An Exxon Mobil climate change probe is calling for the world’s largest gas and oil company to hand over former CEO Rex Tillerson’s emails that allegedly show the U.S. Secretary of State talking about environmental issues under a different name — “Wayne Tracker.”
Tillerson, whose middle name is Wayne, has been accused of discussing "risk-management issues related to climate change" in emails under a pseudonym, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Exxon is now being ordered to turn over those emails to a New York prosecutor probing whether the company is guilty of misrepresenting the threat of global warming to the public, according to the Daily Mail.
“Despite the company’s incidental production of approximately 60 documents bearing the ‘Wayne Tracker’ email address, neither Exxon nor its counsel have ever disclosed that this separate email account was a vehicle for Mr. Tillerson’s relevant communications at Exxon,” senior enforcement counsel John Oleske said in a letter to New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager, the Journal reported.
According to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Tillerson sent emails under the pseudonym from 2008 to 2015.
However, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers told Bloomberg News that Tillerson used the secret account for “secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics.”
Tillerson’s main email account was apparently receiving too many notifications, which is why he decided to start the other account.
Although the emails were sent out during his stint at Exxon, they still present a potential conflict of interest, considering Tillerson now has a great deal of influence on climate change issues as secretary of state.
Exxon also insists it has already turned over 2.6 million pages of material to the attorney general's office. The company does not "expect our ability to produce relevant documents to be significantly impacted because Tillerson’s secondary account was searched after receiving the subpoena, and many of the emails from the secondary account were also available from Tillerson’s primary account or from email accounts of other employees he communicated with, which were on litigation hold," a spokesman said.
At Tillerson’s confirmation hearing, he opted not to answer questions pertaining to Exxon and whether the company hid climate change research.
CNN also notes that Exxon went on record in 2006 to recognize that climate change is a problem.
Exxon has been ordered to get Tillerson’s emails to a New York persecutor by March 31.
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