The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has investigated the political funding networks of Charles and David Koch, two of the wealthiest people in America and generous donors to conservative political causes. In her 6,000-word story, Mayer makes a case that the billionaire brothers have funded and fostered the Tea Party movement as a well-disguised means to pursue their private political agenda. The brothers vehemently deny the claim, and Mayer's story has been written off by conservative bloggers as a "coordinated character assassination." Here are some of the key assertions in the article:
The family has a complicated relationship with communism
The family business, Koch Industries, was built up by the brothers' father, Fred, an "arch-conservative" and member of the staunchly anti-communist (some might say "paranoid")