t was something of a surreal moment. Charles de Ganahl Koch, the nerdy multibillionaire from Wichita who has become known as the Rasputin of the American Right, was trying to explain to me why he was getting into bed—politically speaking—with people like George Soros, his progressive archrival in the big-money-and-politics set, and Cory Booker, the liberal black senator and former mayor of beleaguered (and very Democratic) Newark, New Jersey.
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Koch had decided to help pull together a new coalition of left-right advocacy groups in Washington, including the Hillary Clinton-aligned Center for American Progress, to fight what he calls the “overcriminalization of America.” He was underwriting a documentary screening at the Newseum about Weldon Angelos, a marijuana dealer serving a 55-year sentence that even Angelos’ judge called “unjust” and “cruel”—and helping to train attorneys to aid poor people across the country. In March, Koch’s general counsel, Mark Holden, plans to join with Van Jones, a former Obama administration official who took the liberal side on CNN’s since-canceled “Crossfire,” in mounting the #Cut50 Bipartisan Summit, which will explore strategies for reducing America’s incarcerated population by 50 percent over the next 10 years. (Jones’s old CNN adversary, Newt Gingrich, is also involved.)
