Dave Anderson Chris Wright, the founder and CEO of the fracking services company Liberty Energy and Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Energy, co-authored a 2014 op-ed with his wife, Elizabeth, in which the Colorado couple wrote, “we proudly stand with the Kochs.”
The Wrights’ op-ed, which ran in the Denver Post, responded to a press release from Democrat Mark Udall’s U.S. Senate campaign that said the “Gardner-Koch agenda” would trap “Colorado families in poverty.”
At the time, Udall was running to defend his seat in the Senate against Republican Corey Gardner. Gardner won the race and served in the Senate until he was defeated by John Hicklooper in 2020.
“Such attacks are directed at everyone who supports the same causes as the Kochs, including the two of us,” the Wrights wrote in their op-ed. “These attacks are blatantly false. We want nothing more than to help the least fortunate.”
The Wrights have long been part of the network of political donors that is now led by Charles Koch and his son Chase. Charles is the CEO of Koch Industries, a privately held corporation operating in a variety of industrial sectors, including oil and gas exploration, pipelines and refining, chemical and fertilizer production. Charles’ brother David helped lead the Koch network until he died in 2019.
The Kochs have long opposed the federal minimum wage and sought to limit funding for energy efficiency programs that benefit low-income households, through their flagship advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. The Koch network is also known for spending millions of dollars annually funding climate denial groups that oppose renewable energy.
The Wrights have contributed $165,000 to Koch-controlled Super PACs since 2014
The 2014 Denver Post op-ed described the Wrights as supporters of the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce (now known as the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce), a 501(c)(6) industry association spearheaded by Charles Koch.
The Wright Family Living Trust, located at the Wrights’ home address in Englewood, Colorado, contributed $15,000 in 2014 to Freedom Partners Action Fund, an affiliated Super PAC of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. The Super PAC spent millions to oppose Udall and support Gardner during the 2014 Senate race.
The Wrights’ op-ed was part of a broader media campaign by donors to the Koch network in response to increased public scrutiny of the network’s political spending and influence.
Chris Wright later contributed $100,000 to Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Action, the Koch-backed Super PAC that spent $178 million backing Republicans during the 2024 election. Wright contributed the money to AFP Action in December of 2023, just a few days after the Super PAC endorsed Nikki Haley over Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primaries.
State chapters of AFP are now signaling their newfound affinity for President-elect Trump by hosting inaugural watch parties on January 20.
Liz Wright contributed money to Haley’s campaign in November 2023. Chris donated money to the presidential campaign of North Dakota’s Republican Governor, Doug Burgum, that summer. Burgum is now Trump’s pick for Secretary of Interior.
After Trump secured the GOP nomination last year, the Wrights contributed approximately $458,000 to the Trump 47 Committee, plus $289,000 to the RNC.
Liberty Energy is listed as a sponsor of an upcoming Trump inaugural watch party in D.C., which will be hosted by oil and gas producer Harold Hamm, the CEO of Continental Resources. Hamm helped Trump raise millions of dollars during the 2024 election and then backed Wright for Secretary of Energy shortly before Trump announced Wright as his pick for the position in November.
The Wright Family Living Trust also contributed $50,000 in 2018 to the Freedom Partners Action Fund, which spent $9 million supporting Republicans during the 2018 election cycle.
In 2016, the Charles Koch Foundation and the Wrights contributed $3.69 million and $500,000, respectively, to help launch the Eudaimonia Institute to study “human flourishing” at Wake Forest University. The funding was opposed by faculty at the university. An investigation by the faculty senate found the Institute’s lack of transparency around its donor agreement with the Koch Foundation to be “deeply concerning.”
Chris Wright transformed from a Never Trumper into a Trump donor before becoming Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Energy
While the Wrights’ contributions to federal Super PACs controlled by the Koch network are publicly reported in campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission, the tax-exempt nonprofits that form much of the sprawling Koch network are not required to disclose their donors in their annual tax filings with the IRS. But Chris and Liz Wright have not been shy about aligning themselves publicly with the Koch Network. Their presence at multiple Koch network donor summits over the years has been documented by reporters on several occasions.
“Terrible and truly awful are the two choices,” Chris Wright said in 2016 of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at a Koch network gathering in Colorado, according to Bloomberg.
“We’re not going to give any money to support Donald Trump,” Wright also said.
The comments show how Chris was a Never Trumper eight years before he was tapped to serve in Trump’s next administration. Liz also told USA Today that she’d voted for the Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson in 2016.
Wright’s comments echoed Charles Koch’s decision not to use the network’s money to directly support Trump in 2016, an election cycle where the network initially planned to spend nearly $1 billion, yet still spent heavily to help other Republican candidates.
“Our suspicion is we’re going to get three parts good and one part bad,” Chris Wright said about Trump at a Koch summit in California in January 2017. “We’re worried about the one part bad.”
Later that year, the Wrights described the Trump presidency and Republican control of Congress as a rare opportunity to enact the Koch network’s priorities at another donor gathering in Colorado.
Chris leveraged his Koch network connections to provide information to those close to Trump. In May 2017, Chris sent Doug Deason, a Trump advisor and Koch network donor, an email with “Re: EPA Science Advisory Committee” in the subject line and provided his bio, cell phone number, and a link to a presentation he gave on climate change.
Deason then shared Wright’s email with Ryan Jackson, EPA chief of staff. Deason wrote that he had met Wright “at Koch Seminars in California several years ago” and described how the two had gone skiing together and become friends. The emails were originally obtained by the Sierra Club and are publicly available at ToxicDocs.org.
Deason also forwarded Jackson another email from Wright that linked to an op-ed he wrote in 2014 downplaying the threat posed by global warming.
Trump-aligned and Koch-backed Project 2025 groups like the Heritage Foundation and Texas Public Policy Foundation have endorsed Wright’s bid to become Trump’s Secretary of Energy.
Democratic senators on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, have called for Wright’s confirmation hearing to be postponed because copies of Wright’s FBI background check, financial disclosure, and ethics forms have not been provided to the committee.
Wright’s confirmation hearing is currently scheduled for 10 AM on Wednesday, January 14.
Top image is a screenshot from a 2019 Facebook video of Chris Wright drinking fracking fluid that was posted online by Liberty Energy
