The CEO of the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity Foundation on Tuesday testified in the California federal trial over the Koch brother-founded group’s bid to prevent California’s attorney general from obtaining its donor list that seven-figure donors’ anonymity is a “key aspect” of the organization.
During the first day of the bench trial before U.S. District Judge Manuel Real in Los Angeles on the foundation’s claim that its First Amendment rights shield it from having to give California Attorney General Kamala Harris an Internal Revenue Service tax form containing a national list of major donors, the foundation called to the stand its CEO Lucas Anthony Hilgemann. Under examination by the foundation’s attorney Keith Forst of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Hilgemann testified that “seven-figure” donors are the group’s “lifeblood,” and added that a major part of his role as CEO is assuring the major donors that their names will not be made public.