What’re two oil billionaires to do when their favored Republican candidates are faltering in the polls, taking wildly unpopular positions back home, and tying themselves to presumptive nominee Donald Trump? If you’re Charles and David Koch, you spend millions on false and misleading advertisements that can’t pass muster with fact checkers.
In two separate fact checks this morning, the Koch brothers’ Freedom Partners Action Fund’s attempts to smear Democrats in the Wisconsin and Nevada U.S. Senate races were struck down for their blatant distortion of the truth. These two fact checks show just how desperate the Kochs have become to try and salvage their increasingly vulnerable Republican candidates.
“With no way to defend Ron Johnson and Joe Heck’s out-of-touch records, it’s not surprising that the Koch brothers are resorting to false and misleading advertisements to try and prop up their flailing candidates,” said DSCC spokesperson Sam Lau. “But no amount of money can erase the failures of Ron Johnson and Joe Heck to stand up for their constituents, and that’s what they’ll both be held accountable for this November.”
But Freedom Partners cites no evidence that it was delivered. And it made a revised version of the ad that essentially walks back its claim, now saying the memo was marked as delivered, not that Feingold actually received it. Because there isn’t evidence that Feingold received the memo, we rate the claim False.
So, while it’s true Cortez Masto recommended the hiring of a law firm that earned money representing the state and whose partners later contributed to her campaign, it’s also true the firm successfully forced one of the largest banks in the country to pay the state millions to compensate for alleged wrongdoing. That sounds much more like Cortez Masto doing her job than cozying up to a Washington special interest for personal profit. In fact, you’d have to very carefully arrange the facts to lead people to that conclusion. That’s why you always have to wait until you’ve heard the entire story, in court and out.
