DARK MONEY

Why is America living in an age of profound and widening economic inequality? Why have even modest attempts to address climate change been defeated again and again? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? In a riveting and indelible feat of reporting Jane Mayer illuminates the history of an elite cadre of plutocrats--headed by the Kochs the Scaifes the Olins and the Bradleys--who have bankrolled a systematic plan to fundamentally alter the American political system. Mayer traces a byzantine trail of billions of dollars spent by the network revealing a staggering conglomeration of think tanks academic institutions media groups courthouses and government allies that have fallen under their sphere of influence. Drawing from hundreds of exclusive interviews as well as extensive scrutiny of public records private papers and court proceedings Mayer provides vivid portraits of the secretive figures behind the new American oligarchy and a searing look at the carefully concealed agendas steering the nation. Dark Money is a book for anyone who cares about the future of American democracy. Review Praise for Jane Mayer’sDark Money“Revelatory. . . . Persuasive timely and necessary.” -The New York Times“Dark Money is more than just a work of political journalism-it’s a vital portrait of a nation that as perhaps never before is being shaped by a few very rich very conservative businessmen.” -San Francisco Chronicle   “Absolutely necessary reading for anyone who wants to make sense of our politics.” -The New York Review of Books  “Deeply researched and studded with detail . . . Seems destined to rattle the Koch executive offices in Wichita as other investigations have not.” -Washington Post“With such turmoil on the right wing of American politics reading Dark Money is like reading the first chapter of what may be a great political page-turner.” -Chicago Tribune“Jane Mayer . . . is quite simply one of the very few utterly invaluable journalists this country has.” -Esquire “Amazing. . . . The most important political book of the year.” -St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Dark Money is almost too good for its own good.” -Los Angeles Review of Books“[A] comprehensive history. . . . Stunning.” -Salon  About the Author Jane Mayer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three bestselling and critically acclaimed narrative nonfiction books. She co-authored Landslide: The Unmaking of the President 1984-1988 with Doyle McManus and Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas with Jill Abramson which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her book The Dark Side for which she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship was named one of The New York Timess Top 10 Books of the Year and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. For her reporting at The New Yorker Mayer has been awarded the John Chancellor Award the George Polk Award the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting and the I. F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence presented by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER ONERadicals: A Koch Family HistoryOddly enough the fiercely libertarian Koch family owed part of its fortune to two of history’s most infamous dictators Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. The family patriarch Fred Chase Koch founder of the family oil business developed lucrative business relationships with both of their regimes in the 1930s.According to family lore Fred Koch was the son of a Dutch printer and publisher who settled in the small town of Quanah Texas just south of the Oklahoma border where he owned a weekly newspaper and print shop. Quanah which was named for the last American Comanche chief Quanah Parker still retained its frontier aura when Fred was born there in 1900