Report: Tea Partying Koch Brothers' Company Sold Equipment To Iran

Charles and David Koch.

So that story that the secretive Tea Party-backing Koch Brothers were so anxious to kill? There was a good reason for that. The Bloomberg Markets article is now here and has lots of the juicy bits that you figured had to be there if the Koch's were going after it before it went live. Bribes, unethical business practices, and millions in petrochemical equipment sales to Iran, anyone?

It seems that the secretive, private Koch Industries has not always been the best when it comes to following American trade rules:

A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries—in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East—has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.

Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban. Koch Industries units have also rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.

And it goes on and on. In addition to the revelations about Iran—"Every single chance they had to do business with Iran, or anyone else, they did," a former sales engineer told the magazine of the companies efforts, which helped the country build the largest methanol plant in the world— Bloomberg also finds former Koch employees who were happy to talk to at least one of the article's 16 reporters (!) about being told to falsify data by their ex-bosses. Like Sally Barnes-Soliz, who refused to lie on behalf of the company when it came to uncontrolled emissions of benzene, a known carcinogen. "They didn’t know what to do with me," she told the magazine. "They were really kind of baffled that I had ethics." Did we mention that Koch Industries "guiding principles" are "integrity and compliance?" Yeah.

And then there is the bit in the article where it is explained how Koch managers taught one employee "and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat." Which, y'know, if you are against regulation of any kind...kind of makes sense. Anyway, if you want to see what a political hit piece looks like, look no further.

Oh, and just in case you were worried: Koch Industries says that when it was trading with Iran it really wasn't breaking any laws and anyway, it no longer allows any of its units to trade with the country. And here's the companies awesomely soundtracked video rebuttal—spooky!