied wrongdoing. Three other groups that received Freedom Partners funding were fined by the Federal Election Commission last year for violating campaign regulations.

This is classic dark money behavior, and Short was in the middle of it.

Short doesn't just give money away. As president of Freedom Partners he received a lot, too. The latest IRS filing for the organization shows that Short was paid $1,110,328 in 2015 by the nonprofit, and received another $48,444 in "other compensation from the organization and related organizations." The last person to hold his White House job reportedly received $172,200 per year – an excellent standard by most measures, but a step down from Short's former salary.

The Kochs' Dark Money Man Peddled a Plan to Take Down Trump

Short's path to the White House was not without a surprise or two. He left Freedom Partners in 2016 to join Marco Rubio's campaign, a move that was interpreted by some as a sign that the Republican establishment wanted to stop Trump at all costs.

If the right-wing National Review is to be believed, Short was so determined to stop Trump that he personally presented Charles Koch with a plan for blistering ads "a detailed, eight-figure blueprint for derailing (Trump) on Super Tuesday," but was rebuffed.

He's come a long way since then.

So why the change of heart?

Perhaps because the candidate Short once wanted to stop is now poised to deliver on key elements of the Koch Brothers' agenda. Trump is appointing oil industry executives and lobbyists to a number of top positions and denies the reality of climate change. His xenophobic and bigoted rhetoric fuels the kind of fear that does great things for gun sales.

Like Freedom Partners, Trump is pushing deregulation. And Trump, together with his congressional allies, is poised to repeal Obamacare.

Recently, the Kochs' "grassroots" group Americans for Prosperity, is telling potential donors (with typically hyperbolic capitalization) that the Kochs' three-part agenda consists of  "1. REPEALING OBAMACARE; 2. FIXING OUR BROKEN TAX SYSTEM" – that is, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy – and, "3. CUTTING FEDERAL SPENDING."

Freedom Partners gave more than $130 million to organizations that supported Obamacare's repeal in 2012 along, according to its IRS filing. $115 million was given to the CPPR and $15.7 million went to the 60 Plus Association, which also lobbied heavily against it. CPPR funneled money to other groups as well, creating a fake storm of "grassroots" opposition.

Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity routinely used Obamacare as a hot-button issue, targeting key Democrats with "issues ads" in their re-election races – which, of course, means that they were aiding Republicans in those races. American Encore also spent millions the same way.

A Friendly Koch Takeover

Short is not the only Koch person to join the Trump Administration. VP Mike Pence is a Koch ally and he has been helping stack the cabinet with a coterie of Koch friends. Pence may become the most powerful vice president in U.S. history – outstripping even Dick Cheney in influence.

And while Trump has differed with the Kochs on some key issues – including trade, Social Security, and Medicare – they have always agreed on deregulation, privatization, the climate, taxes, and Obamacare. Trump's appointments suggest that he may be moving closer to the Kochs on other issues as well.

One thing seems clear already: the Kochs and their big-money allies seem poised to gain more influence than ever during a presidency they once tried to prevent.

Richard Eskow is a contributor to the Center for Media and Democracy.

==

trump transition:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/2017/01/trump-legislative-affairs-director-233113

By SHANE GOLDMACHER 01/02/17 11:53 PM EST

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name Marc Short, a top adviser to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, to lead the legislative affairs shop for the White House, a key position helping guide Trump’s agenda through the Republican Congress, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Rick Dearborn, the executive director of the presidential transition and a longtime chief of staff to Sen. Jeff Sessions, was originally in line for the legislative affairs post, but he is now expected to be named a deputy chief of staff, according to multiple transition officials. Dearborn’s expected title is deputy chief of staff for legislative, intergovernmental and cabinet affairs, according to a person familiar with the matter, and Short would be part of Dearborn’s team.

Short, who previously worked as a top operative running the expansive political network of billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, is a longtime adviser to Pence and has previously worked in both the House and Senate.

Short’s new perch will give Pence’s inner circle a critical foothold inside the White House, as Pence himself is expected to play a major role in shepherding Trump’s agenda through Capitol Hill. [ // cheney]

The Trump transition team and Short did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Short’s job was first reported on Twitter by Axios’ Mike Allen.

Short is a longtime Republican operative who served as chief of staff to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Pence, when he was in the House. During the 2016 campaign, Short worked as an adviser for Sen. Marco Rubio during the primaries and later as a senior adviser for Pence during the general election.

Since the election, Short has attended some meetings with Pence on Capitol Hill.

==

...

And many more Koch-linked operatives are expected to join Trump’s nascent administration in the coming weeks, according to Trump transition-team sources. Names being considered include Koch Industries lobbyist Brian Henneberry and former company spokesman Matt Lloyd, as well as Daniel Garza, who runs a Koch-backed nonprofit called the LIBRE Initiative that courts Latinos, not to mention a handful of veterans of the Koch network’s advocacy groups who worked on the Trump campaign — from top Pence adviser Marc Short and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to ex-campaign aides Stuart Jolly, Eli Miller, Scott Hagerstrom, Charles Munoz and Matt Ciepielowski.

Perhaps more surprisingly, despite some predictions of imminent policy clashes, there’s already informal communication between the Trump team and the Koch network, and both camps are signaling a willingness to work together on issues of mutual interest. David Koch even attended Trump’s election night victory party.

How long the comity lasts between Trump and the powerful Koch brothers could go far in determining whether Trump is able to take full advantage of the complete Republican control of Washington ushered in by his stunning victory over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Things weren’t so agreeable during the campaign, when the Koch operation blocked Trump from directly accessing its data or its candidate forums, while the brothers condemned the first-time candidate for his combative tone, his calls for a Muslim immigration ban and his opposition to the sorts of trade policies that facilitate the brothers’ vision of unfettered global capitalism. At one point, Charles Koch compared the choice between Trump and Clinton to choosing between “cancer or heart attack,” and the Koch network did not spend any money directly boosting Trump or attacking Clinton.

Trump in turn boasted that the Kochs could not influence him because he didn’t “want their money or anything else from them.” And he blasted his rivals for the GOP nomination as puppets of the Kochs. A possible truce after Trump clinched the nomination broke down quickly, with the two sides clashing over who rejected a proposed meeting.

The Koch network, which some believed was discouraging its operatives from working with Trump’s campaign, is now seen by insiders as welcoming the chance to have allies on the inside of Trump’s administration.

At the same time, though, the network already is signaling that it intends to oppose aspects of Trump’s agenda that run counter to the brothers’ brand of small government, low-regulation conservatism, possibly including the incoming president’s $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan and his pledge to renegotiate trade deals.

Trump’s press office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

James Davis, a spokesman for Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the central group in the Koch network, said, “We’ll try to find areas to work together to advance a free and open society and reverse the counterproductive policies that have created a two-tiered society.” He added: “We wish the new administration well.”

Setting aside the personal and policy conflicts, Trump’s willingness to draw from the Kochs’ operation makes sense in several ways....

Charles and David Koch over the past decade mobilized some of the biggest donors on the right to finance what amounts to a privatized political party — a network of donors and advocacy groups that became a leading employer of conservative operatives and policy professionals independent of the official GOP during a period when Republicans were mostly out of power in Washington.

The 1,200-employee network, which claims it will have spent about $750 million in the run-up to the 2016 election, would have been a logical pool from which any incoming Republican administration might have drawn as it endeavored to fill thousands of jobs.

But there’s an added appeal for Trump.

During the campaign, Trump railed against a Washington GOP establishment — embodied by the family of his vanquished primary foe Jeb Bush — from which the Kochs for years had worked to demonstrate their independence. And, after he won, President-elect Trump announced a sweeping lobbying ban that could be more of a deterrent for many conservative policy professionals than for Koch network staffers, who can work for years within the brothers’ network of think tanks and advocacy groups without directly lobbying federal or state officials.

“If you’re not going to pull from the Chamber of Commerce, Bush wing of the party, you don’t have that many places to go, so it makes sense to look to Koch world,” said a GOP operative who advised Trump team’s during the campaign and the transition. “Trump is looking for new blood that wasn’t part of the traditional establishment, and his presidency is already totally rewriting the Republican hierarchy. There were all these people who were locked out who are now getting their chance.”

Some former Koch staffers told POLITICO that the allure of joining Trump’s team was compounded by what they saw as the network’s retreat from the 2016 presidential race and its increased emphasis on advocating libertarian-infused policies such as decreasing incarceration and government subsidies.

“It’s less a result of Trump recruiting from the network as it is a result of the network retreating from the political field, leaving people looking for places they could go to have an impact,” said a former network staffer who worked on the Trump campaign.

In fact, many of the Koch veterans who played major roles in the Trump campaign had left the Koch network weeks or even months before joining forces with Trump, including Short, Lewandowski, Ciepielowski, Cobb, Jolly, Miller and Munoz — none of whom responded to requests for comment for this story.

Most notably, Short resigned his role as president of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce in late February to join Marco Rubio’s rival presidential campaign, motivated partly by the network’s decision to sit out the presidential race.

Short landed in Trump’s orbit when the Republican nominee tapped as his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. A longtime ally of the Koch network, Pence had previously employed both Short and Lloyd, who later went to work for Koch Industries, the privately owned multinational oil and industrial conglomerate that is the source of the brothers’ fortunes, which are estimated at $43 billion each. Short is now helping Pence run the transition effort and is expected to fill a senior role in the vice president’s office, as is Lloyd, who is working as a deputy chief of staff in Pence’s gubernatorial office in Indiana and could not be reached for comment.

Other ex-Koch operatives, including Lewandowski, left the network on less-than-great terms, and jumped at the chance to join up early with Trump as he launched a campaign that few establishment operatives or donors took seriously.

Lewandowski had worked for years at Americans for Prosperity, where he drew complaints from co-workers and directed an underperforming voter registration initiative. Still, he brought with him from AFP undeniable organizing experience. Under his leadership, the Trump campaign brought on a number of former AFP operatives, including Ciepielowski, Cobb, Jolly, Miller and Munoz — all of whom are up for posts in Trump’s administration or at the Republican National Committee, according to sources in Trump’s operation.

Cobb is currently working for the transition team, which also is getting advice from Selnick and Pyle.

Selnick is a senior adviser and consultant to Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit group funded by the Koch network that has pushed to allow veterans to access private health care — a goal that Trump embraced on the campaign trail.

“The Trump transition team’s collaboration with experts like Darin is a positive sign that the president-elect is prioritizing real VA reform,” said Dan Caldwell, a Concerned Veterans spokesman, referring to the Department of Veterans Affairs. “We are optimistic that President-elect Trump will now turn these ideas into tangible reforms, and we will support him in that effort.”

...

For decades, the Kochs had pursued their goals by sinking tens of millions of dollars into wonky research and advocacy groups. It was only during George W. Bush’s presidency that the brothers and their allies began to question whether the power of their ideas alone could carry the day. A movement that started with 15 rich conservatives gathering in Chicago and a single main group — Americans for Prosperity — by 2008 became a congregation of roughly 100 major donors backing a handful of think tanks, grass-roots advocacy networks and political organizations.

In 2012, the newly created Freedom Partners — the umbrella group for the Kochs’ political operation — raised and spent roughly $250 million. Headed by Marc Short, a former top staffer in the House and Senate, Freedom Partners dispenses funds and expertise to myriad affiliate groups in the network. This year, it began wading into political and policy fights on its own — spinning off a super PAC that spent at least $24 million boosting Republican Senate candidates.

Heading into 2016, the Koch network — under the auspices of Freedom Partners — has in many ways surpassed the reach and resources of the RNC. And, unlike the party, it isn’t bound by rules requiring it to maintain neutrality in primaries. Though the network has yet to engage in primaries, that could be the next logical step in its progression from apolitical think tank consortium to aggressive privatized political machine.

With good data, we can target them with the right message at the right moment.

The Kochs and their donors and operatives have been sought out by most of the leading 2016 GOP prospects – from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky to Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas. Their allies are acutely aware of the potential for the Koch groups and their donors to sway the primaries — even if they don’t formally back a candidate.

A key adviser to one of the top GOP presidential prospects said: “If I could have Karl Rove or Marc Short to run a presidential campaign today, I’d take Marc Short. He understands all the technical tools available to a modern campaign and how to apply them to the nominating process. He also has a deep understanding of the political dynamics of the GOP base vote.”

Short’s connection to another potential GOP presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, is among the biggest reasons that the Kochs are considering whether going all-in on a presidential campaign would be a good investment. Short was chief of staff to the House Republican Conference when then-Rep. Pence was the chairman, and Short remains a close adviser to Pence.

Veterans of GOP presidential campaigns say that while the Kochs could not, by themselves, provide the credibility necessary to create a candidate for president, their weapons could make a decisive difference for someone who was already running a viable campaign for the nomination — someone like Pence, whose record could make him a bridge between the GOP’s evangelical and establishment wings.

A candidate favored by the Kochs and their allies could potentially benefit from the full range activities of groups in the Koch network. The biggest presence is AFP, which spent $130 million in the midterms, with 550 paid staff, including 50 in Florida alone.

The LIBRE Initiative, a network-backed group aimed at Hispanics, has 40 staff at its Arlington, Virginia, headquarters and 40 field staff (25 of them part-time) in seven states. Generation Opportunity, the Kochs’ outreach arm for 18- to 34-year-olds, has 30 full-time, paid grass-roots staffers running boots-on-the-ground activism in 10 states. Concerned Veterans for America, another Koch-backed group based in Arlington, has 60 paid staff in 14 states.

Pete Hegseth, an infantry captain in the Army National Guard who is the group’s CEO, says veterans are “reflexively conservative, and they know how to organize.”

“With good data, we can target them with the right message at the right moment,” Hegseth said. “They could be much more powerful than they are. There’s no reason veterans can’t be the unions of the right.”

..

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/koch-brothers-rnc-113359

==

==

koch atm politico

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/koch-brothers-990-filing-215979

...

he tax filings show that Freedom Partners paid Aegis Strategic $1.3 million in consulting fees. And Freedom Partners donated $693,000 to an affiliated super PAC, Freedom Partners Action Fund, which last fall aired ads attacking Democratic Senate candidates, including Ernst’s general election opponent, then-Rep. Bruce Braley.

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce’s tax filings reveal that the group is branching out beyond merely disseminating cash to other entities for political and public policy advocacy, and has built its own robust operation. Its staff, which numbered 60 employees in 2013, grew to 133 employees last year. They were paid a total of $13 million in salary and benefits, including $794,000 that went to the salary and benefits of the group’s president Marc Short.

That salary puts him well ahead of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who made $153,000 last year, but far behind U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue, who was paid $4.9 million in 2011.

Freedom Partners also spent heavily on functions it used to delegate to grantees. It spent $1.9 million on focus groups and $1.2 million on advertising production. It paid $1.5 million to the firm of Frank Luntz, a regular guest at Koch donor seminars, and $1.4 million to the Utah-based direct mail firm Arena Communications.

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Marc_Short

Marc Short is the president of Freedom Partners. In that role, he oversees the spending of grants from that Koch donor organization, which amounted to over $250 million in 2012.[1]

During the 2012 election cycle, Freedom Partners served as a "de facto bank" in the $400 million Koch network, according to the Washington Post. It played a key role in "the network of politically active nonprofit groups backed by the Kochs and fellow donors in the 2012 elections [which] financially outpaced other independent groups on the right and, on its own, matched the long-established national coalition of labor unions that serves as one of the biggest sources of support for Democrats."[2]

See also: Freedom Partners.

Koch Wiki

The Koch brothers -- David and Charles -- are the right-wing billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries. As two of the richest people in the world, they are key funders of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on the Kochs include: Koch Brothers, Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity, American Encore, and Freedom Partners.

Contents  [hide]

1 Professional Background

2 Ties to the Koch Brothers

3 References

Professional Background

Prior to his current role, Short served in a number of positions, including chief of staff for the House Republican Conference, chaired by then-Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN), and for former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX). He was also a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, executive director of the Reagan Ranch, the executive director of the Freedom Alliance, and the director of the Virginia Finance Committee for Oliver North’s senatorial campaign.[3]

Ties to the Koch Brothers

Short has been heavily involved with the Koch brothers and their network of right-wing donors. Along with Freedom Partners’ Kevin Gentry and Americans for Prosperity’s Tim Phillips, Short came up through GOP politics in Virginia, and together, the three so-called Koch operatives have been characterized as “the Koch’s liaisons to Washington’s professional conservative class.”[4]

Short has been described as the newest member of that particular inner circle, having been hired in 2011 to work for the Kochs, though not officially joining Freedom Partners until 2013.[5] In his role, Short oversees the spending of Koch and Koch-tied money by affiliated organizations, some of which, in turn, is spent against Democrats in elections. He was also the Kochs’ representative to the Karl Rove-led Weaver Terrace Group, a coalition of right wing organizations that coordinated ad spending in the 2012 election cycle. Short took over after the departure of another Koch operative, Sean Noble.[4]

References

Jump up? Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei, Exclusive: The Koch brothers' secret bank, Politico, September 11, 2013.

Jump up? Matea Gold, "Koch-backed political coalition, designed to shield donors, raised $400 million in 2012," Washington Post, January 5, 2014.

Jump up? Freedom Partners, Board Members page, FreedomPartners.org, accessed June 11, 2014.

? Jump up to:4.0 4.1 Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti, Inside Koch world, Politico, June 15, 2012.

Jump up? Eric Lach, Meet The man Who Runs The Koch Brothers’ Secret Bank, Talking Points Memo, September 16, 2013.

Category: Koch Connection

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.

==

ERIC LACH – SEPTEMBER 16, 2013, 3:23 PM EDT

==

huffpo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/koch-brothers-group_n_3164357.html

New Koch Brothers Group Revamps Billionaires' Dark Money Operation

Posted: 04/26/2013

Now the new group is looking to enhance donor interest by rebranding Koch-backed projects and to improve controls over their funding, according to GOP operatives familiar with the plan. It also may help Koch-backed efforts fly under the radar better and lower the Koch brothers' public profiles after last year's intense media coverage.

"The outside political efforts last year by Republican-leaning groups are widely regarded as a failure," said one GOP operative. "Trotting out the same old groups and strategies will not be received well by donors. That's why you see major rebranding efforts."

The GOP operatives who spoke to HuffPost requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inner workings and funding of Koch political projects, which are often shrouded in secrecy.

Koch Industries spokesman Rob Tappan did not respond to requests for comment.

Starting on Sunday in Palm Springs, Calif., Charles Koch is hosting a two-day strategy and fundraising conference for hundreds of wealthy conservative donors and corporate executives. Pitches to financially help the new association and other Koch-backed outfits will be made, say the GOP operatives. (The event is one of two that the Kochs hold each winter and summer, but this year the winter event was postponed until this weekend to finish a post-election analysis.)

Other topics on the agenda include the need to improve the recruitment of "principled candidates to run for office" and to "more effectively communicate" with key demographic groups such as Hispanics, women and youth, according to an email invitation sent to donors by Kevin Gentry, who coordinates Koch conference fundraising.

More broadly, Gentry's missive -- first disclosed by Mother Jones magazine -- promised that conference attendees will have an opportunity to "join the most strategic market-oriented minds in the business world to advance a plan to defend our free enterprise system." To attract donors and pry open checkbooks, the conference will feature some big-name GOP governors, members of Congress and conservative commentators.

The shakeup and shifts in the Koch-backed political network have been underway for months. The realignment is designed to better position conservatives to take on Democrats and some GOP moderates in the next elections and to enhance the credibility of the Kochs' free market messages.

Perhaps to boost those prospects and advance their small government agenda with the media, the Koch brothers are reportedly weighing a bid for the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and several other papers.

The Association for American Innovation was set up and approved by the IRS last year, according to public documents, with help from veteran Koch operative Wayne Gable, who since the 1980s has held top posts with the brothers' conservative outfits. Gable was once a senior lobbyist with Koch Industries, the energy conglomerate that's enriched each brother to the tune of over $30 billion, according to Forbes.

For now at least, the association is being spearheaded by Kansas-based Alan Cobb, who previously spent several years leading the state operations for Americans for Prosperity and is expected to focus heavily on state free market programs to reduce the size of government, as Politico first reported. Cobb also did a stint lobbying for Koch Industries.

It's another sign of the importance of the new effort that Short, who has overseen political spending for the Kochs in Washington, is moving to the association, according to the GOP operatives. They say that Gentry, the Koch donor network's lead fundraiser, may also be shifted there.

More broadly, the launch of the innovation group mirrors past attempts by the Koch brothers to start new outfits to attract more funding and increase their influence -- efforts that also often involved shifting around veteran Koch operatives.

Why the Kochs opted to set up the Association for American Innovation as a business league isn't entirely clear, but there's no doubt that the scrutiny of 501(c)(4) social welfare groups intensified during the last election. Watchdog groups have sharply criticized several (c)(4)s for their hefty political spending, charging that some have violated IRS rules mandating that (c)(4)s cannot have politics as their primary purpose. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold hearings this spring to examine IRS oversight of (c)(4) groups.

"It's possible that the Kochs think there's less audit exposure with a (c)(6)," said Marc Owens, who used to run the tax exempt division at the IRS and is now a partner at the law firm Caplin & Drysdale. Owens added that there could be risks with the business association: "It's not clear to me what line of business is furthered by an innovation group. That could make it difficult to establish entitlement to (c)(6) status with the IRS."

Some other experts echo Owens. "A dues or annual payment to a business association isn't likely to raise questions," said Ken Gross of Skadden. "But if the business league isn't actively promoting a line of commerce and is acting more like an ideological group, the payments may come under scrutiny."

Nonetheless, the benefits of launching the association as a 501(c)(6) may outweigh other risks given the intensifying probe by California's Fair Political Practices Commission and the state's attorney general. Working closely together, they have issued more than a dozen subpoenas to groups and individuals in order to find the true source of $11 million that was funneled through three dark money groups -- including the Center to Protect Patient Rights run by Koch operative Sean Noble -- to influence two ballot initiatives last fall. Under California law, donors to ballot initiative campaigns have to be publicly disclosed.

In the last two federal elections, Noble's group also funneled more than $60 million to some two dozen conservative groups, such as Americans for Tax Reform, the American Future Fund and Americans for Job Security, to buy television ads to help GOP candidates. Noble is expected to play a significantly smaller role in the Koch network going forward, say GOP operatives.

In Palm Springs on April 28 and 29, donors will receive briefings from various Koch operatives on the brothers' months-long post-election review of what went wrong and hear pitches for new Koch-backed ventures like the Association for American Innovation and for others. In the last few years, the Koch donor network has stepped up its financial backing for a few Hispanic and women's groups that take conservative stances on lower taxes and less regulation, efforts that should increase given the GOP's poor 2012 results with these constituencies. Among those groups receiving money from the Koch donor network, GOP operatives say, are Concerned Women for America and the Libre Initiative, which was launched by Dan Garza, a former White House aide under President George W. Bush.

The retooling of the Kochs' political machine and perhaps the innovation association were presaged late last year. In post-election comments to Forbes, both Koch brothers voiced clear disappointment with the election results but showed no signs of slowing down their giving.

"We're going to study what worked, what didn't work and improve our efforts in the future," David Koch vowed. "We're not going to roll over and play dead."

Now the new group is looking to enhance donor interest by rebranding Koch-backed projects and to improve controls over their funding, according to GOP operatives familiar with the plan. It also may help Koch-backed efforts fly under the radar better and lower the Koch brothers' public profiles after last year's intense media coverage.

"The outside political efforts last year by Republican-leaning groups are widely regarded as a failure," said one GOP operative. "Trotting out the same old groups and strategies will not be received well by donors. That's why you see major rebranding efforts."

The GOP operatives who spoke to HuffPost requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inner workings and funding of Koch political projects, which are often shrouded in secrecy.

Koch Industries spokesman Rob Tappan did not respond to requests for comment.

Starting on Sunday in Palm Springs, Calif., Charles Koch is hosting a two-day strategy and fundraising conference for hundreds of wealthy conservative donors and corporate executives. Pitches to financially help the new association and other Koch-backed outfits will be made, say the GOP operatives. (The event is one of two that the Kochs hold each winter and summer, but this year the winter event was postponed until this weekend to finish a post-election analysis.)

Other topics on the agenda include the need to improve the recruitment of "principled candidates to run for office" and to "more effectively communicate" with key demographic groups such as Hispanics, women and youth, according to an email invitation sent to donors by Kevin Gentry, who coordinates Koch conference fundraising.

More broadly, Gentry's missive -- first disclosed by Mother Jones magazine -- promised that conference attendees will have an opportunity to "join the most strategic market-oriented minds in the business world to advance a plan to defend our free enterprise system." To attract donors and pry open checkbooks, the conference will feature some big-name GOP governors, members of Congress and conservative commentators.

The shakeup and shifts in the Koch-backed political network have been underway for months. The realignment is designed to better position conservatives to take on Democrats and some GOP moderates in the next elections and to enhance the credibility of the Kochs' free market messages.

Perhaps to boost those prospects and advance their small government agenda with the media, the Koch brothers are reportedly weighing a bid for the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and several other papers.

The Association for American Innovation was set up and approved by the IRS last year, according to public documents, with help from veteran Koch operative Wayne Gable, who since the 1980s has held top posts with the brothers' conservative outfits. Gable was once a senior lobbyist with Koch Industries, the energy conglomerate that's enriched each brother to the tune of over $30 billion, according to Forbes.

For now at least, the association is being spearheaded by Kansas-based Alan Cobb, who previously spent several years leading the state operations for Americans for Prosperity and is expected to focus heavily on state free market programs to reduce the size of government, as Politico first reported. Cobb also did a stint lobbying for Koch Industries.

It's another sign of the importance of the new effort that Short, who has overseen political spending for the Kochs in Washington, is moving to the association, according to the GOP operatives. They say that Gentry, the Koch donor network's lead fundraiser, may also be shifted there.

More broadly, the launch of the innovation group mirrors past attempts by the Koch brothers to start new outfits to attract more funding and increase their influence -- efforts that also often involved shifting around veteran Koch operatives.

Why the Kochs opted to set up the Association for American Innovation as a business league isn't entirely clear, but there's no doubt that the scrutiny of 501(c)(4) social welfare groups intensified during the last election. Watchdog groups have sharply criticized several (c)(4)s for their hefty political spending, charging that some have violated IRS rules mandating that (c)(4)s cannot have politics as their primary purpose. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will hold hearings this spring to examine IRS oversight of (c)(4) groups.

"It's possible that the Kochs think there's less audit exposure with a (c)(6)," said Marc Owens, who used to run the tax exempt division at the IRS and is now a partner at the law firm Caplin & Drysdale. Owens added that there could be risks with the business association: "It's not clear to me what line of business is furthered by an innovation group. That could make it difficult to establish entitlement to (c)(6) status with the IRS."

Some other experts echo Owens. "A dues or annual payment to a business association isn't likely to raise questions," said Ken Gross of Skadden. "But if the business league isn't actively promoting a line of commerce and is acting more like an ideological group, the payments may come under scrutiny."

Nonetheless, the benefits of launching the association as a 501(c)(6) may outweigh other risks given the intensifying probe by California's Fair Political Practices Commission and the state's attorney general. Working closely together, they have issued more than a dozen subpoenas to groups and individuals in order to find the true source of $11 million that was funneled through three dark money groups -- including the Center to Protect Patient Rights run by Koch operative Sean Noble -- to influence two ballot initiatives last fall. Under California law, donors to ballot initiative campaigns have to be publicly disclosed.

In the last two federal elections, Noble's group also funneled more than $60 million to some two dozen conservative groups, such as Americans for Tax Reform, the American Future Fund and Americans for Job Security, to buy television ads to help GOP candidates. Noble is expected to play a significantly smaller role in the Koch network going forward, say GOP operatives.

In Palm Springs on April 28 and 29, donors will receive briefings from various Koch operatives on the brothers' months-long post-election review of what went wrong and hear pitches for new Koch-backed ventures like the Association for American Innovation and for others. In the last few years, the Koch donor network has stepped up its financial backing for a few Hispanic and women's groups that take conservative stances on lower taxes and less regulation, efforts that should increase given the GOP's poor 2012 results with these constituencies. Among those groups receiving money from the Koch donor network, GOP operatives say, are Concerned Women for America and the Libre Initiative, which was launched by Dan Garza, a former White House aide under President George W. Bush.

The retooling of the Kochs' political machine and perhaps the innovation association were presaged late last year. In post-election comments to Forbes, both Koch brothers voiced clear disappointment with the election results but showed no signs of slowing down their giving.

"We're going to study what worked, what didn't work and improve our efforts in the future," David Koch vowed. "We're not going to roll over and play dead."

The Koch brothers’ political operation has increasingly come to resemble its own political party — and later this month in San Diego, it will hold what amounts to its most ambitious convention to date.

Many of the dozens of rich conservative invitees are expected to write huge checks to a pool of cash distributed among Koch-approved groups, potentially boosting the Kochs’ 2012 spending plan beyond their historic $395 million goal. And it’s also a chance for the Kochs to show off their increasingly robust political machine, including a growing voter database project called Themis that played a major role in conservatives’ recent efforts in Wisconsin and in which POLITICO has learned Koch operatives have discussed investing $20 million.

(Also on POLITICO: Losing faith on campaign finance)

It’s part of an ambitious expansion of the billionaire brothers’ political operation that includes the recruitment of new donors and fundraisers into their network by a development team led by summit emcee Kevin Gentry, and their recent hiring of in-house political operative Marc Short to oversee the spending of funds raised at the summits.

The expansion is also reflected in Charles and David Kochs’ bid to take over the libertarian Cato Institute as well as their operations steering cash to groups that aren’t commonly thought of as Koch affiliated. The 60 Plus Association, American Energy Alliance, American Future Fund, Americans for Limited Government and National Right to Life have all received funds through the Koch donor network.

“They ask for support — and they get it because we all love our country and we have a different vision than do the liberals,” said Stanley Hubbard, a Minnesota television station owner who has attended the Koch donor summits for years and plans to be in San Diego for this month’s meeting. “I’ve gotten friends to be involved, and I think others have, too, so I would guess, yes, that’s expanding.”

Yet, even as Koch World has increasingly flexed its muscles in conservative politics, its inner sanctum — comprised of the brothers and their longtime right-hand man Richard Fink — has remained all but impenetrable to even big GOP players who want a piece of the Koch action or invitations to the summits, according to numerous operatives.

The specific location of the San Diego summit could not be determined. And a Koch spokesman declined to comment on details of the summit, which starts the weekend of June 23, or the brothers’ political plans.

“The Koch groups are very complex in the way they do things. They’re difficult to penetrate from the outside, which is smart,” said one GOP operative who has worked with Koch-backed groups. “You often need a Sherpa.”

That’s what makes Gentry, Short and Tim Phillips so powerful. They came up together in the good-ol’-boy universe of Virginia GOP politics, and they’re now the Kochs’ liaisons to Washington’s professional conservative class.

A number of sources with knowledge of Koch World — who did not want to speak publicly about it for fear of being cut out of the loop — said the trio carry with them the full confidence of the brothers and Fink, and the ability to make and execute decisions on their behalf, not to mention access to the mega-donors who make the network so potent.

The roles break down thusly: Phillips runs the Kochs’ primary political vehicle Americans for Prosperity and Short oversees the spending of Koch network cash by other approved groups, some of which air among the sharpest attack ads against Democrats, and Gentry raises the Koch network’s cash.

Gentry’s fundraising appeals can strike an urgent tone, as was the case in a letter he sent to attendees of a 2008 Koch donor summit, warning that “our society faces dangerous and imminent threats.” The letter, reported here for the first time, seemed to compare the Koch summit with the Continental Congress and asked, “Can a small but dedicated group of leaders make a difference?”

Gentry also leads a sort of informal network of fundraisers for top conservative think tanks and advocacy groups around the country, including The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, POLITICO has learned.

In a weekly email to the network, Gentry passes along tips on donor prospecting and maintenance and cites best practices. For example, in a February email obtained by POLITICO, he shared advice from a Heritage fundraiser who suggested his group won the loyalty of a million-dollar donor who attended Koch summits by introducing him to big names who spoke at Heritage events, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Short, who attends the same church as Gentry, is by far the newest member of the inner circle, having been hired only last year to oversee the spending of Koch donor network cash by other groups. Previously, the Kochs had tasked a contractor named Sean Noble with the responsibility. Short — who most recently had worked with Koch-favorite Rep. Mike Pence, leading an unsuccessful effort to lure him into the presidential race — has been representing Koch World at the Karl Rove-conceived Weaver Terrace Group meetings where conservative groups coordinate ad spending.

But Koch World’s expansion has raised hackles among critics in the conservative movement who see the Kochs and their operatives as secretive control freaks who don’t always play well with others and are trying to leverage their cash to expand their influence.

Karl Rove's Fight Club

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico

27 March 12

coalition that helped Republicans retake the House majority in 2010 is back and plotting even bigger plans in 2012, with more money, more players - and more problems.

The top conservative operatives who make up the alliance were scheduled to huddle this week behind closed doors to discuss how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to attack President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats.

And participants were reminded in an email that the gathering shares a key rule with Fight Club: no talking about it.

Karl Rove first pulled the group together to coordinate independent spending in the run-up to the 2010 midterms - and it worked. The coalition - including groups that hadn't always played well together - has been credited with helping boost Republicans to sweeping victories across the country.

But this time around, the tenuous alliance is being tested. New players are joining, heightening already intense competition for money, voter intel and, in a broad sense, control of the Republican Party. Meanwhile, some conservative groups that participated in the 2010 effort - including Americans for Prosperity and the Club for Growth - seem to be keeping their distance.

Dubbed the Weaver Terrace Group for the Northwest Washington address where Rove convened the first meetings in his living room, the meetings are now hosted in the downtown Washington offices of a pair of linked powerhouses conceived by Rove, American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies.

An email sent to attendees Friday by Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio warned participants that POLITICO "is calling folks up asking who attends the Weaver Terrace meetings" and included as a reminder "for those of you who don't remember the rules of the road" a YouTube link to footage from the film "Fight Club." In the clip, Brad Pitt's character says: "The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club."

But the group's biggest challenge this year may have less to do with secrecy and more to do with the third rule: "Someone yells 'stop,' … the fight is over." Internecine rifts that reappeared after the historic 2010 effort and widened during the congressional and presidential primaries suggest that a bigger, wealthier tent won't necessarily translate into a more cohesive effort come the general election - unless attendees can set aside their mixed feelings about Mitt Romney and quash other beef.

For instance, a super PAC affiliated with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, which has been invited to recent Weaver Terrace meetings and was considering sending a representative for the first time this week, is under fire from other meeting participants. They're unhappy that the super PAC, YG Action Fund, waded into a contested GOP primary in Illinois last week, spending $52,000 on an ad backing a freshman Republican who Cantor had endorsed in a successful challenge to a 10-term incumbent with wider establishment backing.

"YG" stands for "Young Guns," Cantor's self-styled political brand. And Republican insiders have grumbled that Cantor is using the super PAC - which, in combination with a pair of secret-donor-funded "YG" non-profits, intend to spend a total of $30 million through the first 100 days of 2013 - to boost his own political cachet and fundraising network.

In fact, Cantor has been moving in money circles outside Washington's GOP establishment. POLITICO has learned that he attended the Koch brothers' winter conference in California this January - his second appearance at a soiree considered the preeminent networking event for conservative mega-donorsand the politicians currying their favor.

Groups funded by the billionaire libertarian industrialists Charles and David Koch and their network sent representatives to the Weaver Terrace meetings in 2010 and are expected to do so again this year. But the Kochs have also at times positioned themselves as rivals of the more-establishment oriented Rove network. For instance, they're backing a multi-million-dollar voter file project that's seen in some quarters as directly competing with one backed by the Republican National Committee, and allies of Rove and House Speaker John Boehner, who has had an occasionally chilly relationship with Cantor.

A new super PAC affiliated with Boehner called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has become a key part of the Weaver Terrace network, even joined the chorus of GOP tongue clucking over Cantor's Illinois play.

The Leadership Fund "is not inclined to engage in primaries between incumbent members of the House Republican Conference," Brian Walsh, the operative running the PAC, told POLITICO last week.

Walsh, who also runs another Weaver Terrace stalwart called American Action Network and is a regular at the meetings, declined to comment on the gatherings, as did John Murray, the former Cantor aide behind the YG groups.

But Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform and a Weaver Terrace attendee, predicted participants will set aside primary-related rifts to focus on their shared goal of defeating Democrats in November. "You're allowed to have intramurals, but those things will sort themselves out over time," he said. Though he explained "I don't feel comfortable talking about off-the-record meetings," Norquist added "I can talk in general about the willingness and capacity of people to work together. And it's as strong now as it was in 2010 and I think everybody is just better at it, and more capable of raising money, because it's a presidential year, and more capable of playing well together because everybody did it once."

The idea of the Weaver Terrace Group was to coordinate spending strategies between legacy conservative groups, and a network of new or revamped GOP-allied groups conceived in the run-up to the 2010 midterms by Rove and fellow Bush-era GOP operative Ed Gillespie. As more attendees joined, the meetings relocated to the Crossroads' offices, where they are typically are presided over by Crossroads' president Steven Law, usually over lunch. They are now being held monthly, but, if 2010 is a guide, they will increase in frequency as the general election approaches.

In 2010, they became the de facto nerve center for the post-Bush Republican establishment, divvyingup competitive Senate and House races to maximize advertising dollars and avoid duplication. The unprecedented effort was predicated on a pair of 2010 federal court decisions that empowered independent groups to raise unlimited sums for political ads, and led to an expansion of undisclosed money in politics and the creation of super PACs - all of which had the effect of shifting power and cash away from candidates and their parties.

The roster of groups and players represented at the meetings, most of which do not disclose their donors, reads like a guide to who will shape the 2012 elections on the right - their combined spending plans tallying upwards of $600 million.

Weaver Terrace is anchored by the Crossroads groups, which plan to spend as much as $300 millionahead of Election Day 2012 and have also positioned themselves as funders of other conservative groups, and American Action Network. It spent $30 million during the 2010 campaign, when it shared the New York Avenue office suite with Crossroads, and likely will shoot for at least that sum this year.

Other participants have included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is planning to a 2012 play ofmore than $50 million, Americans for Job Security, Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-abortion rights group, and the Republican Jewish Coalition. A source familiar with the RJC's 2012 plans said they include spending more than $6 million directly on "the largest, most expensive, most sophisticated outreach effort ever under taken in the Jewish community."

The group shares a pair of board members with American Action Network - former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman and veteran fundraiser Fred Malek - and in 2010 it donated a total of $8 million to Crossroads and American Action Network, according to tax filings.

Yet, a handful of conservative groups that attended the meetings in 2010 are staying away during the primary, with some citing support by key Weaver Terrace players for Romney and establishment congressional candidates deemed insufficiently conservative.

"I don't think there will be that same commonality of interest in 2012," said one operative whose group was represented at the 2010 meetings. "The major potential fault lines will be over what happens if Romney wins the nomination and it starts looking like he can't win," the operative said, predicting that Crossroads "will still spend money supporting him and bashing Obama," while "other groups will focus on winning the Senate, protecting the House or just pushing their issues."

Another operative said conservative groups are leery of Rove, asserting "There are a lot of guys out there who don't want to have anything to do with him. I have my own group, I have my own money. I want to be helpful, but I don't want get swallowed up and be perceived as part of that Karl Rove establishment dynasty."

The fiscal conservative hardline group Club for Growth attended Weaver Terrace Group meetings in 2010, but doesn't plan to attend this week's meeting and hasn't decided whether to attend future gatherings, said its president, former Indiana Congressman Chris Chocola. Instead, his group, which last week issued astern warning to Cantor and the YG Action Fund to stay out of a contested primary in Arizona, intends to focus on contesting GOP primaries rather than general election strategy, he said.

"The Weaver Terrace thing has not been all that significant to us," Chocola told POLITICO. "It's not a bad thing, it's just not our thing."

The same goes for Americans for Prosperity, the most prominent political group backed by the Koch brothers.

Its president Tim Phillips attended a couple of the meetings in 2010, but told POLITICO he bowed out because the focus was more on electing Republicans than pushing fiscally conservative policies. "We feel more comfortable talking about issue efforts, but I'm not sure those meetings have that as much, so it doesn't make sense for us to go to them."

The relative cooperation of the Kochs may be among the biggest wild cards in determining the success of Weaver Terrace this year, since the brothers' network is aiming to steer significantly more than $200 million to conservative groups - a tally that puts them in same league as the Crossroads groups. The Koch cash comes from a pool including the brothers' own contributions and those raised from wealthy conservatives at their twice-a-year donor summits, such as the one Cantor attended this year in California, where - POLITICO had learned - the Kochs raised more than $150 million.

They are expected to dispatch one of their operatives - either Sean Noble, who attended in 2010, or Marc Short, a former chief of staff to Rep. Mike Pence who joined the Koch team last year - to Weaver Terrace to represent groups to which the Kochs steer cash. In 2010, that included not only Americans for Prosperity, but also the 60 Plus Association, American Future Fund and Americans for Limited Government.

But since their 2010 collaboration, there have also been signs of tensions between the camps.Crossroads and American Action Network supported Boehner's bill to increase the debt ceiling, while Americans for Prosperity, pressured conservatives to oppose it.

Plus, the Kochs are funding a voter file project to help turn-out voters called Themis that in some ways competes with a similar project called Data Trust backed by the RNC and Boehner and run partly by Mike Duncan, a former RNC chairman who sits on board of Crossroads.

While Themis is already out in the field being used by Koch-approved groups, a few operatives raised concerns about Data Trust, for which arrangements are still being finalized.

"Themis is a direct threat to what the Republican Party is doing," said one operative. "They're kind of in a super power data mining race."

==