The Clintons and their Allies, The Koch Brothers

In April 2016, Charles Koch made headlines when, during an interview with CBS, he said that he might very well support Hillary Clinton rather than any of the GOP candidates still in the running at that time.

Koch’s remarks were treated as a major surprise:

Charles Koch says it’s “possible” Hillary Clinton could be a better president than GOP pick: https://t.co/lpqeKMHX36https://t.co/QtsQDhXI3h

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 23, 2016

Hillary was very quick to denounce the half-hearted endorsement, but there is a reason why Koch’s support for Clinton should come as no surprise: the Kochs helped propel the Clintons into the White House and were a major donor and backer of Clinton’s Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

When Bill and Hillary Clinton moved into the White House in 1992, they had a lot of people to thank. Prominent among those people were the Koch Brothers and their massive corporation, Koch Industries, Inc.

As Robert Dreyfuss explained in The American Prospect:

“…28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC’s executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC’s executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively–meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.”

So there you have it. The Clintons were part of the “New Democrat” movement that was funded by Corporate America, including the Koch Brothers.

You may have noticed that Verizon Communications was also a part of the DLC Board. That is probably why it took Hillary so long to express support for the striking workers last month. Of course, Bernie was out there supporting the Verizon workers last October. Still, it must have come as quite a shock to the executives at Verizon when their old DLC comrade, Hillary Clinton, finally spent some time with the workers …

Euroyankee

EuroYankee is a dual citizen, US-EU. He travels around Europe, writing on politics, culture and such. He pays his US taxes so he gets to weigh in on what is happening in the States.