White House Spars With Koch Brother, Says ‘Chose to Squeal’ to Reporter

The White House clashed anew with the Koch brothers on Wednesday, as spokesman Josh Earnest griped that conservative businessman Charles Koch “chose to squeal” to a reporter after President Obama criticized the brothers for opposing clean energy programs.

“When the president decides that we’ll take on a challenge that Washington has represented for too long, the special interests, including millionaires and billionaires who have benefited, start to squeal,” said Earnest, the White House press secretary. “In this case, one billionaire chose to squeal to a Politico reporter.”

Obama said Monday at an energy summit in Las Vegas that the country has a “problem” in that “massive lobbying efforts backed by fossil fuel interests, or conservative think tanks, or the Koch brothers” are pushing for new laws to roll back renewable-energy standards or prevent new clean-energy businesses from succeeding.

Charles Koch told Politico on Tuesday that he was “flabbergasted” by the attack and suggested it was for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat and Koch brothers critic who attended the event with Obama.

“It’s beneath the president, the dignity of the president, to be doing that,” Koch told Politico. “I was really dumbfounded. … We expect that with Harry Reid, but I didn’t expect that from the president.” (Read more from “White House Spars With Koch Brother, Says ‘Chose to Squeal’ to Reporter” HERE)

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