Steven Greenhut is a libertarian columnist, contributor to Reason Magazine, author of the books Plunder! and Abuse of Power, and vice president of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

As one might expect, there are deep links between the Franklin Center and wealthy donors such as the Koch family ( peekURL.com/zK9FCn6 ; also see peekURL.com/zgkX7S3 ):

95 percent of Franklin's revenue in 2011 came from a charity called Donors Trust [in the form of a $6.3 million donation], according to Internal Revenue Service records.

...Donors Trust includes 193 contributors, the majority of whom are individuals. "A lot of donors are flying totally under the radar," says president and CEO Whitney Ball.

Since its founding in 1999, Donors Trust and its affiliated organization, Donors Capital Fund, have distributed nearly $400 million, becoming major vehicles for tax-exempt giving from wealthy conservatives such as billionaire industrialist Charles Koch.

Koch is among an exclusive pool of donors who have used Donors Trust as a "pass-through," says Marcus Owens, the former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, now in private legal practice. "It obscures the source of the money. It becomes a grant from Donors Trust, not a grant from the Koch brothers."

A top backer of Donors Trust is the Knowledge and Progress Fund, which is chaired by Charles Koch ( peekURL.com/zcAxqvX ). His foundation has also donated to Donors Trust.