The Koch brothers are afraid? They've received "death threats", they say. Gee whiz, why don't they stop their anti-citizenry activities, and maybe the death threats would stop.

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Koch Brothers Sue California to Keep Donations Secret
By Joel Rosenblatt, December 12, 2014

Billionaires David and Charles Koch, who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping Republicans, are suing to stop the “grotesque” backlash they’d face from being forced to disclose donors to their nonprofit group.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris, the target of their lawsuit, says she isn’t trying to expose contributors to the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The state is required by law to collect the information and also to keep it secret, according to her spokesman.

The Kochs accuse Harris of violating free speech rights protecting anonymous donations by attempting to force nonprofit groups to disclose a federal tax form identifying donors. The brothers said death threats that are “serious and often horrific” lead them to fear that revealing the donations will put them and their families at risk.

“David Koch and Charles Koch have faced unrelenting threats and attacks via social media, phone calls, e-mail and protests outside their homes and places of business” due to their work with the Arlington, Virginia-based foundation, according to their complaint in federal court in Los Angeles.

Harris, a Democrat who won re-election November, is considered a possible candidate for governor at the end of her term.

Harris helped obtain a $1 million settlement in October 2013 with two Arizona-based political groups that California election regulators said had ties to Charles and David Koch. The agreement resolved claims the groups violated California campaign finance laws by concealing the origin of $15 million in donations to conservative causes in the 2012 election.

The Kochs cite the settlement in their complaint, arguing they were wrongly linked to the political groups.

Harris Letter

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation was told by Harris in 2013 that its 2011 registration was incomplete because its Schedule B tax form didn’t include the names and addresses of its contributors, according to the Dec. 8 lawsuit. The request came “out of the blue,” and after the foundation had registered in California annually since 2001 without making such disclosures, the Kochs said.

Harris “doubled down on her demand” in October, threatening to suspend the foundation’s registration, revoke its tax exemption and fine it, according to the complaint.

David Beltran, a spokesman for Harris, said the foundation hadn’t previously received a letter notifying it of the requirement because the attorney general’s unit that oversees nonprofits has been chronically underfunded.

“This is simply the enforcement of a law that all charities are required to comply with and has long been on the books,” Beltran said Friday in an e-mail.

Beltran said California sends 60 letters each month to charities which have filed missing or incomplete Schedule B forms.

The case is Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Harris, 14-cv-09448, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).
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