State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office was communicating with environmental activists nine months before he launched a securities-fraud investigation into Exxon tied to climate change, court records reveal.
Documents show Schneiderman’s top staffers were in correspondence with Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund going back to February 2015. Schneiderman launched his probe that November.
The fund has financed a campaign claiming Exxon misled investors and the public about the dangers of climate change.
Most of the 11 e-mails exchanged between Wasserman and Schneiderman’s office discussed “specific companies regarding climate change,” records show.
Schneiderman released the names of the climate-change activists he’s communicated with as part of a Freedom of Information Law suit filed by a pro-Exxon group, the Free Market Environmental Law Clinic.
Lawyers backing Exxon claim the e-mails show Schneiderman was engaged in a political witch hunt, not a legitimate probe. They argue that he should release the contents of the e-mails.
Schneiderman dismissed the notion that he conspired with activists.
“We speak with a diverse array of stakeholders on a range of matters, all the time. It’s part of our job,” said Schneiderman spokesman Eric Soufer.
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