Fortescue pursued a $200 million deal to buy West Virginia coal assets in 2022 because chairman Andrew Forrest wanted to cultivate a relationship with a key Democratic senator who was playing kingmaker to the Biden administration’s flagship climate and energy legislation at the time.

Internal documents provided to a Connecticut court as part of a dispute between the mining giant and its one-time US partner show Democrat senator Joe Manchin was personally trying to broker a deal between Fortescue and the American company that owned the coal-fired generators in the same week he cast the deciding vote on the passage of the $US369 billion Inflation Reduction Act program.