ICYMI: The Oil Money Funding Trump’s Legal Defense
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Heatmap, “According to new analysis by the strategic communications group Climate Power, allies of Big Oil pumped more than $6.4 million into Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee in just the first three months of 2024.”
Washington, D.C. – In case you missed it, Jeva Lange today exposed the oil and gas industry for keeping Donald Trump’s legal defense afloat in her latest for Heatmap, using Climate Power’s analysis that’s found that Big Oil allies have pumped a whopping $6.4 million into Trump’s joint fundraising committee in the first three months of 2024 alone, set to outpace the oil and gas industry’s donations for all of 2023. The donations prove that Big Oil will stop at nothing to elect Donald Trump — and keep him out of jail.
Heatmap: The Oil Money Funding Trump’s Legal Defense
“According to new analysis by the strategic communications group Climate Power, allies of Big Oil pumped more than $6.4 million into Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee in just the first three months of 2024 — on pace to surpass the $6.9 million the industry contributed in all of 2023.”
“From the private equity firm execs to investors to anti-climate activists like Linda McMahon, Trump’s Small Business administrator — they all want Trump to undo our climate and clean energy progress,” Alex Witt, Climate Power’s senior advisor on oil and gas, told me. “And they want their jobs back.”
“It’s no secret that the oil and gas industry has bolstered Trump’s money-strapped campaign. The recent slate of donations to a fundraising vehicle called the Trump 47 Committee, has allowed the former president to accept large checks from individuals and prioritize the allotment of those funds.”
“What’s shocking isn’t how much money this amounts to in the grand scheme of the obscene amounts of capital going toward defending Trump, however. Rather, it’s that oil and gas allies — including Ray Washburn, on Sunoco’s board of directors; Peter Leidel, an oil and coal company director; and Robert Mercer, who’s funded climate misinformation — have given gobs of money to help defeat criminal charges against a former holder of, and candidate for, the presidency of the United States. For this there is no precedent. Fossil fuel interests “have made it super clear that they are willing to help pay Trump’s legal defense to help keep him out of jail,” Witt told me.”
“There’s absolutely no doubt that he would deliver Big Oil’s wish list wrapped up in a bow,” Witt said.”