'SHADOWY AND UNSEEN FORCE'

“. . . Jane Mayer’s Dark Money—a detailed accounting of their [Charles and David Koch] rise and rise—is absolutely necessary reading for anyone who wants to make sense of our politics. Lay aside the endless punditry about Donald’s belligerence or Hillary’s ambition; Mayer is telling the epic story of America in our time. It is a triumph of investigative reporting, perhaps not surprising for a journalist who has won most of the awards her profession has to offer. But she had to cut through the secrecy that these men have carefully cultivated, unraveling an endless list of front groups. And she had to do it despite real intimidation; apparently an arm of what some have called “the Kochtopus” hired private investigators to try to dig up dirt on her personal and professional life, a tactic that failed because there wasn’t any. She’s a pro, and she’s given the world a full accounting of what had been a shadowy and largely unseen force¹.1

footnote, page 16, the New York Review, March 10, 2016:

¹“The New York Times ran a detailed account of this harassment campaign, including a refusal Koch spokesman to comment explicitly on their involvement in the espionage: he contents himself with merely describing Mayer’s overall reporting as ‘grossly inaccurate.’ See Jim Dwyer, ‘What Happened to Jane Mayer When She Wrote About the Koch Brothers,’ January 26, 2016.”