Republicans candidates have become so dependent on the Kochs not only for campaign cash, but help from the Koch front group i360 for campaign tools
The Kochs freeze out Donald Trump
By KENNETH P. VOGEL and CATE MARTEL
The Koch brothers are freezing out Donald Trump from their influential political operation — denying him access to their state-of-the-art data and refusing to let him speak to their gatherings of grass-roots activists or major donors.
The Koch operation has spurned entreaties from the Trump campaign to purchase state-of-the-art data and analytics services from a Koch-backed political tech firm called i360, and also turned down a request to allow Trump to speak at an annual grass-roots summit next month in Columbus, Ohio, sponsored by the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity, POLITICO has learned.
In addition, Trump was not invited to the annual summer gathering of the network of hundreds of conservative mega-donors and operatives helmed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. That’s despite the Trump campaign filling out a questionnaire detailing the candidate’s policy positions and submitting it to Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the Koch umbrella group organizing the summit. The three-day meeting in Orange County, California, will feature appearances from a handful of candidates whose politics reflect more closely the Kochs’ fiscally conservative worldview — including Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker — and even long-shot Carly Fiorina.
T he Koch brothers and their interlocking network of front groups and think tanks have effectively become the gatekeepers for Republican hopefuls who want to launch a campaign. The approval of the Koch Brothers to use i360's campaign tools is a coercive way to make sure the Republican Party mirrors the Kochs Bircher views.