The Koch Appeasers Taking Over Trump’s Defense Department

“As of today, the incoming Trump Administration has hired over 1,000 people,” President Trump tweeted. “It would be helpful if you would not send, or recommend to us people who worked with, or are endorsed by, Americans for No Prosperity (headed by Charles Koch)” along with a long list of others.

But by then it was already too late. The Kochers were already on the inside.

Dan Caldwell, listed as a lobbyist by Americans for Prosperity who worked for a number of Koch network groups, has been staffing up the Department of Defense with ‘Kochlings’. The ‘Kochlings’ are members of the vast Koch network that includes Stand Together, currently the parent group of Americans for Prosperity, where Caldwell served as the Vice President of Foreign Policy.

At Stand Together, Caldwell had followed the Koch appeasement line by warning that “U.S. leaders should avoid overinflating the threat posed by China. Indeed, China has its own domestic and international constraints that may hinder its rise. Accordingly, policymakers should deal with the challenges posed by China without resurrecting the Cold War or raising the likelihood of direct conflict.”

“Conservatives should not act as though a war with China is preordained, lest they wind up unintentionally sparking one,” Caldwell argued in Foreign Affairs magazine. “Conservative policymakers should therefore avoid responding to the challenges posed by China with policies that would increase the likelihood of direct conflict.” Caldwell warned against provoking China by providing a security guarantee to Taiwan or “extending military aid to wealthy countries in East Asia”.

Stand Together ran an explainer from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a partnership between George Soros and Koch, warning against building alliances in the region and describing China’s looting of the U.S. economy as “one of the greatest success stories in international economics” for having “lifted millions of Chinese people out of poverty” and cautioning against any moves “to try and decouple the U.S.-China economic relationship.”

The Koch network, whose founder and financier has extensive business dealings with China, had previously broken with Trump over his crackdown on China leading to Trump calling the Koch network “Americans for China Prosperity.”

Opposition to Trump’s tariffs aligned with Charles Koch’s libertarian politics, but also with his business interests which included investments in China. And even the Koch network’s occasionally shifting positions on international trade appeared to align with its founder’s business interests rather than any libertarian ideology.

The Koch network opposed Trump’s tariffs, but also lobbied for restrictions on Huawei after the CCP arrested a Koch executive and Koch companies invested in a Huawei rival. What was good for Koch was not necessarily what was good for America and what was good for America might not be good for Koch.

The Koch network had been accused of co-opting the Tea Party movement and Trump had won support from movement activists because of his resistance to being ‘Koched’. But some are concerned that his administration is being ‘Koched’ from within by operatives with a longtime relationship to Koch interests.

And troubling views about our enemies they’ve tried to pass off as ‘America First’.

John A. Byers argued that “peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial prosperity” with China must be the watchwords for a second Trump administration. “The vastness and persistent growth of China’s trade” suggests a “future of mutually assured production rather than mutually assured destruction.”

Byers was a former director of foreign policy at the Charles Koch Foundation and came out of the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at the Bush School of Government which was funded by the Charles Koch Foundation.

He has now been appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Southeast Asia even though his Koch policy proposals run counter to Trump’s.

“A second Trump administration must also avoid a heightened trade war with China,” Byers had argued, “that will harm American prosperity”.

“America should abandon belligerent military initiatives targeted at China,” he cautioned and emphasized that “Taiwan, a non-ally, is not worth risking war with China over”.

Byers explained that “vowing to avenge the ‘century of humiliation’ the CCP will not tolerate Western bullying about its internal affairs” and that if we don’t threaten China then “a more secure China is less likely to engage in excessive military buildups that heighten self-fulfilling spirals of fear and hostility.”

“American hegemony is over,” the future Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Southeast Asia concluded.

Another Koch network appointee is Michael DiMino, a former CIA deep stater who worked at Defense Priorities, funded by Koch money, and linked to the Soros-Koch Quincy institute, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East. This led to concern from supporters of Israel over DiMino’s views who had predicted that Israel would lose the war against Hamas and Hezbollah.

While the DiMino pick was met approvingly by the Tehran Times run by the Iranian regime, Iranian dissidents and Jewish conservatives raised red flags.

DiMino had urged America to appease the Houthis attacking US Navy vessels by pressuring Israel to go easier on Gaza in an article for the Soros-Koch Quincy Institute titled ‘Bombing Isn’t the Only Way Out of the Houthi Crisis’.

“Houthi attacks decreased during the brief truce in November, only to resume afterwards,” DiMino had argued in defense of his position.

After Oct 7, DiMino called the Abraham Accords a “massive mistake” for not focusing on creating a ‘Palestinian’ terrorist state, and urged “deescalation” with a push for a “moderate” Israeli government and attacks that would limit “civilian casualties”. According to DiMino, the ‘Palestinian’ issue is “central to the region,” and that would make foreign policy in the Trump administration center around it.

The Koch network appears to have planted its own operatives in the key roles of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Southeast Asia and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East where they will advance Koch agendas.

Some describe this as a form of ‘institutional capture’ under which Charles Koch becomes the shadow Secretary of Defense. Koch businesses have extensive interests in the Middle East and Asia and the political appeasement agendas advanced by Koch-funded operatives dovetail with those business interests.

After Trump’s latest victory, Koch operatives have tried to pass off their views as America First even when, like Byers, they openly oppose Trump’s actual policies. This form of institutional capture prevailed in previous Republican administrations forcing Ronald Reagan to battle his own staffers to include the famous line “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall” in his own speech.

During his 2016 run, Trump made it clear that he would not let his administration be hijacked by the Koch network. That in part was what won him the support of Tea Party movement activists who had bitter experience with getting ‘Koched’.

But personnel is policy and the Pentagon is being ‘Koched’ out from under him.

There’s more at stake here than just a power struggle. The Koch foreign policy undermines America and urges appeasement of our enemies. Despite its recent efforts to drop its libertarian brand and claim to be America First, it is closely integrated with the Soros network through the Quincy Institute, co-founded by Soros and Koch, where at least one appointee, Michael DiMino, was involved, and through Koch’s donations to Soros’ International Crisis Group.

The International Crisis Group was headed by Robert Malley, a close ally of Obama and Biden’s envoy to Iran, who was under investigation for mishandling classified documents. Dan Caldwell had praised Biden’s choice of Malley.

The Soros and Koch networks have a lot of overlap when it comes to foreign policy. And they’re both hostile to President Trump’s America First policies.

The struggle for the Pentagon will determine whether we’ll get Trump’s America First policy or the same stealth Koch and Soros foreign policy dressed up in America First drag.