In a recent interview with BuzzFeed News , Koch Industries General Counsel Mark Holden continued to insist that Charles and David Koch’s push for criminal justice reform is not about protecting themselves and their bottom line:

These attacks and whatever else, my feelings don’t get hurt anymore. Here’s my point of view: It doesn’t bother me that they say that. It’s just not true.

Here’s why the Kochs’ motivations are being questioned. A Koch-backed comprehensive criminal justice reform bill currently in the Senate has a related House bill that has, among other things, an added provision that would effectively make it more difficult to prosecute white collar crimes. More specifically, the legislation applies mens rea — an intent requirement putting the burden on “prosecutors to prove that certain suspects intended to break the law” — to white collar prosecutions. In other words: prosecutions where executives at big-time polluters — like, say, Koch Industries or its subsidiaries — have a lot easier time, well, getting away with criminal behavior.

But if Holden’s to be believed, the Kochs’ interest in criminal justice reform has nothing to do with the added plausible deniability and protections that mens rea requirements could give them:

We’re not pushing the mens rea issue. We think it’s important as a fundamental part of any effective and just criminal justice system…We are supportive of the bill without it. We are supportive of the bill with it.

BuzzFeed News reports that while supported by the Kochs, the mens rea provision is “opposed by the Justice Department, the White House, and left-leaning groups like the Center For American Progress.”

Holden claims the Kochs don’t care one way or the other whether the mens rea provision is included — he’s been saying as much since at least December — but if actions speak louder than words, his and their protestations are drowned out by the Koch Network’s dramatically escalated mes rea advocacy. Here are just a few examples:

