Campaign expenditures by independent groups are skyrocketing in this election cycle: non-political party independent spending in Senate and House races totaled $147.5 million through mid-October, a 73 percent increase over such spending in mid-October 2008. One of the more active groups is the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) that just began a $19 million ad campaign against House Democrats in 22 districts. The group has refused to say who funds their often-misleading ads.

As ThinkProgress noted when the group was formed, AAN is controlled by a number of very wealthy Wall Street Republicans, including a former Goldman Sachs CEO and the founder of Home Depot. The founder of the group is Fred Malek, a former Nixon aide who has become quite wealthy on Wall Street, earning a net worth of between $200 and $300 million through various corporate jobs and as founder partner of the private equity firm Thayer Capital Partners.

Malek is notorious as the “Jew counter” in President Richard Nixon’s administration: he made a list of Jewish employees in the Bureau of Labor Statistics at Nixon’s behest, and was involved in reassigning or demoting those workers. But as the New York Times pointed out this weekend, Malek has significant baggage from his campaign fundraising roles during the Nixon era:

The Committee for the Re-Election of the President was also illegally hauling in many millions of dollars from corporations, many of which felt pressured into making contributions. [...]

[S]ome players shaking the corporate money trees for nonprofit groups this year cut their teeth in the Nixon re-election campaign. There is Fred Malek, a founder of the American Action Network, whose members include many well-known Republicans, like former Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Mr. Malek was the White House personnel chief in 1972 and helped dispense patronage for major Nixon donors as well as serving as deputy director of Creep.

Back then, Mr. Malek was interviewed by Hamilton Fox III, another Watergate prosecutor, and acknowledged that some of the campaign’s activities might have “bordered on the unethical.”

In addition, the Washington Post previously detailed how Malek designed a “responsiveness program” in the Nixon federal government which was explicitly intended to “politicize the federal government in support of Nixon’s reelection.”

Malek has close ties to the conservative campaign fundraising structure. On the board at AAN is former RNC chairman Ed Gilliespie, who along with Karl Rove helps coordinate the mega-spending group American Crossroads. AAN and American Crossroads share an office, and of course Rove, too, is a former Nixon campaign vet.

As noted, in the Times piece, Malek was investigated for his role in Nixon’s campaign fundraising. In today’s post-Citizens United climate, he’s a celebrated mainstream player.

Early last month, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) named longtime Republican power broker Fred Malek to chair his Commission on Government Reform and Restructuring. As ThinkProgress noted at the time, Malek brings a controversial past with him to the position as President Nixon once tasked him with creating a list of “important Jewish officials” within the Bureau of Labor Statistics, several of whom were later demoted or transferred.

Malek’s infamous past gained renewed attention last week when the Washington Post reported that “Democrats are calling attention to the recent disclosure of more memos that detail his part in carrying out President Richard M. Nixon’s program to enforce ideological and religious purity.” As Slate’s Timothy Noah (who has written extensively on Malek’s past conduct) notes, documents released in January 2010 “show beyond any doubt that Malek was actively involved in the process of reassigning the offending BLS Semites, his strenuous denials to the contrary.” Noah also notes evidence that demonstrates how Malek’s use of the term “ethnics” in memos was meant to mean “Jews”:

The Nixon Library documents also include a July 30 memo to Haldeman from Kingsley (“through” Malek, who signed it) explaining that although the earlier (July 27) Jew-counting memo said the BLS housed 13 Jews, they were now revising their estimate to 19. The identities of the additional six suspected Jews are not revealed. In this memo Kingsley rather ham-handedly lists the 19 under the heading “NUMBER OF ETHNICS,” then further gives the game away in a scribbled cover note to Malek: “Obviously, the interpretation of ‘ethnic’ should be narrow in this case!” Well, duh. (Malek’s own earlier memo to Haldeman more delicately referred to the Jews as fitting “the other demographic criterion that was discussed.” Malek confirmed to Woodward and Pincus that he meant Jews.)

On Saturday, Malek — somewhat evasively — apologized for his past once again. In a moment of unintended irony, however, Malek returned to his old-minority counting ways today in an interview on Bill Bennett’s radio show, albeit with a much more benign intent:

BENNETT: Alright, we talked to Bill Kristol about, you know, California stuff and, you know, Florida and all. But what about some of these governors races that are not getting so much attention that you find interesting?

MALEK: Well, I think the governor’s races are the, are the great untold story in American politics today. I mean, not to, a few people have noticed them, but we’ve got some huge races and some major themes are emerging for the, for the Republican Party. Think of this. I believe that we’re going to have a Hispanic candidate emerging today. Brian Sandoval, I believe will win the primary in Nevada. We would have two Hispanic candidates for governors in this, in this country. Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Brian Sandoval in Nevada. We’ll have three minorities over all because I think Nikki Haley is going to get into a run off today and probably emerge as the candidate in South Carolina and she is an Indian born Indian, full-blooded, and a very attractive candidate. So, all in all, you have three minorities running as governor on a Republican ticket. And you know, it’s not just that they’re women and minorities, they are all really well-qualified. They’re center-right candidates. They’ve got the right beliefs. And joining with altogether, we have five women who are going to be running for governor. So it’s really going to put a new face on our party.

Bennett joined Malek in delight over the countable number of minorities potentially representing the GOP in 2010. “Nikki Haley, if elected, would join Bobby Jindal and we would have two Republican, Republicans from the Indian sub-continent,” said Bennett. “That’s right,” replied Malek. “And you know, we’re always characterized as the kind of the old white conservative guys and so forth,” but “who’s going to have the most female governors? Whose had the most Hispanic candidates for governor? Who has the most, the most Indian-American governors?” asked Malek. Listen here:

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