A conservative research firm is collecting information that could be used to discredit officials involved in a multibillion-dollar climate lawsuit against fossil fuel companies.
Argus Insight has made at least 10 public records requests for documents related to a lawsuit filed last year by county leaders in Oregon that accuses Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute, McKinsey & Co. and hundreds of other defendants of being responsible for a dayslong heat wave in 2021 that killed 69 people. Multnomah County, home to Portland, is seeking more than $51 billion to pay for damages from the tragedy and to prepare for future disasters.
Three corporate litigation experts say Argus — a company with no apparent connection to the suit — appears to be digging for dirt on people who are supporting the lawsuits in hopes of using it to undermine individuals involved with the court case. Two people targeted by the firm’s document requests argue that Argus is trying to intimidate them by seeking their correspondence with lawyers, local officials and climate experts.
It’s unclear who hired Argus to work on the sweeping climate case. But one of the Virginia-based firm’s three partners is also employed by the conservative public affairs firm CRC Advisors, whose clients have included the oil giant Chevron and groups funded by the fossil fuel industry. Argus’ known clients are conservative political organizations, among them Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee.
This story is based on public records requests Argus researchers filed with state and federal institutions in the United States and Britain, an Argus pitch deck obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News and interviews with seven people familiar with the firm.
Argus appears to be using the same tactics that the tobacco industry deployed against its critics decades ago, according to an academic in the United Kingdom whose communications Argus has pursued.
The strategy is to “try to figure out who is helping to inform these cases and we discredit them in some way,” said Benjamin Franta, an associate professor of climate litigation at the University of Oxford. “If someone loses on the facts, they try to shoot the messenger.”
In one tobacco incident, the cigarette maker Brown & Williamson commissioned a 500-page dossier on Jeffrey Wigand, its researcher-turned-whistleblower, that claimed he had abused his estranged wife and had been hospitalized for anger management treatment. (Russell Crowe later portrayed Wigand in “The Insider,” a 1999 movie based on the case.)
Besides Franta, Argus has sought communications of other climate experts, lawyers and elected leaders associated with the Oregon heat wave case. It has also requested email correspondence and financial records from top regulators and judges at the Environmental Protection Agency.
“This is a front group for somebody that is trying to get information they…
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