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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Allegedly Used Email Alias As Exxon CEO (arstechnica.com)
According to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Rex Tillerson used an email alias of "Wayne Tracker" to communicate with other Exxon executives about climate change while serving as CEO of Exxon Mobil. "New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been leading an investigation of Exxon Mobil centered on whether the company misled investors by publicly arguing against the reality of climate change even though its executives knew the science was accurate," reports Ars Technica. "The investigation was triggered by news reports describing climate research the company undertook in the 1970s and 1980s, which affirmed the work of other climate scientists and showed that greenhouse gas emissions were causing climate change. Exxon buried that work and spent the next couple decades claiming that the science was unclear, although it has recently publicly acknowledged reality." From the report: The e-mails that were provided allowed the attorney general to figure out that Tillerson used the account between 2008 and 2015 at least, but it didn't appear on Exxon's list of accounts for which records were preserved. The letter also mentions 34 other e-mail accounts "specifically assigned to top executives, board members, or assistants" that the attorney general thinks should have been included. In a statement, an Exxon spokesperson explained, "The e-mail address, Wayne.Tracker@exxonmobil.com, is part of the company's e-mail system and was put in place for secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics." The Office of the Attorney General's letter claims that "Exxon has continuously delayed and obstructed the production of documents from its top executives and board members, which are crucial to OAG's investigation into Exxon's touted risk-management practices regarding climate change."
But there IS a law about not informing investors of potential liability issues, which is the actual issue the AG's are investigating. No ones 'opinions' are being criminalized. The active efforts to evade the law is, however.
Sorry to rain facts on your strawman parade of butthurt.
They aren't being charged with using an "email alias", but obstruction for not turning over email being used to conduct company business. Did they use the email alias to conduct business? If yes, turn over the email. It is all part of the discovery process.
sounds agreeable enough. However if you are subpoenaed for your emails and you fail to report both, that is when it gets interesting.
Sorry for posting AC, but I wanted to create a good run-on sentence that would not be attributed to myself.
If you, as a company, are aware that Global Climate Change is a significant problem that could impact your business and you have done the research that proves it, then YES, lying to the shareholders about it is a crime.
It's not the crime, it's the coverup. This is the kind of crap that gets people sent to jail.
It's not about the science, it's about what Exxon did:
If their internal research showed one thing, but they publicly declared something something opposite, that's pretty bad, but probably not criminal.
If they testified in a court that they believed the opposite factoids, and didn't mention the internal research, that's really bad, but if the opposing lawyers didn't find the right person to testify (like someone at Exxon who knew about the research,) they are probably still ok.
If they set up secret email accounts for senior executives, and then didn't provide the emails from those accounts to the opposing lawyers during the discovery process, then that's just fraud on the court. It's like your wife "forgetting" to mention her secret bank account in the Cayman Islands during your divorce trial. Seriously, WTF?
If a small company was being investigated and their emails were significant to the crime, then there would be no problem with grabbing everything despite the damage that it would do to the small firm. Yet when a big firm is being investigated, they are free to hand over what they feel like. A similar problem was visible when News International was done in the UK over its phone hacking behaviour. A little less subtly from prosecutors would be welcome!