Despite soaring gas prices, Laxalt encourages supporters to defend the oil and gas companies his firm represents
In Case You Missed It, new reporting reveals how corrupt politician Adam Laxalt has begun defending oil and gas companies on the campaign trail, despite having raked in millions from a Washington, DC law firm that profits off of Big Oil clients.
Laxalt has made millions from DC-based law firm, Cooper & Kirk, which touts clients like the Chevron Corporation and Shell Oil. Laxalt’s firm’s clients have reported record-breaking profits this year while Americans have faced high gas prices, and just last month Laxalt reported having earned $1.5 million from the firm. Laxalt has also received campaign contributions from fossil fuel PACs, including from Koch Industries just last month.
This isn’t the first time Laxalt has worked to shield Big Oil from public scrutiny. As attorney general, he abused his power to try and stop investigators from scrutinizing ExxonMobil and groups connected to oil billionaires who were some of his largest campaign backers.
American Independent: Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt defends Big Oil companies amid soaring gas prices
Josh Israel // 6.07.22
The Republican candidate has gotten much of his corporate PAC funding from the fossil fuel industry.
Nevada Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt has spent the past few weeks falsely arguing that the fossil fuel sector and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are blameless for rising gasoline prices — without mentioning that much of his campaign funds have come from oil and gas interests.
According to Federal Election Commission filings, nearly all of Laxalt’s corporate PAC contributions have come from fossil fuel companies or businesses that make money from the energy sector.
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“When you see President Biden get up there and Senator Masto and they start talking about the Putin price hike. More recently, Senator Masto and the Democrats are blaming greedy oil executives for our gas prices,” Laxalt said at a May 27 campaign event. “Recently, they’ve been blaming meat conglomerates for the price of meat and everything that goes up. How many, much more finger-pointing are they going to do?”
“It means your gas is $5.60 a gallon in Las Vegas. That’s not Putin’s fault, is it? It’s not greedy oil executives like Catherine Cortez Masto is now pretending like it’s Big Oil’s fault,” Laxalt said a day later at another campaign event.
“If someone complains to you about gas, you make sure they say — you make sure you confront them: ‘This is not Putin’s price hike. This is not greedy oil executives. This is the Democrats. They gave you $5.60 gas that we have today,'” he said at still another appearance that day.
On Friday, Laxalt told far-right radio host Wayne Allyn Root, “This whole Putin price hike and greedy oil executives. And if it’s not them, then it’s the meatpacking industry. I mean, all they do is point fingers, rather than point fingers right at themselves.”
A former Nevada attorney general, unsuccessful gubernatorial nominee, and Nevada co-chair of Trump’s failed 2020 re-election campaign, Laxalt is favored to win next Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary.
But his defense of the oil and gas industry is not impartial.
Laxalt’s mandatory financial disclosure form filed in May indicates that he and his spouse own between $16,002 and $65,000 worth of stock in Chevron and tens of thousands more in other fossil fuel investments.
Since losing his 2018 gubernatorial race, Laxalt has been paid more than $3.7 million for working at Cooper & Kirk, a prominent conservative law firm that claims to be “the ‘go-to-firm’ to sue the federal government.”
While he has not disclosed his own client list and his campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story, the company claims to have represented several energy companies. A Cooper & Kirk partner’s biography notes the law firm’s current clients include Shell Oil Company, Atlantic Richfield, Union Oil Company, Texaco, and subsidiaries of Chevron — each of whom is challenging environmental cleanup costs.
Last year, Chevron reportedly made $15.6 billion in profits — the company’s best year since 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal. The gasoline behemoth reported a $6.3 billion profit in the first quarter of 2022 alone. Other prominent oil companies have also posted massive profits so far this year.
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This is not the first time Laxalt has defended the fossil fuel industry from which he profits. As state attorney general, he reportedly worked to shield ExxonMobil from a multi-state fraud investigation.
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