THE ISSUE:
The way that the Koch Brothers network approached Repeal and Replace—by threatening to take away $400 million in donations to the GOP—seems to me to be outright bribery. This is not lobbying. This is not Free Speech. It is corruptly paying an official to act for your benefit.
That’s because implicit in the threat was this: They would give $400 million to politicians who voted to repeal ObamaCare. I want somebody to investigate the Koch Brothers network for Bribery of a Federal Official:
(b) Whoever—
(1) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent—
(A) to influence any official act; ...
THE EVIDENCE:
In a June 26, 2017 exposé in The Guardian (and apparently reported by the Associated Press), the reporter provided enough direct quotes, I believe, to merit a federal investigation. Here is a screengrab of a portion of that reporting:
You can read the entire article here. You can see in the screengrab above that The Guardian has placed a link to a much more recent article that they deem somehow related. (It is a graphic way to display the quid-pro-quo.). That recent article features a picture of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doing the bidding of the Koch Brothers’ network.
When you take the quotes from the article and apply them to the statute cited above, you can see what I mean (statute in bold):
… whoever (Doug Deason and possibly other members of the Koch Brothers network) directly or indirectly, corruptly ... offers or promises anything of value (say $400 million or the contents of their “Dallas piggy bank”) to any public official (such as the “18 elected officials on hand”) to influence any official act (i.e. vote to “[g]et Obamacare repealed and replaced), commits the act of bribing a federal official.
THE PROBLEM:
How do we prompt the Federal Government to investigate this matter? In these admissions against interest from Deason, I see probable cause that a crime was committed, or attempted, or is being attempted. The affair, a Koch Brothers’ sponsored retreat, apparently took place in Colorado Springs. The closest United States Attorney Office is located in Denver, although there are offices in Durango and Grand Junction as well.
It appears that the Acting US Attorney for Colorado joined the office as an Assistant during a time when a Democrat was running the White House. He became the First Assistant and then Acting US Attorney while another Democrat held the White House.
It appears, though, that the way to report white collar crime and public corruption is through an FBI tip line. I have done that. But what else can we do?