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Koch lobbyist says brothers won't be 'intimidated or silenced' by Obama aides
A spokesman for the Koch brothers' lobbying firm said the billionaire brothers would not be "intimidated or silenced by the President's aides and his allies" after President Obama's reelection campaign announced earlier this week that they would encourage fundraising by a super-PAC supporting his campaign.
"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," said Philip Ellender, president of Koch Companies Public Sector, in a statement. "The Obama campaign's decision to embrace Super PACs is similar to the President's hypocrisy in 2008 when he 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."
The Koch brothers were cited by name in a background conference call with reporters on why the president had decided to support fundraising by the outside group despite having railed against the Supreme Court ruling that allowed unlimited contributions to PACs.
David and Charles Koch have been prolific donors to conservative and libertarian causes, reportedly pledging $100 million to defeat Obama in the 2012 election.
But Ellender argued that the president's rhetoric was only intended to preserve a fundraising disadvantage the Koch's hoped to counteract.
"t 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," Ellender said. "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."
Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, said in a note to supporters Monday evening that Obama's team did not want to "play by two sets of rules."
"With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm," Messina wrote. "Therefore, the campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC."
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