This Monday, in Part I of our series, we looked at donations to Sen. George Allen from illegal immigrant employing/abusing company Smithfield Foods. Today, in Part II, it's time to look at an even WORSE bunch of slimeballs (and Allen contributors), the folks at Koch Industries, America's largest privately-owned oil company. According to Forbes Magazine -- no left wing rag, that's for sure -- in late September 2000, "a federal grand jury indicted Wichita, Kans.-based Koch Industries and four of its employees of 97 felony counts...accused of covering up the emission of a cancer-linked chemical called benzene from its Corpus Christi, Tex., refinery."
So, did the Koch brothers - David (the Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate in 1980; member of the right-wing Cato Institute board) and Charles (co-founder of CATO) - go to jail for this? Pay severe fines? Do a few thousand hours of community service? Ha, of course, not...they've got (Republican) friends in high (Republican) places.
In December 2003, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote, "While peddling influence to energy tycoons, the White House quietly dropped criminal and civil charges against Koch Industries." Coincidentally (I'm sure!), "Koch executives contributed $800,000 to Bush's presidential campaign and to other top Republicans." Top Republicans like George Allen. Hmmmm.
In January 2001, 60 Minutes II did an expose on Koch called "Blood and Oil." In it,
..the Koch family of Wichita, Kansas is among the richest in the United States, worth billions of dollars. Their oil company, Koch Industries, is bigger than Intel, Dupont or Prudential Insurance, and they own it lock stock and barrel. The trouble is a former employee says the brother who controls the company grew rich through fraud and theft, stealing from the taxpayers of the United States. Bill Koch, a brother of David and Charles, even claims that Koch was "engaged in "(o)rganized crime" and that "that's what appalled me so much... I did not want my family, my legacy, my father's legacy to be based upon organized crime."
Bill Koch also charges that his brother Charles:
...made a fortune stealing oil. Much of it from beneath Indian reservations and federal lands - places like national forests....the company took more oil than it paid for by cheating on measurements. " According to Bill Koch, "one year, [Koch's] data showed they stole a million and a half barrels of oil."
According to 60 Minutes II:
...in federal court, 50 former Koch gaugers testified against the company...they said Koch employees had a name for cheating on the measurements. "We in the company referred to it as the 'Koch Method' because it was a system for cheating the producer out of oil," one of the employees said. Although the company denied the charges, "in December 1999, the jury found that Koch Industries did steal oil from the public and lied about its purchases "24 thousand times."
But it's not just theft, it's also blatant disregard for human life. According to Danny Smalley, who filed suit against Koch Industries after leaking gas from a Koch-owned pipeline exploded 200 yards from his home, burning his teenage daughter and her friend beyond recogntion, says:
They [Koch] don't care for any loss of human life. Like I said, it was the buck that counted for them.
..just before the lawsuit went to trial, the Justice Department abruptly settled the case. Koch agreed to pay $20 million and plead guilty to a single count of concealment of information. In return, the Justice Department dropped all criminal charges against Koch and the four employees.
It's interesting that this took place just a few months AFTER Koch's friend and campaign contributions beneficiary, George W. Bush, was elected President. Oh, and just a few months after George Allen was elected to the US Senate. Another fascinating coincidence.
In other words, Koch's modus operandus has been to commit crimes but then to evade serious punishment by "settling" (i.e., paying people off) on extremely lenient terms. Of course, Koch is aided in this strategy by its "friends" in high places, to whom they kindly give hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the goodness of their (corporate) hearts.
Now, another "friendly" politician, Virginia's own George Allen, has received large sums of money ($18,500 between 1999 and late 2005) from Koch Industries Inc. Political Action Committee (KOCHPAC). In addition, Allen has received thousands of dollars from individuals who work(ed) at Koch. Oh, and Allen received $9,000 from Georgia-Pacific, acquired by Koch Industries for $21 billion in December 2005. Fascinating, eh?
The question is, why? What did/does Koch want from George Allen? Lax regulation, perhaps? Non-enforcement of environmental and labor standards? Assistance with mergers and acquisitions? Or were/are Koch Industries simply giving George Allen wads of money out of the goodness of their corporate hearts? I'll leave that for you to decide for yourself.
P.S. The focus of this article has been on the Allen-Koch relationship. However, I would be remiss if I failed to note that other Republicans in Virginia have received significant Koch money as well. Republicans such as Sen. John Warner ($5,000), Rep. Eric Cantor ($11,000), Rep. Frank Wolf ($3,000, all returned), Rep. Virgil Goode ($3,000), and Rep. Bob Goodlatte ($18,500). Overall, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, Koch has given $221,850 to Virginia Republicans, and just $9,250 to Virginia Democrats.