[this is fascinating even from a Whitehead-Russel "logical types" perspective]
Published on Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Ari & I
White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer
May 2, 2001, 2:00 p.m.
by Russell Mokhiber
Mokhiber: Ari, last month, Koch Industries, one of the nation's largest oil
companies, pled guilty to a felony environmental crime. The Washington Post reported,
also last month, that the company and its employees gave $30,000 to President Bush
during the Presidential race and a similar amount in 1995 as Governor of Texas when
he was running.
Mokhiber: -- is the President now willing to give the money back because the company
has been convicted of a felony? And does the President have a policy of accepting
campaign contributions from convicted felons?
Ari Fleischer: Can you give me a list of who the individuals were who gave the
campaign contributions?
Mokhiber: David Koch --
Fleischer: And were these individuals convicted, or was it just the company?
Mokhiber: The company was convicted --
Fleischer: So, it was not the individuals --
Mokhiber: But the company also gave --
Fleischer: So, it was not the individuals.
Mokhiber: The company was convicted of a felony and the company gave money to the --
Fleischer: And therefore every employee of the company is a felon?
Mokhiber: Now, wait, wait, wait, wait -- if I could follow up. The company was
convicted of a felony. The company gave money to the campaign.
Fleischer: The company gave money to the campaign?
Mokhiber: According to the Post, Bush received more than $30,000 from Koch Industries
and its employees in the Presidential race and received a similar amount since 1995
as Governor of Texas.
Fleischer: As you are aware, it is illegal to accept corporate contributions in
federal campaigns, so therefore, any contributions came from individuals. So, unless
you are prepared to say that a company that has a conviction means that all of its
employees are felons -- I'd be careful there.
Mokhiber: Let me just ask one further follow-up. Does the President have a policy of
accepting money from executives of corporate felons?
Fleischer: Again, individuals are free to give money in their own capacity. And it is
illegal to accept money from corporations, as you know.
[Note to readers: On April 10, 2001, the Washington Post's Dan Eggen ("Oil Company
Agrees to Pay $20 Million in Fines, Koch Allegedly Hid Releases of Benzene") reported
the following:
"The company and its employees donated $800,000 to GOP candidates and organizations
during the last election cycle, half of which came from David H. Koch, the firm's
executive vice president, according to campaign finance records. Bush received more
than $30,000 from Koch Industries and its employees in the presidential race and had
received a similar amount since 1995 as governor of Texas, campaign records show."
Fleischer said "it is illegal to accept corporate contributions in federal campaigns,
so therefore, any contributions came from individuals."
True and false. It is true that it is illegal for a corporation to write a check out
of its general treasury to a federal candidate.
But a corporation's political action committee (PAC) can give money. And in this
case, Koch Industries PAC gave $5,000 to Bush during the last election.
I rang up Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.
Noble said that Fleischer was engaged in a "diversion" and that it reminded him of
Clinton saying it depends on what the definition of "is" is.
"The PAC is run by the company, it is a separate account within the company," Noble
said. "The company decides who the PAC gives money to."
And most often, the individual Koch executives who give money to the Bush campaign
often give at about the same time - as they did here - indicating that a fundraiser
from the company was in progress.
"It's a distinction without a difference," Noble said of Fleischer's parsing.]
-Thanks to Russell Mokhiber
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter.
