Do Noble Political Ends Justify Abusive Means?
The Morning Consult reports on the subpoena that CEI recieved from Attorney General Claude Walker.
Starting in 2014, approximately 20 Democrat attorneys general, known as the “Green 20,” banded together to investigate ExxonMobil and other energy companies for alleged fraud and other charges regarding global warming. They essentially claimed that ExxonMobil knew about global warming in the 1970’s and therefore any sales or marketing since then was fraudulent. Democrat politicians often refer to a “consensus” to indicate that global warming is real, even though the 1970’s “consensus” was that we should be deeply concerned about global cooling, to the point where green advocates demanded melting the Arctic ice cap with black soot in order to save the planet.
The Green 20 subpoenaed ExxonMobil’s records and communications from the 1970’s to the present. They also subpoenaed conservative-leaning think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for their communications and documents. At least one of the Green 20 used a class-action plaintiffs’ law firm to mail out subpoena(s), indicating collusion with a profit motive.
On March 29, 2016, the Green 20 held a press conference with former Vice President Al Gore and representatives from liberal think tanks, “green” groups, and class-action plaintiffs’ law firms to announce their investigations and subpoenas. The Green 20 boasted of their “unprecedented level of commitment and coordination” to use the power of the state to “deal with the most pressing issue of our time … preserve our planet and reduce the carbon emissions that threaten all of the people we represent.” In May 2016, the Green 20 secretly signed a “Climate Change Coalition Common Interest Agreement,” where, among other things, they agreed not to disclose anything to the public absent a court order, thwarting open-records or “good government” laws similar to federal FOIA (Freedom of Information Act).
Read the full article at The Morning Consult.