Downs, Brent

Robert Mercer (left), the co-CEO of the $15 billion hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer, gave $3,804,354 million to super PACs.

Robert Mercer contributed $1 million to Restore Our Future (supporting Romney), $1 million to American Crossroads, $600,000 to Club for Growth Action, $250,000 to Freedom PAC, $250,000 to Prosperity First, $239,354 to Republican Super PAC and $200,000 to National Horizon. Rebekah Mercer gave $50,000 to the Coalition for American Values and $15,000 to the Club for Growth.

JOHN DOE WI

O'Keefe ties to the Franklin Center run deep. He was the CEO and chairman of the Sam Adams Alliance, which in 2009 launched and funded the Franklin Center. According to an O'Keefe <a href="http://www.libertyguide.com/resources/9-how-understanding-politics-helps-in-policy/" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">bio from last year:</a> [37] "Under his leadership, the Sam Adams Alliance (SAM) has established some of the most active and respected organizations in the freedom movement, including American Majority and the Franklin Center." Whether he continues to fund or direct funds to Franklin Center is unknown.

O'Keefe's Sam Adams Alliance, whose president was the former executive director of the Illinois State Republican party, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/the-group-em-behind-em-the-group-behind-that-sketchy-wisconsin-poll?ref=fpa" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">acted as</a> [38] the Franklin Center's "sponsoring organization" until the group obtained its 501(c)(3) status, <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/the-group-em-behind-em-the-group-behind-that-sketchy-wisconsin-poll?ref=fpa" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">according to its communications director</a> [38]. According to the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/noquarter/127152603.html" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Milwaukee Journal Sentinel</a> [3], much of the $2.9 million Franklin Center raised in its first year came from the Sam Adams Alliance. (The other group that O'Keefe boasts of creating in his bio, American Majority, was established to recruit and train Tea Party political candidates, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/192810837409217/" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">held a rally</a> [39] in support of Governor Walker during the height of the 2011 protests featuring Andrew Breitbart and others.)

Franklin's President, Jason Stverak, previously worked as Regional Field Director for O'Keefe's Sam Adams Alliance, after leading the South Dakota Republican Party for six years. Their allies speak of O'Keefe and Stverak in the same breath. For example, in the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=XpB5w-rpUq4C&pg=PT251&lpg=PT251&dq=Jason+Stverak+and+Eric+o%27keefe&source=bl&ots=amTAoCkq9l&sig=tYkGFrMHYYP_k8REbk82x7tCV9k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3QGpUtvFJ8XuyQGc9IGQBA&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Jason%20Stverak%20and%20Eric%20o'keefe&f=false" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">acknowledgement section</a> [40] of James O'Keefe's book, the undercover videographer whose heavily-edited videos helped bring down ACORN (and who is not related to Eric O'Keefe) thanks "Eric O'Keefe and Jason Stverak for their role in the citizen journalism movement."

In only <a href="http://watchdog.org/116566/conservative-john-doe-democrats/" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">one</a> [41] of the sixteen articles Franklin Center/Wisconsin Reporter has written on the John Doe have they touched on O'Keefe's ties to Franklin Center.

"The public has to be very wary of taking for granted what is being reported by the Wall Street Journal and Wisconsin Reporter," McCabe said. "O'Keefe and others have decided that is who they want reporting on John Doe, they've decided what to leak, and how they want it framed, and what they want the public to believe what the investigation is about," he said, while prosecutors and judges are gagged by the John Doe's secrecy order.

Ties to the "Coalition for American Values"

Franklin Center also has connections to another mysterious organization active during the Wisconsin recalls called "Coalition for American Values." That group dropped <a href="http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">$400,080</a>[27] on a flood of ads in the final weeks before Governor Walker's recall election, and attracted significant attention by making a unique appeal: instead of promoting Walker or attacking his opponent, the ads attacked the premise of the recall itself. The ads depicted individuals who claimed they would vote for Walker not necessarily because they support his policies, but because they opposed the use of recall under these circumstances.

These ads, coupled with similar messaging from Governor Walker, proved effective. Exit polls on June 5, 2012 showed that sixty percent of voters thought recalls were only appropriate for cases of official misconduct -- a complete reversal from polls conducted in November 2011, just as the recall was launched.

The address Coalition for American Values lists on its <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/cfav_gab_registration.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">filings with Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board</a> [42], and on its associated PAC's filings with the <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/581/13964021581/13964021581.pdf#navpanes=0" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">Federal Election Commission</a> [43], is 119 S Emerson St #231 in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. This is also the address given for Coalition for American Values' lawyer, James Skyles, who was <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/skyles_linkedin.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">General Counsel and the Director of Operations for the Franklin Center</a> [44] until March 2011.

The "treasurer" listed on Coalition for American Values' FEC filings and the contact on its filings with Wisconsin's election board is Brent Downs. In 2008, when Connors chaired the Marquette College Republicans, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/connorsdowns.doc" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Downs was his treasurer</a> [45]. Both were both students at Marquette University at the same time, and Downs, like Connors, also <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/files/downs_website.png" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">chaired the Students for Prosperity</a> [46] chapter of David Koch's Americans for Prosperity at Marquette University.

In its FEC filings, the Coalition for American Values <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/581/13964021581/13964021581.pdf#navpanes=0" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">reports</a> [43] <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/452/12954430452/12954430452.pdf#navpanes=0" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">tens of thousands</a> [47] of <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/138/12961466138/12961466138.pdf#navpanes=0" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">dollars</a> [48] of <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/824/12951655824/12951655824.pdf#navpanes=0" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">payments</a> [49] <a href="http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/614/13940509614/13940509614.pdf#navpanes=0" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: none;">to</a> [50] Connors' Campaign Now! consulting and direct mail firm (which he has run out of the same office as J Connors & Co, along with Claire Milbrant).

The Coalition for American Values explicitly called for the reelection of Governor Walker, so the group reported its spending, but it did not report the true origin of its funds. Wisconsin law requires that nonprofits or corporations disclose the source of all contributions "made for" the purpose of funding their ads -- but Coalition for American Values sidestepped those rules by claiming that the $400,080 was not specifically provided to the group for the ads, despite there being few other reasons that a donor would have given the group hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Franklin Center Takes Bull by Horns