Reply #5: Koch Industries--McGuireWoods--Mercatus Center--Triad Management

[Carolab]

Koch Industries

Koch is another major client of Frank Donatelli's firm. You won't believe what's in this article. (P.S. Isn't Doro married to a Koch?") Read the whole article!

http://www.publicintegrity.org/oil/report.aspx?aid=347

Senate Investigation on Issue Ads
The recent Oregon case isn't the first time that Koch-backed organization has been accused of playing fast and loose with campaign finance laws.

In 1997, the Kochs were investigated by the Democratic staff on the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs for their alleged funding of so-called "issue ads" during elections the previous year.

The investigation involved a for-profit corporation called Triad Management Inc., which was owned by Carolyn Malenick, a Republican fundraiser.

In 1996, according to The Buying of the President 2000, Triad was responsible for pro-Republican advertising in 26 House races and three Senate races. Triad was connected to two not-for-profit organizations, Citizens for Reform and Citizens for the Republic Education Fund. Neither group had a staff or office, but they ran $3 million in television ads paid for by Triad-related entities in the closing days of the 1996 campaign.

More than half of the Triad-connected money—$1.79 million – came from a group called the Economic Education Trust, which the Democratic Staff of the Senate committee suggested had been funded by Charles and David Koch.

The Senate investigators found that much of the money spent by Triad and another group called the Coalition for Our Children's Future helped Republican candidates in states where Koch has refineries, pipelines, or offices, including Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota and Oklahoma.

While the Senate committee did not officially charge Koch with campaign law violations, the investigation did uncover a $2,000 Koch Industries corporate check made out to Triad.

In 1998, the Wall Street Journal reported that it had discovered documents the paper said confirmed a direct link between Charles Koch and the ads.

Specifically, the Journal report said Republican political consultant Kenneth Barfield, who was on Koch's payroll in 1996, relayed information between Triad and the Economic Education Trust, which ultimately financed the ads.


Mercatus:

The Mercatus Center is one of the best-funded think tanks in the United States at the moment. Part of George Mason University. Listed as "sister organization" to the Instutite of Humane Studies. "Mercatus generates knowledge and understanding of how institutions affect the freedom to prosper and holds organizations accountable for their impact on that freedom." <1> (http://www.mercatus.org/category.php/1.html)

The Mercatus Center has engaged in campaigns involving deregulation, especially environmental deregulation.

Table of contents
1 History

2 Regulatory Studies Program

3 Executive Staff

4 Backlinks

5 Contact Information

6 External Links

History
The Mercatus Center was founded as the Center for Market Processes by Rich Fink, executive vice president of Koch Industries and former president of the Koch Foundations, who went on to found Citizens for a Sound Economy. In the early 1980s the center moved to George Mason University. It merged with the Center for the Study of Public Choice during 1998 to become the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy. The Mercatus Center brand was developed in 1999 from the JBC.

Regulatory Studies Program
Personnel

Wendy Lee Gramm, Chair
Susan E. Dudley, Director
Brian Mannix, Senior Research Fellow
Jay Cochran III, Research Fellow
Jerry Ellig
Board of Advisors

C. Boyden Gray, Former White House Counsel and Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
Sidney E. Harris, Dean, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University
Christopher Hill, Vice Provost for Research, George Mason University
Thomas Hopkins, Dean of Business, Rochester Institute of Technology
Steven Manaster, Dean, College of Business and Administration, University of Colorado
Susan Phillips, Former Governor of the Federal Reserves Board; Dean, School of Business and Public Management, The George Washington University
Vernon L. Smith, Professor of Economics and Law, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science (ICES), George Mason University
W. Kip Viscusi, John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law & Economics, Harvard Law School
Executive Staff
Frank Atkinson, Chairman, McGuireWoods Consulting, LLC
Tyler Cowen, General Director, Mercatus Center <2> (http://www.gmu.edu/alumni/spirit/99spring/cowen.html)
Richard Fink, Executive Vice President, Koch Industries <3> (http://bov.gmu.edu/fink.html)
Manuel Johnson, Co-Chairman, Johnson Smick Group
Charles Koch, Chairman and CEO, Koch Industries, Inc.
Dwight Schar, Chairman and CEO, NVR, Inc.
Roger Silk, CEO, Sterling Foundation Management
Vernon L. Smith, Professor of Economics and Law
Backlinks
Wendy Gramm
Timothy J. Roemer
Phil Gramm
GOP,Inc.
George Mason University
Jennifer Zambone
Vernon L. Smith
Contact Information
Mercatus Center
George Mason University
3301 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 450
Arlington, VA 22201-4433
tel: [phone]
1-800-815-5711
Fax: [phone]
web site: www.mercatus.org

External Links
"George Mason University (http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?recipientID=413)", Media Transparency (includes donations for the 'Mercatus Center')
Bob Davis, "Rule Breaker: In Washington, tiny think tank wields big stick on regulation (http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108994396555065646,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one)", Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2004.
Retrieved from "http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Mercatus_Center"

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Mercatus_Center

Triad Management (a link I found and put in the other thread on New Media):

Carolyn Malenick - CNP 1996, 1998; president, Triad Management Services; former consultant, VPAC; director of development, Freedom Alliance,5 whose contributors include CNP's Oliver North; head of National Capital Strategies; former assistant to North Defense Trust: former consultant for Oliver North; former administrative assistant to the president of The Viguerie Company, CNP's Richard Viguerie; former account assistant, The Viguerie Company; former audio service coordinator, Old­Time Gospel Hour, Lynchburg, Va.; former volunteer, Kemp for President campaign; 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign work; 1980­1981, direct mailings for Moral Majority, Inc.

Malenick has close personal ties to both the Scaife and Koch families; 1996, Malenick worked for a number of Republican campaigns, including the campaign of Representative Bob Schafer (R-CO), who has taken the lead on “paycheck protection” legislation in the U.S. House. CNP's Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) is a close friend of Malenick's and made a promotional video for Triad Management that created controversy over the propriety of such an endorsement of their services by a U.S. senator. Nickels sponsored “paycheck protection” legislation in the U.S. Senate last year. 6

"...Democratic investigators also looked into a third organization called Triad Management Services Inc., a for-profit group run by Carolyn Malenick, a former fundraiser for Oliver L. North, the former Marine colonel who was a central figure in the Iran-Contra investigation and a 1994 Senate candidate in Virginia. Triad offered donors a choice of giving to individual candidates, a slew of conservative political action committees or two tax-exempt groups named the Citizens for the Republic Education Fund and Citizens for Reform."

"Democratic investigators found that Triad funneled money into the tax-exempt groups for the "sole purpose of running attack ads against Democratic candidates under the guise of 'issue advocacy.'" Triad "conspired with donors who had reached their maximum contribution limit to evade the law by laundering additional contributions through designated political action committees and then earmarking those contributions for certain campaigns," the minority draft says."

"While Congress' campaign finance investigation may not yield legislation, issues raised by the probe have begun to produce serious consequences for some of the major players..." 7

"... Triad was funded by a handful of wealthy Republican donors who used it as a mechanism to support the election of conservative Republican candidates to the House of Representatives and the Senate. Triad channeled millions of dollars from its backers to two tax-exempt groups it had established for the sole purpose of running attack ads against Democratic candidates under the guise of ``issue advocacy.'' By operating this way, Triad and its financial backers avoided the disclosure and campaign contribution limits of the federal election laws. Triad itself made possibly illegal contributions by providing free consulting advice and other assistance to candidates. Moreover, the evidence suggests that Triad conspired with contributors who had reached their maximum contribution limit to evade the law by laundering additional contributions through designated political action committees (``PACs'') and then earmarking these contributions..." 8

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.m.htm