Yesterday, Bloomberg broke a story that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is asking for more information about a second email address previously used by former ExxonMobil president and CEO Rex Tillerson, as part of his investigation of the company. The email address – which is in the company’s email system – had been issued for expedited communications with leadership in the company on a broad range of topics.
That’s news? The leak looks more like a desperate move by an AG with little to show after his nearly two year investigation. Recall that Schneiderman has been given millions of pages of documents, yet all he could scrounge up for his bombshell revelation is an alternate company-provided email address. In the meantime, Schneiderman has been repeatedly embarrassed as FOIA’d documents continue to reveal how close his coordination has been with the Rockefellers who have funded the entire #ExxonKnew campaign, and the activists who are pushing it forward.
The real story is that Schneiderman is refusing to turn over emails between his office and major donors of the ExxonKnew campaign – including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund, and billionaire activist Tom Steyer – citing a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) “law enforcement” exemption. In other words, Schneiderman is claiming that the emails between his office and his wealthy donors are part of his investigation. Of course, the Rockefellers and Tom Steyer (more specifically Tom’s Steyer’s scheduler and assistant) are clearly not law enforcement officers, so this looks like yet another delay tactic used by Schneiderman to improperly keep these records secret.
Former New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco published an op-ed today decrying Schneiderman’s tactics, writing:
“Disclosure of emails involving outside special interests and the AG’s staff shouldn’t be hidden behind some law enforcement privilege or other FOIL exemption. Releasing them would reveal the real role of the special interests in the investigation and would shed light on whether the investigation is proper or an abuse of power.”
While the emails are now before a judge who will rule on this move, we do have the log of the correspondence, thanks to a FOIL request made by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal). These logs show communications between Schneiderman’s aides and the Rockefellers, as well as Steyer’s office, that date back to early 2015, long before the original #ExxonKnew hit pieces were published.
Here’s a brief timeline showing what we know from the logs and how it fits into the broader picture:
Fall 2014 – Rockefeller-funded Columbia School of Journalism begins its investigative series on Exxon.
January 2015 – David Sassoon directs ICN to investigate oil companies’ climate research.
Feb. 8, 2015 – Larry Shapiro of the Rockefeller Family Fund (RFF) emails a news article to Lem Srolovic and Steven Glassman of Schneiderman’s office and Lisa Hamilton with the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) – a group that has issued a number of #ExxonKnew reports.
Feb. 11, 17, 19, 23, 2015 – There are several emails in the log between Lee Wasserman and Lem Srolovic about a meeting regarding “activities of specific companies regarding climate change.” [All description are provided by Schneiderman’s office to the Court, and are not necessarily the emails’ actual subject fields]
Feb. 21-22, 2015 – Lee Wasserman shares news articles about “activities of specific companies regarding climate change” with Lem Srolovic and Steven Glassman.
Oct. 23, 2015 – Final ExxonKnew series published in LA Times.
Nov. 4, 2015 – Schneiderman announces subpoena.
Nov. 6, 2015 – Lee Wasserman’s daughter praises Schneiderman’s subpoena, saying she is “so proud of [Lee Wasserman] for helping make this happen #ExxonKnew.” (emphasis added)
Nov. 6, 2015 – Columbia and LA Times quietly update their webpages to disclose the Rockefeller funding after failing to be transparent.
Nov. 9, 2015 – The log shows emails between Schneiderman’s office and Tom Steyer’s scheduler (Erin Suhr) with subject “Following up on conversation re: company specific climate change information.”
Nov. 20, 2015 – Exxon sends letter of complaint to Columbia University alleging that the journalism adviser and her team of graduate students cherry-picked documents, ignored statements, and misrepresented the intent of their investigation.
Nov. 21, 2015 – Michael Gerrard of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University emails Lem Srolovic regarding a list of documents related to Exxon case.
Dec. 15, 2015 – Larry Shapiro of Rockefeller Family Fund emails Lem Srolovic, Lee Wasserman (RFF), and Lisa Hamilton (CIEL) regarding “comments on news articles” that was withheld from a FOIL request because it would interfere with “law enforcement.”
December 31, 2015 – Lee Wasserman emails a news article to Lem Srolovic.
March 10, 2016 – Schneiderman tries to arrange a call with Tom Steyer “regarding support for his race for governor…regarding Exxon case.”
March 29, 2016 – Schneiderman hosts the infamous press conference with Al Gore announcing Massachusetts’ and the U.S. Virgin Islands’ investigations of Exxon.
In other words, even though Schneiderman’s office has refused to comply with open records laws, the logs they provided certainly show how deeply involved the Rockefellers have been in Schneiderman’s investigation. Importantly, these logs only reflect correspondence that mentions #ExxonKnew campaigners John Passacantando and Kert Davies, so they do not reflect all the emails from or to Wasserman or the Rockefellers. Additionally, the logs only represent correspondence from the short periods of time covered by the FOIL requests, meaning there could be many more emails between the NY AG’s office and wealthy donors.
Now, remember when the Rockefellers went on national TV late last year to own up to the fact that they’ve funded the entire #ExxonKnew campaign – and then Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund wrote a couple of op-eds admitting that they met with Schneiderman to lobby him to investigate Exxon?
Could that be because they knew all this was going to come out in the open and they could no longer hide their involvement?
That certainly explains why they are so desperate to change the subject.