Trump expressed dismay that the federal government had probed her phone for information and vowed that his administration would treat her differently if he won the presidency, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
“Can you just wait a few months?” he said, according to these individuals.
Trump’s remarks, which have not previously been reported, indicated that he may try to influence the FTC, an independent agency, on behalf of his supporters. They come as the oil and gas industry is in the midst of multibillion dollar mergers, which have prompted calls from Democrats for strict government scrutiny.
Trump has made a concerted push to woo oil and gas CEOs, asking top executives to steer $1 billion to his 2024 campaign during a dinner in April at his Mar-a-Lago Club, as The Washington Post first reported. At the event, he promised to reverse dozens of President Biden’s environmental rules and policies.
Congressional Democrats have called on the FTC and the Justice Department to investigate a recent wave of oil and gas industry mergers, suggesting that they have raised energy costs for American families and businesses. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and 22 other Democratic senators sent a letter on Thursday urging DOJ to “use every tool” at its disposal to prevent and prosecute alleged price-fixing in the oil industry.
The FTC alleged earlier this month that Scott Sheffield, the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, had colluded with the coalition of oil-producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia to artificially raise crude oil prices. Sheffield has denied the allegations and accused the government of “vilifying” him without evidence.
At the Houston fundraiser, Trump also gave a speech in which he vowed to immediately approve oil pipelines and expand oil drilling in a second term, as The Post has reported.
A representative for Trump’s super PAC declined to comment on the former president’s interaction with Hollub. A campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Eric Moses, a spokesman for Occidental, did not directly comment on the interaction with Trump. “We believe our transaction with CrownRock is good for consumers and America’s energy security. We have worked productively with the FTC to respond to its information requests and expect to close the deal during the third quarter,” Moses said.
The people familiar with the matter said Hollub did not explicitly ask for Trump to help and seemed to chuckle when he made the promise.
If approved, the CrownRock takeover would make Occidental a bigger player in U.S. shale than Chevron and Hess combined. The deal would boost Occidental’s production in the Permian Basin — a major oil field that covers West Texas and Southeast New Mexico — by 170,000 barrels of oil and gas per day. The FTC has sought to determine whether the merger violates antitrust regulations.
“Some of our teams felt like they [the FTC] had asked for everything,” Hollub told analysts during a call to discuss the company’s 2023 financial results, Reuters reported.
Occidental’s acquisition of CrownRock is just one of several recent mergers in the oil and gas industry. On Wednesday, ConocoPhillips announced it is set to acquire Marathon Oil in an all-stock deal valued at $22.5 billion. On Tuesday, Hess shareholders approved a $53 billion merger with Chevron, another deal facing a potentially lengthy regulatory review.
If all of the pending deals are approved, only six companies would control two-thirds of remaining commercial oil reserves in the Permian Basin, according to the research firm Rystad Energy.
“It’s a new era of the shale industry. We’ve been calling it Shale 4.0,” said Matthew Bernstein, a senior analyst and manager of shale analytics at Rystad Energy. “Perhaps there has been a higher degree of FTC scrutiny, given the pace and the size of these deals.”
The FTC has long operated on the principle that it should be a neutral arbiter, indifferent to…
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