The oil money funds Trump’s legal defense

$6.4 million could get you there to delete 4,923 tons of carbon from the atmosphere. You could buy 533 of them used Chevy bolts – far more than enough to give one to every incoming freshman at Swarthmore College – or to supply an entire county with them low and zero emission buses.

Or, if you belong to the oil and gas industry, you can donate it to the former president of the United States to help cover his mounting legal costs.

According to a new analysis from strategic communications group Climate Power, Big Oil allies pumped more than $6.4 million into Donald Trump’s joint fundraising committee in the first three months of 2024 — on pace to surpass $6.9 million that the industry has contributed throughout 2023. “From private equity firm executives to investors and anti-climate activists like Trump’s Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon – they all want Trump to reverse our progress on climate and clean energy,” said Alex Witt, senior advisor to Climate Power on oil and gas. told me. “And they want their jobs back.”

It’s no secret that the oil and gas industry has this strengthened Trump’s cash-strapped campaign. The recent series of donations to a fundraising organization called the Trump 47 Committee has allowed the former president to accept large checks from individuals and prioritize the allocation of those funds. In this way, the Trump 47 Committee works as a one-stop shop for wealthy supporters like Linda McMahon, former head of Trump’s Small Business Administration and an outspoken advocate and investor in the Keystone XL pipeline And promoter of offshore drilling, and Kelcy Warren, the billionaire CEO of the pipeline operator Energy Transfer Partners. Both maxed out the commission’s allowable contribution of $814,600.

Trump 47 is technically a joint fundraising committee, a type of entity authorized by the Federal Election Commission to pool donations going to multiple channels. This is nice for donors, who can write a single check that is then divided among several buckets — in this case, the Trump campaign, the Save America PAC, the RNC and 39 different state committees, in that order. Critics say this form of fundraising is a way to circumvent election laws which aim to limit how much a wealthy individual can donate to a particular candidate. Importantly, there are super PACs can not donate to candidates or their campaigns, or coordinate things like messaging with them; the money raised by a joint fundraising committee is led by a candidate (including in PACs), giving them greater influence over donations. (Joe Biden also uses joint fundraising committees.)

The Trump 47 Committee did that given priority funneling these donations to a PAC that covers the president’s legal costs, instead of to the Republican National Committee, which is also struggling financially. While this strategy does not allow donors to avoid the individual contribution limit of $5,000 per year to a political action committee, do This means that after the first $6,600 of a donation to the Trump 47 Committee (which goes to Trump’s primary and general election accounts), the subsequent $5,000 of each donation is earmarked for the Save America PAC.

As a “leadership PAC,” Save America cannot be used in Trump’s campaign activities; instead, it is structured to cover administrative expenses. That has kept it quite busy: the PAC has covered the fees of 70 different lawyers and law firms, USA today reports, with legal expenditure accounting for approximately 85% of total usage. Save America set between January and the end of March a total of $8.5 million towards Trump’s legal problems, including $5.5 million March alone. (Fossil fuel allies have done that too donated large amounts to MAGA Inc., a PAC that has millions refunded to save America.)

A JFC’s higher donation limits make it more attractive to supporters looking to save big checks, and most people quickly pass the $6,600 threshold. In my review of the 30 oil and gas industry executives, investors and allies who donated to the Trump 47 Committee, I found no one who donated less than $100,000, according to Climate Power.

The Trump campaign is over defend themselves quickly against accusations that she favors an ex-president over a party, pointing out that “of an individual donor’s maximum contribution of $824,600, less than 1% goes to Save America.”(The Trump campaign had not responded to Heatmap’s request for comment as of this writing.) It’s true that of the $6.4 million from Big Oil allies donated to the Trump 47 committee this year , I believe about 2% ended up in Save America’s coffers. back of the envelope math.