With more than $50 billion each at the time of David’s death in 2019, Charles and David Koch built a powerful right-wing political empire orchestrated through numerous nonprofit organizations. Charles is the Chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, a massive petro-chemical corporation, which has funded some of his non-profits. Koch has exerted enormous influence on the federal judiciary — especially Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Organizations affiliated with the Koch network have filed amicus briefs in 29 cases this Supreme Court term.
Justice Thomas has had a personal relationship with the Koch brothers for years. Thomas has attended a secret men’s retreat in California along with the Kochs, and has secretly attended Koch donor summits, effectively aiding in fundraising efforts for the Koch network. Additionally, Justice Gorsuch has accepted luxury foreign travel and teaching posts, bankrolled by the Koch-funded Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University. Since 2018, Gorsuch has accepted trips to Padua, Bologna, and Venice, Italy as well as Iceland.
As ProPublica has reported, Thomas has had a “yearslong, personal relationship with the Koch Brothers,” which has “developed over years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in Northern California. Thomas has been a regular at the Grove for two decades, where he stayed in a small camp with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow and the Kochs, according to records and people who’ve spent time with him there.” Justice Thomas has secretly attended at least two Koch donor summits, which, as ProPublica puts it, “puts Thomas in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term.” That case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, was filed by a group steered by Koch’s top lieutenants and counsel and whose “volunteer” lawyers all work for Koch’s Americans for Prosperity. AFP Vice President of Legal and Judicial Strategy Casey Mattox posted last year: “By now you may know that the Supreme Court will hear our Cause of Action team’s case asking the Court to overturn the ‘Chevron doctrine.’”).
After Gorsuch joined the Supreme Court, he was hired by the Koch-funded Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, which pays Gorsuch $25,000 a year in addition to giving him luxury travel to Italy and Iceland. According to the Associated Press: “Since joining the faculty in 2018, Gorsuch has regularly taught in Padua, Italy, where George Mason officials paid for his airfare, which cost $8,313 in 2022, and an apartment that cost $5,359 to rent, records show. Side trips paid for by the school included trips to Bologna, a culinary destination city, as well as nearby Venice, known for its palazzos, architecture and canals.” The law school is funded by right-wing billionaires including Charles Koch, according to the AP: “A $20 million contribution from an anonymous donor in 2016, which has been widely reported, was made contingent on renaming the school for Scalia, as well as hiring roughly a dozen new faculty members, according to records the school previously released. To ensure the school complied with the agreement, the donor and the school agreed that Leonard Leo, then an executive vice president of the Federalist Society, would serve as an overseer, records show. An additional $10 million was contributed through the arrangement by the Charles Koch Foundation, which was founded by billionaire conservative donor Charles Koch.” The $20 million anonymous gift has been traced to Barre Seid, who later gave Leo control of a $1.6 billion trust to influence the law.
