NY’s Gov't Assault on Exxon: Coordinated in Advance with Leftist Groups

Lubricated with Lots of Leftist Loot

by Seton Motley, Contributing Author: Remember when the Donald Trump transition team asked the outgoing Barack Obama Energy Department for a list of the staffers working on Obama’s global warming – oops, I mean climate change – alarmist agenda? And the Left and the media (please pardon the redundancy) absolutely freaked out about them asking? And the Obama Energy Department refused to comply with the (very reasonable) request?

Team Trump was absolutely on the right track – but, unfortunately, didn’t continue down it. Trump has so far kept on board hordes of Obama holdovers – and they have been incessantly burning him ever since.

Team Trump was right to ask – because personnel is policy. Bad, radical personnel – leads to bad, radical policy. For instance, bad, radical government officials (like, say, those working on bad, radical climate policy) will work with bad, radical outside groups – to end run the rule of law and manifestly harass law-abiding private companies. For having the temerity to engage in lawful commerce – which this bad, radical gaggle happens to loathe.

How do we know this? How did Team Trump likely know this? At least in part because of Trump’s home state of New York – a particularly bad, radical example of just this sort of anti-law, anti-freedom, anti-Reality government.

Much of New York’s government nonsense is courtesy of Democrat Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. A bad, radical elected official who has led a years-long, fact-free government assault on oil company ExxonMobil – in the name of climate change alarmism. A government assault that has had to repeatedly find new angles of bogus attack – because time and again the bogus attacks they launched failed predictably and totally.

All of Schneiderman’s spastic activity is, of course, actively amplified by the Leftist press (again, the redundancy). Often taking their lead – from a cadre of pre-paid, disposable fake news outlets stood up and propped up by massive money from Leftist foundations.

It is, in fact, these bad, radical foundations that often actually take the lead in plotting the attacks. And then work in coordination with their fake news outlets, the broader media, Leftist groups – and willing government officials. (Which, again, is why Trump was right to ask after the latter in Washington.)

In New York, on Exxon, Schneiderman ain’t the lead attack dog – the Rockefeller Foundation is: “The Rockefeller Family Foundation (which has an endowment of about $130 million) has long targeted the oil industry and honed in on ExxonMobil last January….

“The (Rockefeller January meeting’s) agenda was to ‘establish in the public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm’ and to ‘delegitimize’ Exxon as a political actor….Participants at the meeting included activist groups like Greenpeace and Public Citizen, and trial lawyers who have won judgments against the industry before….

“The ultimate goal would include ‘getting discovery’ from ExxonMobil through legal action brought by public officials, thus ‘creating scandal’ around the country.”

To quote The Bard (and then Rush): “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” In the awful, way-way-off-Broadway “Attack on ExxonMobil” – Schneiderman ain’t the lead. His is but a supporting role. But it is a crucial one – the Rockefeller script’s key activist government component. A role Schneiderman has wholeheartedly embraced – from the very beginning. And nearly a year before his office publicly did anything:

“State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office was communicating with environmental activists nine months before he launched a securities-fraud investigation into Exxon tied to climate change, court records reveal. Documents show Schneiderman’s top staffers were in correspondence with Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund going back to February 2015. Schneiderman launched his probe that November.

“The fund has financed a campaign claiming Exxon misled investors and the public about the dangers of climate change.

“Most of the 11 e-mails exchanged between Wasserman and Schneiderman’s office discussed ‘specific companies regarding climate change,’ records show.

“Schneiderman released the names of the climate-change activists he’s communicated with as part of a Freedom of Information Law suit filed by a pro-Exxon group, the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic….

“Lawyers backing Exxon claim the e-mails show Schneiderman was engaged in a political witch hunt, not a legitimate probe. They argue that he should release the contents of the e-mails.

“Schneiderman dismissed the notion that he conspired with activists. ‘We speak with a diverse array of stakeholders on a range of matters, all the time. It’s part of our job,’ said Schneiderman spokesman Eric Soufer.”

If this was nothing more than Schneiderman’s office engaging in normal coordination conducted in the normal course of normal business – why did Exxon have to sue Schneiderman’s office to get them to release the names of these groups? “Government transparency” – shouldn’t require subpoenas and court writs.

So yes, Team Trump was right to ask for the Obama Commerce Department list of climate-alarmism-government-officials – who now work for Team Trump. To identify who they are – and with whom on the outside they are working. And Team Trump shouldn’t have to sue their own department to get it. Team Trump should identify – and then rid themselves of all of these bad, radical bureaucrats.

The people of New York have already had their bad, radical bureaucrat identified for them. He is Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Who, thankfully, keeps or loses his gig based upon the will of the people of New York.

So when Schneiderman is next up for election – the people of New York should rid themselves of him.
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Seton Motley is the President of Less Government and he contributes to ARRA News Service. Please feel free to follow him him on Twitter   /   Facebook.

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