David Koch speaking at the 2015 Defending the American Dream Summit at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio, on August 21, 2015.
Credit: Gage Skidmore

Charles and David Koch have received positive press for backing a bipartisan effort to reform American criminal justice laws, which have helped make the US the world’s biggest jailer and whose burdens have fallen disproportionately on people of color.

But, as the Kochs ride the wave of momentum toward criminal justice reform, it is becoming increasingly clear that part of their agenda would actually make it harder to prosecute corporate violations of environmental and financial laws that protect the public from corporate wrongdoing. The changes would make it harder to hold executives and their employees responsible for violating US laws and would protect their financial interests, at the public’s expense.

Over at least the past five years, the Kochs and Koch-backed groups like the American Legislative […]