Competitive Enterprise Institute Subpoena: An Attack on Exxon & Us All - National Review:
April 18, 2016 - "The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank that has been a loud and trenchant critic of global-warming activism, is under subpoena by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who demands that the organization produce a decade’s worth of communication on the subject of global warming....
"Exxon was, in the past, a substantial donor to CEI; presumably, communication with Exxon is no small part of what the subpoena hopes to uncover.
"On March 29, a group of mainly Democratic attorneys general announced at a press conference (with former vice president and green-energy profiteer Al Gore in attendance) that they would seek to transform U.S. policy on climate change by 'creatively' and 'aggressively' deploying their prosecutorial powers....
"Claude Earl Walker, the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, ... shortly thereafter issued a subpoena to Exxon, demanding private communication and other internal information as part of an investigation into the firm. Walker has not come even close to describing any crime committed by Exxon, much less a crime committed by Exxon in his jurisdiction, the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Exxon does no business, holds no assets, maintains no employees, and has no physical presence....
"Exxon was not served the Virgin Islands subpoena by the authorities of the Virgin Islands, but by a private, Washington-based law firm, Cohen Milstein.... Cohen Milstein has a very large interest — millions and millions of dollars — in separate litigation being pursued against Exxon ... [and] received a $15 million contingency-fee payment from Walker’s office in another matter....
"The case has unmistakable parallels to the shakedown of Chevron, in which a cabal of U.S.-based lawyers ... working in conjunction with corrupt judges and officials in Ecuador attempted to extort billions of dollars from the energy giant ... until a federal judge threw it out as fraudulent.... For Democrats, these cases represent a potential double dip: There is the possibility of winning a policy change by engaging in the political suppression of a hated adversary; short of that, there’s the possibility of ... a very large settlement from Exxon....
"Using prosecutions to sort out policy differences is undiluted authoritarianism; delegating prosecutorial powers to a private law firm with a financial interest in seeing the target of a prosecution suffer is a gross violation of due process and legal norms; attempting to prosecute a firm for violations of Virgin Islands law when that firm does no business in the Virgin Islands and has no presence there is an obvious and indefensible abuse of office."
Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434167/competitive-enterprise-institute-subpoena-attack-exxon-us-all
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April 18, 2016 - "The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank that has been a loud and trenchant critic of global-warming activism, is under subpoena by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, who demands that the organization produce a decade’s worth of communication on the subject of global warming....
"Exxon was, in the past, a substantial donor to CEI; presumably, communication with Exxon is no small part of what the subpoena hopes to uncover.
"On March 29, a group of mainly Democratic attorneys general announced at a press conference (with former vice president and green-energy profiteer Al Gore in attendance) that they would seek to transform U.S. policy on climate change by 'creatively' and 'aggressively' deploying their prosecutorial powers....
"Claude Earl Walker, the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, ... shortly thereafter issued a subpoena to Exxon, demanding private communication and other internal information as part of an investigation into the firm. Walker has not come even close to describing any crime committed by Exxon, much less a crime committed by Exxon in his jurisdiction, the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Exxon does no business, holds no assets, maintains no employees, and has no physical presence....
"Exxon was not served the Virgin Islands subpoena by the authorities of the Virgin Islands, but by a private, Washington-based law firm, Cohen Milstein.... Cohen Milstein has a very large interest — millions and millions of dollars — in separate litigation being pursued against Exxon ... [and] received a $15 million contingency-fee payment from Walker’s office in another matter....
"The case has unmistakable parallels to the shakedown of Chevron, in which a cabal of U.S.-based lawyers ... working in conjunction with corrupt judges and officials in Ecuador attempted to extort billions of dollars from the energy giant ... until a federal judge threw it out as fraudulent.... For Democrats, these cases represent a potential double dip: There is the possibility of winning a policy change by engaging in the political suppression of a hated adversary; short of that, there’s the possibility of ... a very large settlement from Exxon....
"Using prosecutions to sort out policy differences is undiluted authoritarianism; delegating prosecutorial powers to a private law firm with a financial interest in seeing the target of a prosecution suffer is a gross violation of due process and legal norms; attempting to prosecute a firm for violations of Virgin Islands law when that firm does no business in the Virgin Islands and has no presence there is an obvious and indefensible abuse of office."
Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434167/competitive-enterprise-institute-subpoena-attack-exxon-us-all
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