Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The week prior to election day, I posted about the Arizona based "dark money" organization Americans for Responsible Leadership, an Arizona 501(c)(4)
that funneled more than $1.1 million to defeat two Arizona ballot
initiatives (Props. 121, 204), and was sued by California
authorities to force disclosure of who gave $11 million to fund two
separate ballot campaigns in California.
I explained at length that Americans for Responsible Leadership is a Koch brothers 'dark money' front group. The California Supreme Court ordered disclosure of the donors, which turned out to be layers of 501(c) organizations comprising the billionaire bastard Koch brothers' "Kochtopus." California’s political watchdog agency said the $11 million campaign donation from the Arizona nonprofit represented
the largest case of campaign money laundering in state history. Update – 'dark money' Americans for Responsible Leadership discloses donors: more non-profits.
The conduit for this illegal campaign money laundering was former congressional aid and GOP consultant Sean Noble’s group, Center to Protect Patient Rights, a 501(c)(4) organization in the "Kochtopus." Sean Noble’s political consulting company, DC-London, was also heavily involved.
This campaign money launderer is back in the news again. Eric Lach reports at Talking Points Memo, Arizona Dark Money Group Gave Lavishly To Other Groups:
The Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR), the secretive Arizona
dark money group tied to the movement of millions of dollars between
political nonprofits, gave almost $15 million in 2011 to a number of
groups that spent heavily on political ads in 2012, according to IRS
documents obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The
CPPR, run by former congressional aide Sean Noble, spent $23.2 million
in 2011, with $14.8 million given in grants to 19 other nonprofits.
Bloomberg has previously reported that the CPPR contributed $55.4 million to other nonprofit political groups in 2009 and 2010.
Among the recipients of the CPPR’s largesse in 2011 were the American
Future Fund, Concerned Women for America, 60 Plus Association, Free
Enterprise America, American Commitment, and the Coalition to Protect
Patient Rights (not to be confused with the CPPR itself.) Each of these
groups received over $1 million from the CPPR.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, one of the above
groups, Free Enterprise America, received $3.6 million from the CPPR,
but little is known about Free Enterprise America beyond that fact that
it shares an address in Phoenix with the consulting firm DC London,
which is run by Noble. Another group, American Commitment, received $1.6
million from CPPR in 2011. In 2012, American Commitment dropped about
$1.9 million in outside spending, much of it in support of Rep. Jeff
Flake (R-AZ) during his ultimately successful Senate run. American
Commitment shares an address in Washington, D.C. with DC London.
Furthermore, the documents obtained by the Center for Responsive
Politics show that DC London, along with another Noble consulting firm
called Noble & Associates, received $3.1 million from the CPPR in
2011.
Read the Center for Responsive Politics’ whole report here.
From the report:
DC London is run by Sean Noble, who happens to be on American
Commitment's board — and is also the president and executive director of
CPPR. In fact, DC London and another Noble consulting firm, Noble &
Associates, were paid a total of $3.1 million by CPPR in 2011, far
outstripping the $340,000 that Noble & Associates was paid by the
group in 2010. (DC London received no payments from CPPR in 2010.)
Noble is tied to the Koch brothers. He spoke at a 2010 meeting of
wealthy conservatives that they sponsored, making a presentation with
the head of Americans for Prosperity, a group co-founded by David Koch
to which CPPR has also given money. A former policy strategist for AFP
now heads CPPR grantee American Commitment.
In November, Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller filed a civil complaint alleging the Koch brothers'
Americans for Prosperity violated Nevada’s campaign finance laws in a
case that could force the national conservative organization to reveal
its donors for the first time. Secretary of state goes to court to force AFP to reveal donors.
This is something Arizona's Secretary of State should be doing with all of the 501(c) organizations of the "Kochtopus" headquartered in Maricopa County, in particular Sean Noble who has been accused of illegal campaign money laundering in California, but he is unlikely to do so because The state of Maricopa appears to be the hub of the wingnut operations of the Koch brothers. Arizona Tea-Publicans depend upon the network of billionaire bastard Koch brothers funded organizations in the "Kochtopus."
So if Arizona's Secretary of State and our Attorney General will not investigate and pursue legal action against these 501(c) organizations, then we need some skilled tax attorneys to file a legal challenge to the tax status of these organizations with the IRS. They are clearly engaged primarily in political activity, which is in violation of their tax status.
A violation subjects these front groups to back taxes and penalties. And if there is a lawsuit, they are subject to legal discovery into their donors and financial accounting records. The entire "dark money" campaign money laundering scheme could be exposed to the disinfectant of the light of day. It's time to get aggressive with these evil bastards.