The Koch brothers are freezing out Donald Trump from their influential political operation — denying him access to their state-of-the-art data and refusing to let him speak to their gatherings of grass-roots activists or major donors.
Despite a long and cordial relationship between the real estate showman and David Koch, as well as a raft of former Koch operatives who are now running Trump’s presidential campaign, the Koch political operation appears to have concluded that Trump is the wrong standard-bearer for the GOP. And the network of Koch-backed policy and political outfits is using behind-the-scenes influence to challenge Trump more forcefully than the Republican Party establishment — by limiting his access to the support and data that would help him translate his lead in the polls into a sustainable White House campaign.
The Koch operation has spurned entreaties from the Trump campaign to purchase state-of-the-art data and analytics services from a Koch-backed political tech firm called i360, and also turned down a request to allow Trump to speak at an annual grass-roots summit next month in Columbus, Ohio, sponsored by the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity, POLITICO has learned.
In addition, Trump was not invited to the annual summer gathering of the network of hundreds of conservative mega-donors and operatives helmed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. That’s despite the Trump campaign filling out a questionnaire detailing the candidate’s policy positions and submitting it to Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the Koch umbrella group organizing the summit. The three-day meeting in Orange County, California, will feature appearances from a handful of candidates whose politics reflect more closely the Kochs’ fiscally conservative worldview — including Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker — and even long-shot Carly Fiorina. Rand Paul, who is also fondly regarded by some in the Koch operation, was invited, but he has not accepted and is unlikely to attend.
NEW YORK, NY - MAY 31: Former U.S. Vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R), and Donald Trump walk towards a limo after leaving Trump Tower, at 56th Street and 5th Avenue, on May 31, 2011 in New York City. Palin and Trump met for a dinner meeting in the city. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Continued stiff-arming by the powerful Koch network could limit Trump’s ability to build a professional campaign operation to mobilize supporters ahead of primaries and caucuses.
Trump’s surprising traction has prompted hand-wringing by the Republican Party elite, who fear that his bombastic rhetoric could damage the GOP’s prospects in the general election. But their ability to halt his momentum is limited by rules and traditions requiring them to stay neutral in open party primaries, as well as a fear of alienating the significant portion of the party base to which Trump appeals.
The Koch network — a coalition of individual donors and independent groups and companies — intends to spend a whopping $889 million in the run-up to 2016, and is not obliged to stay neutral. While it appears increasingly unlikely that it will officially endorse a GOP primary candidate, it has nonetheless shaped the process by determining which candidates are granted access to i360’s data and the grass-roots activists convened regularly by groups including AFP and Concerned Veterans for America.
In recent weeks, the groups have hosted events with Bush, Rubio and Paul. AFP’s Columbus summit — which refused the Trump campaign’s speaking request — will feature speeches by Bush, Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry and Rubio.
A spokesman for i360 declined to comment on why the company, considered the leading supplier of voter data and analytics on the right, refused to provide services to Trump’s campaign. An AFP official said the group doesn’t discuss its event invitations and announces only confirmed speakers. The Koch-backed Latino-voter-targeting outfit LIBRE Initiative was more direct, explaining it has not invited Trump to any of its events and has no plans to do so. A spokesperson pointed to a statement from the group’s president denouncing Trump for his inflammatory statements about Mexican immigrants and called him out as an inconsistent conservative “who has gotten ahead through sensationalism.”
When Hillary and Donald Were Still Friendly
Trump’s rise is expected to be a major topic at the Orange County donor gathering sponsored by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce.
Feelings about Trump among Koch network donors are mixed, said some expected attendees, with one citing his “chutzpah” but adding that many were offended by his assertion that Arizona Sen. John McCain was not a war hero because he was captured in Vietnam.
It’s unclear whether the Koch network intends to weigh in more directly against Trump, with the preferred approach seemingly being to allow him to flame out on his own. But if the network were to decide to mobilize against him, it could strain its efforts to remain above the GOP fray, while also testing its ability to shape the primary.
That’s because, while Trump’s campaign could certainly benefit from the network’s data and grass-roots reach, he doesn’t need its cash in the same way that his rivals do.
Trump’s net worth is independently estimated at about $3 billion, and he is funding his campaign out of his own pocket. He has repeatedly lambasted his rivals — particularly Bush — as beholden to their wealthy donors, declaring at a campaign event this month that his own political giving reveals what donors can get in exchange for their checks.
“Who knows it better than me? I give to everybody. They do whatever I want,” he said. “It’s true.”
In fact, independence from major donors and special interests is among Trump’s main selling points — an image that in some ways may be bolstered by his Koch snub and one that appears to resonate with his supporters.
“The good news is that Donald Trump doesn’t need the Koch brothers, and he can do this perfectly without their assistance,” said Josh Youssef, who’s chairing Trump’s campaign in Belknap County, New Hampshire. Of the Kochs, Youssef said: “Their motivations are clearly not to break the mold of political insider-ship. Their goal is to keep the wheel spinning. Trump’s bad for business for them.”
Still, the Koch network’s rejections of Trump are telling because of the relationships between Trump and his aides, and the Kochs and their operation.
Trump is personally friendly with David Koch, according to a source familiar with their interactions, who said “there’s a long relationship with mutual respect and admiration.” The two men own mansions near one another in Palm Beach, Florida, and mingled at a March fundraiser for the Republican Governors Association at Koch’s place.
Many of Trump’s top campaign operatives have recently worked for groups in the Koch network, including campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who until January ran AFP’s national voter-registration effort.
Two other former AFP staffers — Alan Cobb and Matt Ciepielowski — are also working for the campaign, according to its Federal Election Commission filings. They show that between the beginning of April and the end of June, Cobb’s consulting firm was paid $32,000 for strategy consulting, while Ciepielowski earned $34,000 for field consulting. The campaign paid Lewandowski’s firm nearly $86,000 for strategy consulting and also spent $16,000 on Iowa field work done by Chris Hupke, who formerly worked with Koch-backed groups American Commitment and CitizenLink.
Former FEC commissioner Don McGahn, who has done legal work for Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, has also advised Trump’s campaign on election laws. McGahn’s firm Jones Day was paid $74,000 by the Trump campaign for legal consulting, according to FEC filings.
Greg Moore, the director of AFP in New Hampshire, said the overlap between Trump’s campaign and the Koch network is less a reflection of ideological synergy than campaign staffing trends.
“I think it speaks well for AFP. It really shows that Americans for Prosperity is a place where people come when they want top-tier talent — and it’s not just New Hampshire. It’s nationally,” said Moore.
In fact, top staffers on numerous campaigns have gone through the Koch network at various times, from Scott Walker campaign manager Rick Wiley, who worked for an early Koch umbrella group called the Wellspring Committee, to Eli Miller, a top fundraiser for Rubio, who ran AFP’s Ohio chapter.
It highlights the de facto role of the Koch operation as an alternative force to the Republican Party, with its own farm system of operatives and sometimes tricky resulting affiliations.
Trump’s New Hampshire headquarters is even located in the same brick office building as AFP’s New Hampshire office in Manchester. And Moore said Trump supporters he meets in the building — who sometimes wander into the AFP office by mistake — aren’t necessarily a good fit for AFP’s fiscal-issues-driven focus.
“I don’t get the impression they’re aligned with us. Not that they’re ‘unaligned’ with us, but I just don’t get the impression they would be described as fiscal conservatives.”
But Stephen Stepanek, a New Hampshire state legislator who is co-chairing Trump’s state campaign and owns the building that houses the Manchester Trump headquarters and AFP, said Trump’s appeal is partly his willingness to buck traditional ideological lines and the powerful interests behind them.
“I think that’s what is sort of scaring a lot of people, especially on both Republican and Democratic sides, because they can’t control Trump,” said Stepanek, whose company made $5,000 in rent from Trump’s campaign, according to its FEC filing. “People are really afraid to speak their mind, and it is actually with the way people react to things and the way that these various groups attack people if they say anything, we’re having our First Amendment, freedom of speech, stepped on, walked all over by these various groups.”
