The two Koch brothers who have become famous for their support of right wing interests are now the objects of investigations into dirty dealings. A very recent example is their response to New Yorker writer Jane Mayer's unrelenting examination of their political activities. Turnaround being fair play or not, they began a quiet campaign of their own: they invested in an investigation into Jane Mayer's career. In 2010, Mayer "ran into a former reporter who had been asked about helping with an investigation into another reporter on behalf of two conservative billionaires," according to the New York Times today.
Ms. Mayer thought the idea was a joke, she said this week. At a Christmas party a few months later, she ran into a former reporter who had been asked about helping with an investigation into another reporter on behalf of two conservative billionaires.
“The reporter had written a story they disliked,” Ms. Mayer recounts in “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,” out this month from Doubleday. Her acquaintance told her, “‘It occurred to me afterward that the reporter they wanted to investigate might be you.’”...NYT
There's no ending to this story, happy or sad. The Koch machine threw the serious charge of plagiarism at Mayer. This, of course, turned out to be untrue... but the machine grinds on, the Kochs repeatedly deny the allegations, etc., etc.
Jane Mayer is the author of a number of similar investigations. Her star remains high in the sky. She is a hero to Americans who prefer scrupulous investigative reporting to slash-'n'-dash headlines in the National Enquirer and company. She has gone after such pols as Reagan and Clarence Thomas and, well, Barack Obama.
