Politics

How a Koch-backed veterans group gained influence in Trump’s Washington

By Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Lisa Rein and David Weigel April 7 at 7:08 PM

michelle.lee@washpost.com; lisa.rein@washpost.com; david.weigel@washpost.com

As Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin battled last month to keep his job, his fate hinged in part on a once-obscure advocacy group backed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

In the end, Shulkin’s refusal to pursue greater outsourcing of health care for veterans — the top priority of the Koch-backed Concerned Veterans for America — further alienated him from the group’s allies in the Trump administration and contributed to his ouster, according to officials familiar with the situation. ... The VA secretary’s fall underscores the growing clout that CVA is wielding in the Trump era through a national grass-roots network and sympathetic officials in the White House.

What began as a savvy political strategy — tapping veterans as a potent constituency and seizing on bureaucratic failures at the Department of Veterans Affairs to hammer the Obama administration — has transformed CVA into one of the most muscular arms of the conservative Koch network. ... Since its formation seven years ago, the group has racked up major legislative victories and poured at least $52 million into campaigns and policy work, according to tax filings.

In a sign of its influence, President Trump recently echoed a key talking point of the group on the need to expand VA’s “Choice” program, which gives veterans access to private doctors. “We want them to have choice so that they can run to a private doctor and take care of it,” the president said at a rally in Ohio the day after Shulkin’s firing. “And it’s going to get done.”
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Michelle Ye Hee Lee is a reporter on The Washington Post's national political enterprise and accountability team, covering money and influence in politics. Previously, she was a reporter for The Post's Fact Checker and a government accountability reporter at the Arizona Republic.
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Lisa Rein covers federal agencies and the management of government in the Trump adminstration. At The Washington Post, she has written about the federal workforce, state politics and government in Annapolis, Md., and in Richmond; local government in Fairfax County, Va. and the redevelopment of Washington and its neighborhoods.
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David Weigel is a national political correspondent covering Congress and grass-roots political movements. He is the author of "The Show That Never Ends," a history of progressive rock music.
Follow @daveweigel