Climate change prosecutors suffer defeat as attorney general pulls Exxon subpoena
Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude E. Walker agreed Wednesday to withdraw his climate-related subpoena of ExxonMobil, a stunning reversal that delivered a blow to the Democratic-led effort to prosecute climate change dissent.
In the Joint Stipulation of Dismissal, Mr. Walker said he would pull his March 15 subpoena of the world’s largest energy company, which had challenged the subpoena as unconstitutional.
“After conferring on this matter, the parties mutually agreed that Attorney General Walker will withdraw the subpoena and ExxonMobil will stipulate to the dismissal without prejudice of this action,” said the four-page document filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The decision indicates a dramatic scaling back of Mr. Walker’s climate change investigation, coming just five weeks after he withdrew his subpoena of the free market Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The retreat also comes as an ominous sign for AGs United for Clean Power, a coalition of 17 attorneys general, including Mr. Walker, formed in March to pursue the fossil fuel industry and others that challenge the catastrophic climate change narrative for “fraud.”
Mr. Walker’s subpoena had demanded that Exxon produce a decade’s worth of communications with more than 100 academics, think tanks and universities, including Arizona State University, George Mason University, Lindenwood University, the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Democrats and environmentalists have cheered the probe of whether fossil fuel companies and skeptics have misled the public on climate change, while Republicans and First Amendment advocates have denounced the effort as an attempt to chill free speech and scientific inquiry.
Mr. Walker’s aggressive decision to issue the Exxon and CEI subpoenas put him at the forefront of the effort, but his impassioned climate change advocacy also raised doubts about his ability to conduct an impartial investigation.
“It could be David and Goliath, the Virgin Islands against a huge corporation, but we will not stop until we get to the bottom of this and make it clear to our residents, as well as the American people, that we have to do something transformational,” Mr. Walker said at the March 29 press conference. “We cannot continue to rely on fossil fuel.”
Of the roughly 100 academic institutions and free market groups listed on the Virgin Islands’ Exxon subpoena, 69 were listed on Greenpeace’s #ExxonSecrets website, and in almost the same order.
Pacific Legal Foundation litigation director James S. Burling called the overlap between the Virgin Islands subpoena and the Greenpeace list a “remarkable coincidence.”
Critics have also accused Mr. Walker of attempting to squeeze Exxon in order to score a windfall along the lines of the multibillion-dollar 2006 tobacco settlement. His office had paired with prominent plaintiffs’ lawyer Linda Singer of Cohen Milstein, the former D.C. attorney general.
…
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, who leads the coalition, has denied that the coordinated prosecutorial campaign threatens free speech, arguing that the First Amendment does not protect fraud, and comparing fossil fuel companies to the tobacco industry.
Still active are at least two subpoenas filed against Exxon, one issued by Mr. Schneiderman and another by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who has demanded documents and communications with a dozen universities and nonprofits going back 40 years.
Full story: http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/29/climate-change-prosecutors-suffer-defeat-as-attorn/
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The first amendment neither protects nor prevents fraud – it prevents the government from pre-punishing citizens or discouraging citizens from saying what they might say. We are not guaranteed an audience and we are not immune from consequences stemming from what we might say, but the government will defend to their deaths our right to say it. At least that is how it was before liberals and progressives.
“arguing that the First Amendment does not protect fraud”
Protection against arbitrary searches does not protect drunk driving, so we get to search all cars on the parking lot for booze, right?
What concerns me most about these attempts to quash the 1st and 4th amendment is that we have totally unethical Federal judges like these:
Here is what Richard A. Posner a Judge on the Federal 7th Court of Appeals wrote as published in Slate:
“And on another note about academia and practical law, I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries—well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments). Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century. Which means that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post–Civil War amendments (including the 14th), do not speak to today. David Strauss is right: The Supreme Court treats the Constitution like it is authorizing the court to create a common law of constitutional law, based on current concerns, not what those 18th-century guys were worrying about.
In short, let’s not let the dead bury the living.
Dick Posner”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_breakfast_table/features/2016/supreme_court_breakfast_table_for_june_2016/law_school_professors_need_more_practical_experience.html
Here is the oath of affirmation that ALL Federal Judges take per the US Code :
Each justice or judge of the United States shall take the following oath or affirmation before performing the duties of his office: “I, ___ ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ___ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”
(June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 907; Pub. L. 101–650, title IV, § 404, Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5124.)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/453#
Until we start impeaching judges like this which either lied when confirmed or when they took the oath or after having taken the oath made it clear they will not abide by the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, we are all under threat. As far as I’m concerned Posner would be impeached and no other evidence is needed than his statement above.
Broad principles are independent of culture or technology.
For example, freedom of speech is freedom of speech, regardless of whether you are using a hand powered printing press or a TV station talking to millions at the same time.
What Posner has written and most leftists seem to believe is that they feel that the constitution should not be an impediment to their desires to perfect society.
They also conveniently ignore that there is an Amendment process that can be used to update the Constitution, if required. It’s far easier to get five votes by the SCotUS to ignore the original meaning and intent of it.
The Amendment process is difficult (by design) and requires real consensus, not the 51% vote of a pseudo-representative assembly.
While they can get away with a pseudo-representative assembly, they will.
Although already being sued in Canada, Greenpeace is now being sued for $100M, and possibly triple that, by Montreal-based Resolute Forest Products under U.S. anti-racketeering (RICO) laws in what promises to be an “epic legal battle”:
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/peter-foster-resolute-forest-products-uses-mafia-laws-to-go-after-the-eco-mob
https://www.heartland.org/podcasts/2016/06/27/michael-bowe-greenpeace-under-fire-court
Sweet, sweet victory! 😀 (Seems to me that law suits need to be brought against these attorneys general and Al Gore for their own fraud…an example needs to be made here. The Democrats’ platform includes prosecuting skeptics. I don’t mean to be a wet blanket – but this isn’t going away 🙁 )
‘ “After conferring on this matter, the parties mutually agreed that Attorney General Walker will withdraw the subpoena and ExxonMobil will stipulate to the dismissal without prejudice of this action,” said the four-page document filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.’
I’d just read
– AGs draw back from their first step
– Exxon and others want draw any conclusions from that drawback; and want make any claims concerning the whole to and frow.
draw back, retreat from, sleep another night ower – whatever you want, not that specific.
Obviously, the AG knew it was a losing proposition because it’s a HOAX and bailed. Can you see the discovery phase with Exxon questioning Mann et al under oath? Nor do they want the scrutiny the publicity of a trial would bring to the evidence. Of course they could just be waiting until they’ve won the national election.
‘we have to do something transformational,” Mr. Walker said at the March 29 press conference. “We cannot continue to rely on fossil fuel.”’
The U.S. Virgin Islands have announced that they will no longer allow fossil fuel powered cruise ships to enter their ports, nor fossil fuel powered airplanes to land at their airport. Wait . . . what? They didn’t? Then what is he talking about?
This was just a shot accross the bow. The Dem draft party platform includes planks not only prosecuting skeptics, but moving to 50% “clean energy” within ten years and 100% by 2050.
The Democratic party now represents the biggest danger to our Constitution, and to the freedoms many Americans have fought and died for that we have ever faced, because it comes from within. I now view them as traitors to our great country.
Attack something you dislike and accuse any defense of being a fraud. What an enlightening concept.
This isn’t over and the fat lady hasn’t even cleared her throat.
This should NOT just go away! It is the ATTEMPT to subvert freedom and prosecute opinion that is the real affront. There must be consequences for those that work to undermine democracy through actions. Otherwise more attempts will be made. GK
If prosecuting/persecuting/investigating Exxon for allegedly downplaying global warming was acceptable government action, then prosecuting/persecuting/investigating climate alarmists for making exaggerated global warming claims must also be acceptable. This leads to the government having a fundamental right to not only prosecute anyone with an opinion but to literally persecute them and their friends and their associates.
The AGs malfeasance is so egregious to the American system of governance and individual rights that the only apt conclusion to this dismal matter is for all the AGs responsible be put in a raft and set adrift in the pacific ocean without food and water but with a thermometer to track global warming.
I cannot express the outrage I have against these AGs, and do not understand why there is not wider outrage.
<>
Okay, Mr. Walker. You first. Since you live on the Virgin Islands, there is to be no more fossil fuel power cruise ships docking on your island. Nor any fossil fueled power airplane landing. Losing tourist money is an unfortunate side-effect when your idea is implemented. Oh, by the way, neither will you be allowed to import food unless it comes from boats with sails. That, of course, will significantly raise the cost of living at a time when money will be hard to come by because of the lack of tourist money. Oh, and to get off fossil fuels would require farming by hand and bull, no tractors. And it would require all food to be shipped in without plastics.
So, Mr. Walker. Set a shining example to the world. Get off fossil fuels first like you tells us we have to. If the problem is real, then you don’t mind to lead by example? Do not tell me to do what you will not first do yourself.
I am not sorry to tell you, Mr. Walker, but you are a pawn. Manipulated and disposable. You have been played and if or as soon as Big Green gets what they want, you will be tossed aside faster than you can count to 1. If Big Green cared about you, they would logically think about the consequences of getting off fossil fuels. That means quick economic suicide and people begging for anything that is edible. Big Green cares not for you; this is David v. Goliath. This Senator Brewster v. Howard Hughes. You are Senator Brewster, whom everyone knew was a pawn of Juan Tripp. You are a pawn, sad to say. And once you are no longer useful, Big Green won’t even give you the time of day.
P.S. I quoted the words of Mr. Walker, but they disappeared: **Mr. Walker said at the March 29 press conference. “We cannot continue to rely on fossil fuel.”**
I don’t know if you are right, but I had the same thought. Walker looks like a rube they put up to filing the subpoena for them. Maybe Southerners have gotten to sophisticated for them to trick into doing their dirty work.
“It could be David and Goliath, the Virgin Islands against a huge corporation, but we will not stop until we get to the bottom of this and make it clear to our residents, as well as the American people, that we have to do something transformational,” Mr. Walker said at the March 29 press conference. “We cannot continue to rely on fossil fuel.”
The use of, effectively infinite, government resources to promote a political campaign needs to be stopped in its tracks.
Here in The UK we have just witnessed the same thing. We had a PM who wished to ‘remain (as he is fully entitled to do as an individual) using the full (effectively infinite) resources of HMG to promote that belief. It has to be stopped.
As it turned out in The UK, he was using those resources against the interests of a majority of the population.
David and Goliath
++++++++++
David Cameron versus the UK peoples.
“On May 31, Resolute took a page from the ENGO’s playbook and, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, filed a civil RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) suit against Greenpeace and a number of its associates who, though they claim to be independent, act cooperatively.”
“Patrick Moore, one of the original founders of Greenpeace, is disappointed that the group that originally wanted to help, is now an extortion racket. He told me: “I am very proud to have played a small role in helping Resolute deal with these lying blackmailers and extortionists.””
http://spectator.org/greenpeace-faces-a-resolute-opponent/
The complaint describes in detail the falsity of these and other malicious and defamatory accusations. Among other things, the complaint explains that far from being a “forest destroyer,” Resolute has planted well over a billion trees in the Boreal – which is a billion more than Greenpeace – and is responsible for virtually no permanent lost forest acreage. The complaint also demonstrates that Resolute also has not impaired the Boreal’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases, and, instead, has improved that ability through harvesting and forestation as recognized and encouraged by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Nor has Resolute abandoned, exploited or impoverished First Nations or other communities within the Boreal forest, but instead – and again unlike Greenpeace – has created and sustained substantial benefits for these peoples through shared economic participation in the forestry business. The complaint also details how, to support its false accusations, Greenpeace has fabricated evidence and events, including, for example, staged photos falsely purporting to show Resolute logging in prohibited areas and as having harvested areas that were actually impacted by fire.
http://resolutefp.mediaroom.com/2016-06-01-Resolute-Stockholders-Vote-in-Favor-of-Each-Proposal-at-Annual-Meeting
“Resolute has planted well over a billion trees in the Boreal – which is a billion more than Greenpeace”
Good one, ferd, I got a good laugh out of that one!
The entire problem is the misuse of words. Financial “fraud” is things like the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, or claiming your drug passed safety tests when it failed. What Exxon did (if it did anything) was to not shout loudly enough that the sky is falling. I don’t think you can anywhere find Exxon claiming that climate change is not happening, nor did they have any “inside knowledge”. Any funding to think tanks was about policy or attacking dodgy science, which are totally protected by the 1st amendment. This is not financial fraud. Yelling “fraud” when you disagree with someone is dodgy enough as a debating tactic, but forbidden in a legal setting where words must have fixed and definite meanings.
Freedom from baseless AG abuse needs to be added to the Bill of Rights.
Two things to ponder: if man-made climate change has been so clear cut and understood over the last decade as to commit fraud by failing to warn investors of monetary risk, how is it that, to this day, climate ‘experts’ have failed to make a single, correct prediction about the climate?
Secondly (and a bit thought proving, perhaps), suppose that the AGs are absolutely correct (which I strongly disbelieve), and oil companies did conclude they were creating a global warming catastrophe. Further, that they colluded, and withheld their results to protect their financial interests. And their conclusions were wrong; the climate did not get warmer, there were no catastrophes, no investor lost money. Would they be found guilty of fraud, or thanked for not creating a global energy catastrophe to prevent a non-problem? And if they had disrupted the energy markets by announcing their erroneous conclusions, could they then be held responsible for investor losses?
Just a disclamer: BP pays me every three months in the form of a dividend check.
Saving Walker from the consequences of his idiocy is a favor, not a defeat.
Why let this witch hunting A holes off the hook ?
AG’s who think they can use their job titles to bully people are a disgrace .