A Koch Brothers Connection to the New York Times Anonymous Op-Ed Writer?

By Robert Wenzel

There is a lot of focus on the word "lodestar" that is contained in the anonymous op-ed piece written for the New York Times by a "senior Trump administration official".

The word is generally not used in common conversation and was not likely part of President Trump's vocabulary before the op-ed piece but Vice-President Pence sure likes the word.

 

But could the phrase have been picked up by some of the VP's aides or someone else around him? Which leads me to some other odd phrasing in the op-ed. This:

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people.

Hmm. "Free minds, free markets" happens to be the tag line of

the Koch-funded  magazine, Reason:

When you do a Google search of the phrase "free minds, free people," five of the first six results are Reason connected:

And the administration is filled with former Koch-affiliated people, all of whom, it could be reasonably inferred, are familiar with Reason.

Daily Kos informed in October 2017:

[T]he Kochs...are absolutely thrilled that Pence is now where he is, and [author Jane]Mayer carefully details the long history of their relationship...
and the proof is already well in the pudding as we get a run down of just how entrenched the Koch interets are in this administration... 

• Patrick Traylor, an energy industry lawyer and Koch favorite was immediately brought on to enforce (or not) key anti-pollution laws as head of EPA’s enforcement.

• Don McGahn became White House counsel. He is from Freedom Partners, an umbrella Koch group described by Politico as the Koch’s “Secret Bank”.

• Mike Pompeo, director of the C.I.A. [Now secretary of state-RW] was congressman in Charles Koch’s district in Wichita.

And then there is Pence's speechwriter, Stephen Ford, who previously worked for the above-mentioned  "Koch secret bank," Freedom Partners.

Now, I am not saying the Koch brothers are behind the anonymous op-ed and this has nothing to do with Reason doing anything (Reason, in fact, has attacked the op-ed writer) but there is a hint that it might be someone in the Administration familiar with Koch world and Reason in particular.

Consider the above individuals on my suspects' list.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of

EconomicPolicyJournal.com and Target Liberty. 

More about Wenzel here.