The Democrats intend to investigate former President Donald Trump to death, and they aren’t waiting for him to win the White House again to do it.
The latest leftie to threaten an investigation into the GOP’s presumptive nominee is Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who said it is “highly likely” the Senate Budget Committee, for which he serves as chair, will be looking into comments Trump reportedly made to oil executives at a Mar-a-Lago meeting last month.
Whitehouse is already digging into Big Oil, Newsweek reports, and said it’s a “natural extension of the investigation already underway.”
In what smacks of the classic “wrap-up smear” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) famously described in 2017, Whitehouse’s call for yet another investigation into Trump comes after an article from The Washington Post cited anonymous “people with knowledge of the meeting” and claims Trump promised he’d reverse “dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted” if the oil execs raised $1 billion for his campaign.
(Video: YouTube)
The “knowledgeable people” The Post cites “spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.”
According to WaPo, “Trump’s remarkably blunt and transactional pitch reveals how the former president is targeting the oil industry to finance his reelection bid.”
The Post continues:
Trump vowed at the dinner to immediately end the Biden administration’s freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports — a top priority for the executives, according to three people present. “You’ll get it on the first day,” Trump said, according to the recollection of an attendee.
The roughly two dozen executives invited included Mike Sabel, the CEO and founder of Venture Global, and Jack Fusco, the CEO of Cheniere Energy, whose proposed projects would directly benefit from lifting the pause on new LNG exports. Other attendees came from companies including Chevron, Continental Resources, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum, according to an attendance list obtained by The Post.
Trump told the executives that he would start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a priority that several of the executives raised. He railed against wind power, as The Post previously reported. And he said he would reverse the restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.
“‘You’ve been waiting on a permit for five years; you’ll get it on Day 1,’ Trump told the executives, according to the recollection of the attendee,” The Post claims.
“This is practically an invitation to ask more questions,” Senator Whitehouse said, according to Newsweek.
“Republican AGs turn their offices into taxpayer-funded law firms for Big Oil; and Big Oil lawyers write executive orders for Trump,” Whitehouse stated on X. “Big Oil = Republican Party = Big Oil.”
Republican AGs turn their offices into taxpayer-funded law firms for Big Oil; and Big Oil lawyers write executive orders for Trump. Big Oil = Republican Party = Big Oil.https://t.co/Sg6gLQIFkb
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) May 9, 2024
It’s no secret that Democrats plan to bury Trump in lawsuits and investigations if he is reelected in November.
They told us they would.
As BizPac Review reported in January, “Groups bankrolled by major left-of-center charitable foundations are reportedly preparing to obstruct a potential second Trump administration.”Organizations including Protect Democracy, the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) at Georgetown University and Democracy Forward, are part of a loose alliance preparing legal action to block Trump from taking certain executive actions if he takes office.”
“We are preparing for litigation and preparing to use every tool in the toolbox that our democracy provides to provide the American people an ability to fight back,” Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, told NBC News.
“You smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it,” Pelosi said in 2017. “And then you write it, and they’ll say, ‘See, it’s reported in the press.'”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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