"It's big for the people of Wisconsin and their economic future, but I think it's even bigger nationally as well, " said Tim Phillips, the group's president.

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In the second case, involving a client Phillips successfully represented in a whistleblower suit against General Electric, the client sued him in California State Court, alleging secret financial ties between the taxpayer group and Phillips' firm.

FORBES

But the fiscal proceeds from 3G matter less than the economic gains, according to Tom Phillips of the GSM Association, a telecoms lobby group.

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He turned professional in 1953, playing with the Sid Phillips and Eric Delaney bands, before forming his own group, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, in 1958.

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"The age of Internet voter fraud is here sooner and in more sinister form than even I imagined, " said Deborah Phillips, president of the Voting Integrity Project, an activist group that specializes in Internet and democracy issues.

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Tim Phillips, the boss of Americans for Prosperity, a small-government pressure group, says that he and his colleagues encountered enthusiastic crowds everywhere they went during a 12-city tour of Wisconsin in support of the proposed checks on the state's public-sector unions.

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The same year the False Claims Act was amended, Phillips set up Taxpayers Against Fraud, a nonprofit group out to aid whistleblowers.

FORBES: The Enforcer

Tim Phillips, a former business partner to Jack Abramoff who now leads the Koch front group Americans for Prosperity, was with Nancy Pfotenhauer, a former corporate lobbyist for Koch Industries.

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Tim Phillips is president of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy group built around many of the same principles as the tea party.

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Phillips ran it out of his own offices early on and required his clients to make the taxpayer group a co-plaintiff in their whistleblower suits as a way to fund the antifraud crusade.

FORBES: The Enforcer