American Petroleum Institute defends dinner with Trump

The oil and natural gas industry’s main lobbying group defended a dinner with former President Donald Trump, who asked attendees to spend $1 billion to get him reelected.

The American Petroleum Institute accused Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ron Wyden of Oregon of “false premises” in their letter investigating the dinner and called for “less political gamesmanship.”

“The meeting in question with former-President Trump was consistent with meetings that API routinely has with policymakers and candidates across the political spectrum,” the trade group’s President Mike Sommers said in his Thursday response to Whitehouse and Wyden.

“API and the other industry participants discussed our major policy priorities — all of which have been articulated publicly on API’s website, in speeches, in regulatory filings, in press statements and at events,” Sommers wrote.