Firm Linked to GOP Collects Data on Plaintiffs Suing the Oil Sector, Remains Silent on Motives
An opposition research organization seems to be attempting to discredit a lawsuit that alleges oil companies are responsible for a fatal heat wave in Oregon.
TroibNews 
A conservative research firm is gathering information that may be used to undermine officials involved in a multibillion-dollar climate lawsuit against fossil fuel companies.
Argus Insight has submitted at least 10 public records requests for documents related to a lawsuit filed last year by county leaders in Oregon. The lawsuit accuses Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute, McKinsey & Co., and numerous other defendants of being responsible for a heat wave in 2021 that resulted in the deaths of 69 people. Multnomah County, which encompasses Portland, is seeking over $51 billion to cover damages from the incident and to prepare for future disasters.
Three experts in corporate litigation have stated that Argus — an organization with no clear ties to the suit — seems to be searching for negative information on individuals supporting the lawsuits in an attempt to discredit those involved in the case. Two targets of the firm's document requests contend that Argus is attempting to intimidate them by inquiring about their correspondence with lawyers, local officials, and climate experts.
It remains uncertain who commissioned Argus for this extensive climate case. However, one of the firm's three partners also works for the conservative public affairs firm CRC Advisors, which has counted oil giant Chevron and other fossil fuel-funded groups among its clients. Known clients of Argus include conservative political organizations such as Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee.
This report is based on public records requests made by Argus researchers to various state and federal institutions in the U.S. and Britain, an Argus pitch deck acquired by PMG's E&E News, and interviews with seven individuals familiar with the firm.
Argus seems to be employing the same tactics that the tobacco industry utilized against its critics several decades ago, according to a UK academic whose communications have been sought by Argus.
The strategy is to "try to figure out who is helping to inform these cases and we discredit them in some way," remarked 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 a past incident involving tobacco, Brown & Williamson, a cigarette manufacturer, commissioned a 500-page dossier on Jeffrey Wigand, a researcher who became a whistleblower. This dossier included claims of personal misconduct against Wigand.
In addition to Franta, Argus has pursued communications from other climate experts, attorneys, and elected officials connected to the Oregon heat wave case. They have 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 can't get in the court system," stated Joe Rice, who represented numerous states in the 1990s tobacco cases and is now a partner at the law firm Motley Rice.
He highlighted that the litigation discovery process is restricted and time-consuming, typically revealing the identities of the companies requesting documents. In contrast, collaborating with Argus allows for the anonymity of their clients.
"This group is obviously trying to find information that they know would be damaging to a plaintiff or damaging to an expert," Rice explained, noting that his firm is not connected to any climate-related lawsuits.
Argus partner Zach Parkinson, who previously served as the RNC's research director, justified his firm's use of public records laws.
"Activists and pundits who complain that transparency is toxic to their agenda should ponder what that says about their own deeply unpopular positions," he asserted in a statement.
Founded in April 2023 by Parkinson, CRC Advisors Senior Vice President Adam Kennedy, and former Axios reporter Lachlan Markay, Argus derives its name from a figure in Greek mythology known for having multiple eyes.
The firm does not maintain a website, nor have its leaders — Parkinson, Kennedy, and Markay — listed their roles on LinkedIn or other social media platforms.
Despite its low profile, top Republicans are aware of the firm. In its brief history, Argus has received over $1.2 million in payments from Trump’s campaign, the RNC, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson, and various conservative congressional campaigns, as reported by federal financial disclosures. Federal campaign documents described Argus's services mainly as "research" or "consulting," while Speaker Johnson's office indicated payments were made for "publications" and reference materials.
Additionally, Argus has been engaged by "Fortune 100 companies" to "assist in ongoing high-level litigation" and "provide compelling narratives," according to their pitch deck.
Leaders of Argus did not refute the authenticity of these documents.
**Targeting Elected Officials and Bureaucrats**
Five public records requests by an Argus researcher sought communications among Multnomah County officials, University of Oregon Law School staff, and lawyers from Worthington & Caron, the firm representing the county in the case. Three other requests focused on related information from Oregon Law staff. Neither the university nor the county responded to requests for comments.
The Argus researcher, Nick Ballas, also requested county emails mentioning Franta from Oxford, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and additional individuals and organizations that have publicly supported litigation against the fossil fuel sector.
Roger Worthington, the attorney for Multnomah County included in some of the requests, accused the oil companies of collaborating with Argus "to chill collaboration and communication between donors and the universities."
"This is a blatant and shameless form of intimidation and harassment," he stated in an email to E&E News.
Argus disputed allegations that it was attempting to intimidate academics and regulators.
"Public officials who feel intimidated by citizens' right to information on their government should consider the private sector, where they are unburdened by accountability to the American taxpayer," Parkinson remarked.
Over 200 lawsuits globally have targeted the fossil fuel industry for allegedly minimizing the risks associated with extreme weather events, sea-level rise, catastrophic wildfires, and other climate change impacts largely attributed to fossil fuel consumption. Most of these suits have been initiated by environmental groups or individual activists, according to an analysis from June published by the London School of Economics.
U.S. climate lawsuits, which first emerged from California municipalities in 2017, continue to navigate various legal challenges. The fossil fuel sector has sought to transfer these cases to federal courts, where they anticipate better chances for dismissal under the Clean Air Act. Elected officials and environmental activists involved in these lawsuits have faced additional litigation and hacking campaigns aimed at obtaining their communications.
"The damages that are at stake here are large enough to pose a considerable threat to the fossil fuel industry," Franta indicated, pointing out that substantial evidence already exists demonstrating that corporate leaders were aware of the impact their products had on the climate long before the public was informed. "Think about these cases in aggregate: We're probably talking about trillions of dollars."
Argus declined to comment on who hired the firm for the information collection.
However, CRC Advisors, which operates from the same Arlington, Virginia, office as Argus, has previously represented Chevron and conservative groups funded by fossil fuel interests like Americans for Prosperity and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, according to documents acquired by Rolling Stone. The chair of CRC Advisors is conservative activist Leonard Leo.
Ballas has also scrutinized federal environmental officials without clear connections to the Oregon heat wave case. Last year he requested personal financial records and communications from two administrative law judges who participated in a panel that fined Chevron nearly $648,000 for alleged air pollution violations.
Ballas later sought emails from leaders of the EPA’s air and environmental justice offices containing the term "climate emergency," coinciding with President Joe Biden’s consideration of declaring a national climate emergency when his environmental agenda was stalled in Congress.
"Chevron has no knowledge of — or involvement in — this activity," stated Theodore Boutrous Jr., a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, representing the oil company in the Oregon case. Chevron did not define which specific activity he was addressing.
An Americans for Prosperity spokesperson asserted that the organization "has never engaged Argus Insight to do any work on its behalf."
Requests for comment from CRC Advisors and the Competitive Enterprise Institute went unanswered.
**Founders' Backgrounds and Political Affiliations**
Argus draws parallels with various other opposition research firms in Washington that specialize in uncovering information about rivals for their clients. These firms are often employed by partisans from across the spectrum. For instance, during the 2016 election, both the conservative news organization Washington Free Beacon and the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie commissioned opposition research from Fusion GPS regarding Trump.
What distinguishes Argus is its blend of "political and policy veterans" with media backgrounds, which the company claims enhances its ability to have a significant public impact. According to the pitch deck that E&E News obtained in August, Argus boasts a team of 22 full-time investigators and media analysts.
The partners listed in the pitch deck are Parkinson, Kennedy, and Markay, who has written for the Daily Beast and Washington Free Beacon. Parkinson and Kennedy both held positions in the Trump White House. In 2020, Markay co-authored the book "Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump's Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington."
Other officials associated with Argus have revealed their connections in public records requests, including Allan Blutstein, a former attorney-adviser at the Justice and Treasury Departments during the Bush and Obama administrations. During the Trump era, he utilized the Freedom of Information Act to scrutinize emails of EPA staffers suspected of critiquing former Administrator Scott Pruitt or contributing to Democratic lawmakers.
The firm's pitch deck highlighted "exploitable vulnerabilities" it identified for a wealthy client whose hostile takeover bid was rejected by a private firm's leaders.
"Presented to those executives, with the implied prospect of public exposure, our finding succeeded in bringing them to the negotiating table," the document states.
Another achievement noted in the deck involved uncovering "potential criminal and civil violations of tax, campaign finance and ethics laws" for a client characterized as a "nonprofit watchdog group."
Argus asserts it provides "clients with unmatched visibility on political and policy risk, helping them counter adversarial campaigns and advance their communications and policy goals." Parkinson noted, "We are proud of the work our rapidly growing team has accomplished in a dynamic political environment and we look forward to serving clients in Washington and across the country for years to come."
Contributors to this report include Lesley Clark, Timothy Cama, Heidi Przybyla, and Daniel Lippman.
Emily Johnson for TROIB News
Argus Insight has submitted at least 10 public records requests for documents related to a lawsuit filed last year by county leaders in Oregon. The lawsuit accuses Exxon Mobil, the American Petroleum Institute, McKinsey & Co., and numerous other defendants of being responsible for a heat wave in 2021 that resulted in the deaths of 69 people. Multnomah County, which encompasses Portland, is seeking over $51 billion to cover damages from the incident and to prepare for future disasters.
Three experts in corporate litigation have stated that Argus — an organization with no clear ties to the suit — seems to be searching for negative information on individuals supporting the lawsuits in an attempt to discredit those involved in the case. Two targets of the firm's document requests contend that Argus is attempting to intimidate them by inquiring about their correspondence with lawyers, local officials, and climate experts.
It remains uncertain who commissioned Argus for this extensive climate case. However, one of the firm's three partners also works for the conservative public affairs firm CRC Advisors, which has counted oil giant Chevron and other fossil fuel-funded groups among its clients. Known clients of Argus include conservative political organizations such as Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee.
This report is based on public records requests made by Argus researchers to various state and federal institutions in the U.S. and Britain, an Argus pitch deck acquired by PMG's E&E News, and interviews with seven individuals familiar with the firm.
Argus seems to be employing the same tactics that the tobacco industry utilized against its critics several decades ago, according to a UK academic whose communications have been sought by Argus.
The strategy is to "try to figure out who is helping to inform these cases and we discredit them in some way," remarked 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 a past incident involving tobacco, Brown & Williamson, a cigarette manufacturer, commissioned a 500-page dossier on Jeffrey Wigand, a researcher who became a whistleblower. This dossier included claims of personal misconduct against Wigand.
In addition to Franta, Argus has pursued communications from other climate experts, attorneys, and elected officials connected to the Oregon heat wave case. They have 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 can't get in the court system," stated Joe Rice, who represented numerous states in the 1990s tobacco cases and is now a partner at the law firm Motley Rice.
He highlighted that the litigation discovery process is restricted and time-consuming, typically revealing the identities of the companies requesting documents. In contrast, collaborating with Argus allows for the anonymity of their clients.
"This group is obviously trying to find information that they know would be damaging to a plaintiff or damaging to an expert," Rice explained, noting that his firm is not connected to any climate-related lawsuits.
Argus partner Zach Parkinson, who previously served as the RNC's research director, justified his firm's use of public records laws.
"Activists and pundits who complain that transparency is toxic to their agenda should ponder what that says about their own deeply unpopular positions," he asserted in a statement.
Founded in April 2023 by Parkinson, CRC Advisors Senior Vice President Adam Kennedy, and former Axios reporter Lachlan Markay, Argus derives its name from a figure in Greek mythology known for having multiple eyes.
The firm does not maintain a website, nor have its leaders — Parkinson, Kennedy, and Markay — listed their roles on LinkedIn or other social media platforms.
Despite its low profile, top Republicans are aware of the firm. In its brief history, Argus has received over $1.2 million in payments from Trump’s campaign, the RNC, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the office of House Speaker Mike Johnson, and various conservative congressional campaigns, as reported by federal financial disclosures. Federal campaign documents described Argus's services mainly as "research" or "consulting," while Speaker Johnson's office indicated payments were made for "publications" and reference materials.
Additionally, Argus has been engaged by "Fortune 100 companies" to "assist in ongoing high-level litigation" and "provide compelling narratives," according to their pitch deck.
Leaders of Argus did not refute the authenticity of these documents.
**Targeting Elected Officials and Bureaucrats**
Five public records requests by an Argus researcher sought communications among Multnomah County officials, University of Oregon Law School staff, and lawyers from Worthington & Caron, the firm representing the county in the case. Three other requests focused on related information from Oregon Law staff. Neither the university nor the county responded to requests for comments.
The Argus researcher, Nick Ballas, also requested county emails mentioning Franta from Oxford, the Rockefeller Family Fund, and additional individuals and organizations that have publicly supported litigation against the fossil fuel sector.
Roger Worthington, the attorney for Multnomah County included in some of the requests, accused the oil companies of collaborating with Argus "to chill collaboration and communication between donors and the universities."
"This is a blatant and shameless form of intimidation and harassment," he stated in an email to E&E News.
Argus disputed allegations that it was attempting to intimidate academics and regulators.
"Public officials who feel intimidated by citizens' right to information on their government should consider the private sector, where they are unburdened by accountability to the American taxpayer," Parkinson remarked.
Over 200 lawsuits globally have targeted the fossil fuel industry for allegedly minimizing the risks associated with extreme weather events, sea-level rise, catastrophic wildfires, and other climate change impacts largely attributed to fossil fuel consumption. Most of these suits have been initiated by environmental groups or individual activists, according to an analysis from June published by the London School of Economics.
U.S. climate lawsuits, which first emerged from California municipalities in 2017, continue to navigate various legal challenges. The fossil fuel sector has sought to transfer these cases to federal courts, where they anticipate better chances for dismissal under the Clean Air Act. Elected officials and environmental activists involved in these lawsuits have faced additional litigation and hacking campaigns aimed at obtaining their communications.
"The damages that are at stake here are large enough to pose a considerable threat to the fossil fuel industry," Franta indicated, pointing out that substantial evidence already exists demonstrating that corporate leaders were aware of the impact their products had on the climate long before the public was informed. "Think about these cases in aggregate: We're probably talking about trillions of dollars."
Argus declined to comment on who hired the firm for the information collection.
However, CRC Advisors, which operates from the same Arlington, Virginia, office as Argus, has previously represented Chevron and conservative groups funded by fossil fuel interests like Americans for Prosperity and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, according to documents acquired by Rolling Stone. The chair of CRC Advisors is conservative activist Leonard Leo.
Ballas has also scrutinized federal environmental officials without clear connections to the Oregon heat wave case. Last year he requested personal financial records and communications from two administrative law judges who participated in a panel that fined Chevron nearly $648,000 for alleged air pollution violations.
Ballas later sought emails from leaders of the EPA’s air and environmental justice offices containing the term "climate emergency," coinciding with President Joe Biden’s consideration of declaring a national climate emergency when his environmental agenda was stalled in Congress.
"Chevron has no knowledge of — or involvement in — this activity," stated Theodore Boutrous Jr., a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, representing the oil company in the Oregon case. Chevron did not define which specific activity he was addressing.
An Americans for Prosperity spokesperson asserted that the organization "has never engaged Argus Insight to do any work on its behalf."
Requests for comment from CRC Advisors and the Competitive Enterprise Institute went unanswered.
**Founders' Backgrounds and Political Affiliations**
Argus draws parallels with various other opposition research firms in Washington that specialize in uncovering information about rivals for their clients. These firms are often employed by partisans from across the spectrum. For instance, during the 2016 election, both the conservative news organization Washington Free Beacon and the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie commissioned opposition research from Fusion GPS regarding Trump.
What distinguishes Argus is its blend of "political and policy veterans" with media backgrounds, which the company claims enhances its ability to have a significant public impact. According to the pitch deck that E&E News obtained in August, Argus boasts a team of 22 full-time investigators and media analysts.
The partners listed in the pitch deck are Parkinson, Kennedy, and Markay, who has written for the Daily Beast and Washington Free Beacon. Parkinson and Kennedy both held positions in the Trump White House. In 2020, Markay co-authored the book "Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump's Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington."
Other officials associated with Argus have revealed their connections in public records requests, including Allan Blutstein, a former attorney-adviser at the Justice and Treasury Departments during the Bush and Obama administrations. During the Trump era, he utilized the Freedom of Information Act to scrutinize emails of EPA staffers suspected of critiquing former Administrator Scott Pruitt or contributing to Democratic lawmakers.
The firm's pitch deck highlighted "exploitable vulnerabilities" it identified for a wealthy client whose hostile takeover bid was rejected by a private firm's leaders.
"Presented to those executives, with the implied prospect of public exposure, our finding succeeded in bringing them to the negotiating table," the document states.
Another achievement noted in the deck involved uncovering "potential criminal and civil violations of tax, campaign finance and ethics laws" for a client characterized as a "nonprofit watchdog group."
Argus asserts it provides "clients with unmatched visibility on political and policy risk, helping them counter adversarial campaigns and advance their communications and policy goals." Parkinson noted, "We are proud of the work our rapidly growing team has accomplished in a dynamic political environment and we look forward to serving clients in Washington and across the country for years to come."
Contributors to this report include Lesley Clark, Timothy Cama, Heidi Przybyla, and Daniel Lippman.
Emily Johnson for TROIB News
