Koch: Obama 'trying to intimidate'

Responding more aggressively than in the past, Koch Industries’ political arm on Friday accused President Barack Obama and his allies of “trying to intimidate into silence those who may disagree with them.”

The statement came in response to comments this week by the Obama campaign and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi that cited Koch political activities among the explanations for Obama’s relaxation of his objection to super PACs.


Philip Ellender, president and COO of Government and Public Affairs for Koch Companies Public Sector LLC said in the statement: “Apparently, the President and his allies do not want to lose that perceived fundraising advantage during the 2012 Presidential campaign, and are trying to intimidate into silence those who may disagree with them and who may decide to support other candidates."

Pelosi said at a news conference on Thursday: “The president has made a decision, which I think was a wise one, that he was not going to unilaterally disarm and leave the field to the Koch brothers to decide who would be president of the United States and who would control the Congress. “ Ellender’s statement began: "We will exercise our First Amendment rights and not be intimidated or silenced by the President’s aides and his allies who criticize private citizens that disagree with the President's policies.

“These most recent statements concerning the White House's decision to embrace Super PACs are hypocritical for the President, who as a candidate in 2008 broke his promise to use public campaign financing, and became the first major party presidential candidate in history to turn down public financing in a general election.

“It is worth noting that President Obama outraised and outspent his opponent by hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2008 Presidential campaign, relying in large part on the same corporate executive funding sources whose productivity, business practices, and profitability he pretends to denounce.”

On an Obama 2012 conference call on Tuesday, a senior campaign official said: “[T]here was a meeting with the Koch brothers and a number of special interests a couple weeks ago in which additional commitments by special interests to flood the airwaves were secured. … “[W]e’ve been watching throughout the course of the Republican primary process — the most recent [Federal Election Commission] filing[s] … , and of course the Koch brothers conference, and what has been coming out of that, to a total of roughly a half billion dollars in commitments for Republican super PACs to defeat the president.”