Prince Kehoe’s French March into Paris
Kehoe's one Facebook post gives away the truth about who is sponsoring his travels to France
Kehoe Aristocracy
When Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe touched down in Paris this week for his first international trade mission, he carried more than his used car salesman pitch and appointed, but not elected, self. He brought with him the business interests of a select group of corporations that paid handsomely for the privilege.
The trip, officially billed as promoting Missouri's economic interests abroad, is being funded entirely by the Hawthorn Foundation—a private nonprofit that's essentially a who's who of Missouri's corporate elite. Nonprofit is a misnomer in this case, as it’s all about profit.
An investigation into the foundation's operations reveals a sophisticated pay-to-play system where corporations contribute tens of thousands of dollars to fund the Governor's official diplomatic activities, then benefit directly from state-sponsored promotion of their products and services.
The Corporate Sponsors
The Hawthorn Foundation's 2024 tax filings reveal a carefully tiered system of corporate influence:
Governor Bond Investors ($75,000+):
Ameren (major utility company)
Missouri Farmers Care (agribusiness advocacy group)
Board of Governors ($50,000+):
Bayer (pharmaceuticals and agriculture)
Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railroad
Missouri Employers Mutual (workers' compensation insurance)
Spire (natural gas utility)
Show Me Missouri Level ($20,000+):
BJC HealthCare
Burns & McDonnell (engineering and construction)
Evergy (electric utility)
Gilmore Bell (law firm)
The foundation's total revenue in 2024 was over $6.4 million, with $4.34 million flowing directly to the Missouri Partnership—the state's quasi-governmental economic development arm. It must be nice to have a government agency that is supposedly not funded by taxpayers, but by corporations that decide policy, law, and travel agendas for the governor.
What Corporations Get for Their Money
In France, Governor Kehoe is not promoting Missouri in the abstract. He's specifically pushing the products and services of the very companies that funded his trip. According to the Governor's office, Missouri's key exports to France include "basic chemicals, navigational/medical control instruments, and electrical equipment and components"—precisely the sectors dominated by Hawthorn Foundation contributors.
Kehoe is meeting with executives from Boeing, Leonardo DRS, and Schneider Electric, as well as officials from MEDEF, France's largest employer federation. He's attending the Paris Air Show, the aerospace industry's premier trade event.
The message is clear: pay the foundation, and the Governor will personally promote your business interests on the international stage. The governor will shake hands at all the right events and, perhaps, since it’s Paris, consider hosting a Burlesque Show for the right price: dance, Kehoe, dance.
The Blunt Connection
At the center of this web sits Rebecca Willard, the Executive Director of the Hawthorn Foundation and former Deputy Campaign Manager for ex-Senator Roy Blunt's 2016 reelection campaign. She also works for Axiom Strategies, the strong-arm group that forces Reps and Senators to vote their way or else across the nation. Willard managed Blunt's $16 million campaign budget and "oversaw daily campaign operations as well as the finance program."
The connections don't end there. The foundation's tax returns show it paid $162,000 to Kit Bond Strategies—the consulting firm where Roy Blunt now works as a "Leadership Strategies Advisory Services" consultant after leaving the Senate. Former Governor Kit Bond, the firm's namesake, built his political empire through similar networks of corporate influence.
This represents a clear example of Missouri's "uniparty"—a bipartisan network of former politicians, lobbyists, and corporate interests that maintains influence regardless of which party holds power officially.
Update from the Governor’s Office about the trip to France.
A Quasi-Governmental Operation
The Hawthorn Foundation operates with the opacity of a private organization while performing functions that are essentially governmental. Its mission statement reads like that of a state agency: "to serve as a private business recruitment and marketing organization for the State of Missouri, by working in cooperation with businesses and economic development officials." Yet, they get the protection of a nonprofit. They are accountable to no one.
The foundation's board includes 64 members representing Missouri's business and political elite, including:
Dr. Mun Choi, University of Missouri System President
Michelle Hataway, Director of Missouri's Department of Economic Development
Warren Erdman, board member of Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railroad
This creates an inherent conflict of interest for Hataway. The head of the state's economic development department sits on the board of the private foundation that funds her department's activities.
Following the Money
The foundation's 2023 finances reveal the scope of this operation:
International Spending in 2024:
Europe: $283,524
East Asia/Pacific: $152,866
Middle East/North Africa: $50,278
Central America: $8,136
Total international activities: $494,804
Revenue Sources:
Government grants: $3,500,000
Membership dues: $1,060,400
Other private contributions: $948,440
Program service revenue: $921,505
The fact that the foundation receives both taxpayer dollars through government grants and private corporate funding, while directing state policy, creates a troubling blend of public and private interests.
They don’t even require corporations to fund the trips as much as taxpayers do. A government grant is your money. They screw you both ways through high taxes and then through special tax breaks and relationships for these corporations who pay their membership dues.
Corporate Sponsorship Without the Honesty
If corporate influence were as transparent in politics as it is in sports, Governor Kehoe would be walking around France with Ameren and Bayer patches on his jacket, Monsanto tattoos on his ass, Spire logos on his biceps, and Canadian Pacific Kansas City emblazoned across his shoulders. At least NASCAR drivers are honest about who's paying them.
The irony is that race car drivers are more transparent about their corporate relationships than Missouri's Governor. When you watch a NASCAR race, you know exactly who's sponsoring each driver. However, when Kehoe travels to France to promote the interests of the same corporations that fund his trip, the sponsorship is hidden behind the Hawthorn Foundation's "nonprofit" status. This nonprofit (really for-profit) status gives Governor Kehoe the ability to hide his actions and motivations.
We have Ameren ($75,000+ Governor Bond Investor) promoting electrical equipment overseas, Bayer ($50,000+ Board of Governors) expanding chemical exports internationally, and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, with their board member Warren Erdman, sitting directly on the Hawthorn Foundation board. If this were NASCAR, Kehoe's France mission would look like a mobile advertisement for his major donors. He would have a trailer with labels, and his car would be brightly colored with stickers.
The difference is that NASCAR fans know they're watching corporate-sponsored entertainment. Missouri voters think they're getting democratic representation, but they're getting the same corporate-sponsored performance, just without the honesty of visible patches. At least Jeff Gordon never pretended his DuPont sponsorship was about "serving the people of North Carolina." Kehoe is lying to your face when he says he’s serving Missouri. And he’s lying to God when he goes to Mass at Notre Dame, may God judge his soul.
The Transparency Black Hole
The International Accountability Loophole
The overseas nature of Kehoe's trade mission introduces another layer of opacity, shielding government decisions from public scrutiny. By conducting official Missouri business on foreign soil, Kehoe can hold meetings and make commitments that are entirely immune to Sunshine laws and Freedom of Information Act requests.
French government officials and business leaders are exempt from Missouri's transparency requirements. Any agreements, understandings, or commitments made during these meetings exist in a legal gray area where Missouri taxpayers have no right to know what their Governor promised on their behalf.
This international dimension enables a more sophisticated form of accountability avoidance. While domestic NGO partnerships create one layer of opacity, overseas meetings create another.
The combination means that crucial policy decisions affecting Missouri can be made through a chain of private organizations and foreign meetings that are entirely insulated from public oversight. The only journalists who get access are the public relations journalists who excitedly talk about how great Kehoe is.
When Kehoe meets with executives from Bayer, Boeing, or Schneider Electric in Paris, those conversations happen beyond the reach of any sunshine law. The corporate interests funding his trip through the Hawthorn Foundation get private access to Missouri's Governor in a jurisdiction where no Missouri citizen can demand records of what was discussed or agreed upon.
Constitutional Crisis: What Type of Government Is This?
The evidence raises a fundamental question: Is Missouri supported by taxpayers, or is it funded, purchased, and owned by corporations? If the latter, then what we're witnessing isn't a constitutional republic—it's the socialistic nationalization of private enterprises, where corporate interests have captured the government's apparatus.
When the Hawthorn Foundation receives $3.5 million in government grants while simultaneously collecting private corporate contributions to fund official state functions, we're no longer looking at private enterprise and public governance as separate spheres.
Instead, we're seeing a hybrid system where corporations use government power to advance their interests while the government uses corporate money to fund its operations.
This isn't free market capitalism—it's corporate socialism. Private companies socialize their costs (using taxpayer-funded economic development) while privatizing their profits. They get the benefits of government promotion and protection without the accountability that comes with being actual government agencies. The government is paying for their marketing and PR on these trips and even funding the Governor to be their mouthpiece.
In a constitutional republic, the government serves the people who elect it. In this system, the government serves the corporations that fund it. The Hawthorn Foundation, IAAO, and similar organizations represent a form of corporate governance that operates parallel to—and often in place of—democratic institutions.
The Blunt Machine: Corporate Feudalism in Missouri
This system creates a two-tiered economy where certain corporations benefit from the full might of the state's benevolence, while those who don't belong to Roy Blunt's political machine—now controlled by his protégé, Becky Willard—are left to waste away and are replaced by foreign interests.
Consider the beneficiaries of Kehoe's France mission: Bayer (German), Canadian Pacific Kansas City (Canadian), and Schneider Electric (French). Meanwhile, Missouri's small farmers face new regulatory burdens, property tax increases, and chemical dependency that benefits the same foreign corporations getting state promotion overseas.
The Hawthorn Foundation operates as the enforcement arm of this corporate feudalism. Companies that pay tribute through foundation membership get official state promotion, regulatory protection, and access to international markets. Companies that fail to pay are squeezed out through tax increases, regulatory burdens, and a lack of state support.
It's a protection racket with a nonprofit veneer. Pay your dues to the Hawthorn Foundation, and Governor Kehoe will personally promote your products to foreign governments. Refuse to pay, and watch your property taxes increase while your competitors get state-sponsored advantages.
This explains why the same names keep appearing: Ameren, Bayer, Canadian Pacific, Kansas City, and Spire. I’m surprised the Chiefs aren’t there too. These aren't just successful companies—they're members of a protected class that has bought immunity from the regulatory and tax burdens imposed on everyone else.
They've purchased the power of the state to serve their interests while their competitors face the state as an adversary.
The Choice: Serf or Sovereign?
The question facing Missouri voters is fundamental: Are you a feudal serf, or are you a man with inalienable rights? Is your governor your prince and his lobbyists his aristocratic court, or is he your servant whom you install and can uninstall at will?
Make no mistake—this is the choice. Accept a system where Governor Kehoe jets off to France wearing the corporate logos of his masters, implementing policies decided by international organizations you cannot influence, serving foreign corporations that have destroyed their economies and now need to destroy yours.
Accept that the International Association of Assessing Officers will set your property taxes, your trade policy by the Hawthorn Foundation's corporate members, and your economic future by whatever deals Kehoe cuts in meetings you can never Sunshine.
Remember that this is the same Europe that can't defend itself against ongoing Muslim riots and cultural upheaval in the very heart of Paris where Kehoe is conducting his business, the same Europe that can't fight off Russia's renewed military aggression and Putin's latest attacks on Ukraine from their borders, and the same Europe that couldn't even keep England from abandoning their failed union. Yet Kehoe wants Missouri to follow their model of managed decline and corporate socialism.
The timing of Kehoe's Paris mission is particularly tone-deaf given the growing unease about Islamic influence both in Europe and here in Missouri. Not because Missourians aren't open to different cultures, but because of legitimate concerns about following Quranic principles that are fundamentally incompatible with constitutional governance. Europe's inability to address these cultural conflicts while maintaining social stability hardly makes it a model worth emulating. Do we need to be another failed European State? Wasn’t the point of our nation to be something better?
Kehoe's trade deals are binding Missouri more tightly to these European failures and their dying economic model. He's importing their regulatory frameworks through organizations like the IAAO, their corporate socialism through the Hawthorn Foundation, and their managed decline through policies that benefit foreign corporations at the expense of Missouri families.
Or take back what belongs to you by birthright as an American citizen.
The European model that Prince Kehoe admires so much has created economic stagnation, energy dependence, and the systematic impoverishment of the middle class.
Now those same interests want to export their failures to Missouri through captured politicians like Kehoe, who serve foreign masters while wrapping themselves in conservative rhetoric.
You have inalienable rights that come from God, not from Prince Kehoe or his corporate sponsors. You have the right to a transparent government, accountable representation, and economic policies that serve the interests of Missouri families, rather than those of German chemical companies and Canadian railroads.
However, rights that aren't exercised tend to disappear. If you won't vote out the asshats like Kehoe and the senators and representatives who enable this corporate feudalism, then you've chosen serfdom. You've decided that European-style managed decline is preferable to American-style self-governance.
The founders pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to establish a Republic where government serves the people. The least you can do is pledge your vote to keep it that way.
The choice is yours. Bow to your corporate overlords and European failures, or remind them who the absolute sovereigns are in this republic. Choose carefully—your children's freedom depends on it.
This investigation is ongoing. The Missouri Governor's office has not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Sources and References
Government Documents:
Hawthorn Foundation Form 990 (2023-2024), Internal Revenue Service
Hawthorn Foundation Schedule B - Schedule of Contributors (2024)
Governor Kehoe Press Release: "Governor Kehoe Announces First International Trade Mission" (June 13, 2025)
Missouri Executive Order 25-18: "Eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives" (February 18, 2025)
News Reports:
Missouri Independent: "Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe orders ban on DEI initiatives in state agencies" (February 19, 2025)
Missourinet: "Mission to France: Kehoe to give sales pitch in first trade mission as governor" (June 16, 2025)
KRCG-TV: "Gov. Mike Kehoe to take trade trip to France, visit Paris Air Show, Normandy memorial" (June 13, 2025)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Missouri governor heading to France on trade mission" (June 10, 2025)
Organization Websites:
Hawthorn Foundation: https://www.hawthornfoundation.org/
International Association of Assessing Officers: https://www.iaao.org/
Americans for the Arts: https://www.americansforthearts.org/
Missouri Partnership: https://missouripartnership.com/
Financial and Legal Documents:
IAAO Technical Standards: https://www.iaao.org/industry-data/iaao-technical-standards/
Americans for the Arts Cultural Equity Statement: https://www.americansforthearts.org/about-americans-for-the-arts/our-statement-on-cultural-equity
Energy and Policy Institute: "Missouri utilities pump more than $400,000 into Kehoe gubernatorial bid"
Cape Girardeau County Assessment Documentation (2025)
Phelps County Assessor: https://phelps.missouriassessors.com/
Current Events References:
BBC News: "France protests: Riots continue across country" (ongoing coverage)
Reuters: "Putin's latest military escalation in Ukraine" (June 2025)
Associated Press: "European security challenges and immigration tensions" (2025)
Political Organizations:
Missouri National Education Association: https://www.mnea.org/
National Education Association Racial & Social Justice: https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/racial-social-justice
World Economic Forum: "Strategic Partnership Framework with UN" (June 13, 2019)
Previous Investigations:
Shield Maidens of Missouri: Property tax investigation and county assessor reports
HickChristian Substack: "Kehoe's Hidden DEI" and related Missouri political investigations
Show Me Progress: Roy Blunt lobbying connections and Abramoff scandal documentation