A Cobb AFAI

Henke and other

departing AFP staffers signed nondisclosure agreements, and she did not

respond to requests for comment, but she appears to have completely left

the Koch network of groups.

That’s in contrast to other top AFP officials who recently left the

group to join or start other new groups regarded as part of the Koch

family, including Cobb’s Association for American Innovation and Phil

Kerpen’s American Commitment.

The moves fit a pattern the Koch operation has pioneered of creating —

and channeling millions of dollars to — political groups since it began

increasing its political involvement.

The technique has helped the Koch network win the loyalty of donors,

because it shields them from exposure, but it is now increasingly at

risk thanks to an investigation by the California Fair Political

Practices Commission.

The California investigation is trying to unmask the original source

of a mysterious $11 million donation that was funneled through a key

Koch conduit in the weeks before Election Day to a California political

committee boosting a 2012 ballot measure to restrict union political

activity and opposing a separate ballot proposition to raise taxes.

“What they already admitted was definitely money laundering,” commission Chairwoman Ann Ravel told POLITICO.

Ravel said the groups under investigation are “raising issues and not

providing everything requested” and that the agency may file a civil

complaint.

But she predicted the investigation could reveal the donors by the

middle of the year and potentially go after them if “the evidence shows

that the donors knew or should have known that they were contributing to

campaigns in California.”

Ravel’s commission has already forced the disclosure that, before the

$11 million made its way from an Arizona nonprofit called Americans for

Responsible Leadership (the originally disclosed donor) to the

California committee, it <a href="http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/17/cppr_11m_cfppc_110512.html" target="blank">passed from a Virginia-based nonprofit</a> called Americans for Job Security <a href="http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/17/amersforrespleadership_11m_cfppc_110512.html" target="blank">to an Arizona 501(c)4</a> called the Center to Protect Patients Rights.

The latter group, run by the Kochs’ top ad man, Sean Noble, has

played a key role in steering money to other Koch-backed groups, along

with another mysterious 501(c)4 group called TC4 Trust.

Between 2009 and 2011 (the most recent years for

which the groups’ tax returns were accessible), the two nonprofits

combined to steer more than $75 million to Koch-linked groups including

$18.1 million to the 60 Plus Association, $8 million to Public Notice

and its subsidiaries, $7.1 million to American Commitment, $6.8 million

to Themis and its subsidiaries, and $500,000 to Generation Opportunity.

They also donated $4.8 million to Americans for Job Security and

$900,000 to Americans for Responsible Leadership.

Americans for Responsible Leadership — which is <a href="http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/17/torchinsky_amersforrespldrshp_response_102412.html" target="_blank">represented by the lawyer</a>

for Americans for Prosperity, American Commitment, the Center to

Protect Patients Rights and other Koch-backed groups — contends that

Ravel’s commission is “bowing to political pressure,” ignoring the

Supreme Court’s 2010 <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31786.html" target="_blank">Citizens United decision</a> allowing unlimited corporate political expenditures and trying to scare the group and its donors.

The commission’s efforts “utterly discount the legitimate interest

that donors to non-profits have in maintaining their privacy” and have

had a “deterrent effect on the activities of both ARL and its donors,”

wrote Americans for Responsible Leadership in a <a href="http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/17/amersforrespldrshp_response-noexhbts_102512.html" target="_blank">legal brief </a>filed just before the election.

Beyond the California investigation, Noble has come under scrutiny in

the brothers’ post-election audit, sources say. His consulting firm, DC

London, though technically independent, is widely regarded as almost a

subsidiary of the Koch political operation. Its performance in 2012,

when it handled advertising and other paid media for a number of the

groups that get their cash through the Center to Protect Patients Rights

and TC4 Trust, was seen as a weak link by some in Koch World.

Since the election, Gentry, who runs the donor seminars, has sent

several emails to a list of operatives at other conservative groups

asking them to study various aspects of Obama’s advertising and

messaging strategies, becoming captivated this year with a 2012 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkmJ4gIa8ek" target="_blank">ad featuring Jennifer Lopez</a>, whom he called “the #1 public celebrity for young Latinas.”

It created “peer pressure to the target audience that if they don’t

join their fellow Latinos in ‘getting Obama’s back,’ then they will not

be part of the in-crowd,” he wrote. politico<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading">

    <span dir="auto">Association for American Innovation</span>

</h1>

        
    
    
        
    
    
                
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    <p><i>Association for American Innovation</i> is a 501(c) group apparently funded by the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_brothers" title="Koch brothers" class="mw-redirect">Koch brothers</a>. According to <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=C3F3B132-A7E6-44F4-A173-03E912635A0C">Politico</a>, "It will be run by former top <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Americans_For_Prosperity" title="Americans For Prosperity" class="mw-redirect">AFP</a> strategist <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alan_Cobb" title="Alan Cobb">Alan Cobb</a>

and will wage a behind-the-scenes push in state capitols for reforms

consistent with the brothers’ small-government, free-enterprise

philosophy, including possibly curbing union power and abolishing income

taxes."

The listed address for the Association for American Innovation is

2200 Wilson Blvd Ste 102-533 Arlington, VA 22201, which is a UPS Store

mail-drop.

The Association for American Innovation was also chartered as a Delaware corporation on November 2, 2011, according to <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.bizapedia.com/de/ASSOCIATION-FOR-AMERICAN-INNOVATION-INC.html">Bizpedia</a>.