Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch was receiving the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty tonight in Washington, D.C., when several protesters rushed the stage and interrupted his acceptance speech.
From a press table in the back, it wasn’t entirely clear what they were saying or who they were. But the word “lies” punctuated the shouting and hubbub as security quickly pulled them out of the cavernous ballroom at the Hilton north of Dupont Circle.
Koch has long been a sort of Skeletor for liberals — particularly environmentalists and campaign finance reformers — who consider him bent on building businesses no matter the ecological costs and buying elections with untold loads of untraceable “dark money.”
After a couple of minutes, Koch continued his speech about economic freedom and liberty on a night when libertarian-minded Cato officials were sharply critical of both Biden and Trump administration policies — canceling student debt, “disappearing” people without due process — and called for a national recommitment to classical liberal principles of individualism, self-determination and free markets.
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