Lawmakers demand details of a Mar-a-Lago dinner where Trump promised to ease regulations on the oil industry while asking executives to steer $1 billion to his 2024 campaign.
House Democrats are launching an investigation into Donald Trump’s meeting with oil executives last month at his Mar-a-Lago Club, where the former president asked the executives to steer $1 billion to his 2024 campaign and promised to reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental policies.
The probe comes after The Washington Post on Thursday first reported the fundraising dinner, where Trump said that giving $1 billion would be a “deal” because of the taxation and regulation the oil companies would avoid thanks to him, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
In letters sent Monday evening, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee asked nine oil executives to provide detailed information on their companies’ participation in the meeting. The Democrats voiced concern that Trump’s request at the dinner may have been a quid pro quo and may have violated campaign finance laws, although experts say his conduct probably did not cross the threshold of being illegal.
Lawmakers sent the letters to the CEOs of Cheniere Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Chevron, Continental Resources, EQT Corporation, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum and Venture Global. They also fired off a missive to the head of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying arm in Washington.
I would love to have your optimism. I have no doubt that he’ll be found guilty for some - probably not all, but hopefully a significant amount - of the charges against him. However, I am highly skeptical about him facing any serious consequences.
He has the political power and wealth to delay justice indefinitely. If he’s found guilty, I highly doubt a judge will have the courage to sentence him to jail. Even then, he’ll spend years appealing and delaying. If he’s reelected, that will make things even more complicated, likely delaying many of his pending cases. Then he’d be 82 years old at the end of this term. Starting trials then, with their endless appeals and delays, would never result in him facing jail.
The best case scenario is that he loses all his trials and loses the election. Assuming some judge is ballsy enough to sentence him to jail, he will still be able to drag this out in appeals until his hamberder stuffed heart gives out.