Koch network, illegal behavior; attack ads; Triad Management Services; Economic Education Trust

The Democrats produced a scathing report exposing what they called an "audacious" scheme by undisclosed big donors to illegally buy elections in the final moments of the 1996 campaign. It was undertaken by a suspicious shell corporation called Triad Management Services that had paid more then $3 million for unusually harsh attack ads against Democratic candidates in twenty-nine races. More than half of the advertising money came from an obscure nonprofit group whose real source of funds was a mystery, the Economic Education Trust. The Senate committee's investigators believed that "the 'trust' was in fact financed in whole of in part by Charles and David Koch of Wichita, Kansas." The trust was a front group, according to the Senate report, designed to conceal the real donors' identities, in violation of campaign-finance laws. (175-176)