Vermont’s attorney general (AG) denied the existence of email documents showing the state’s involvement in a month’s long probe targeting fossil fuel groups, a conservative legal group reported Tuesday.
Vermont’s AG office told E&E legal attorney Matthew Hardin during a court hearing Monday night that the state’s chief law enforcers do not have any records pertaining to an investigation against various fossil fuel groups. The AG’s office has spent nearly a year defending its right to withhold information related to the sprawling probe, which has included several states in the past.
“It’s odd that an office would spend almost a year in litigation defending its right to withhold certain described public records, then when it loses in court suddenly decide it has no public records,” Hardin noted in a press statement Tuesday. “We’re going to ask the court to look closely at OAG’s change of heart to make sure this isn’t yet another convenient story to justify secrecy.”
Hardin is referring to communications between Vermont AG TJ Donovan, former AG William Sorrell and New York AG Eric Schneiderman about an ongoing quest to bring federal charges against free market groups.
E&E Legal began pursuing Donovan in full after Schneiderman invited two prominent environmental activists to give presentations last March to a group of state prosecutors about “climate change litigation” and the “imperative of taking action now on climate change.”
Activists gave the presentations on the same day Schneiderman began condemning Exxon for “fraud” and “deceiving the American people.” The New York Democrat would eventually go on to investigate whether Exxon had worked for decades to hide knowledge about the impact of climate change on the company’s financial health.
E&E Legal obtained documents earlier this year that indicate Schneiderman used private emails during his Exxon investigation. The group explained in court documents in June that he submitted a privilege log of correspondence containing the email account. A judge recognized the account was used after a private review of the log.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to the Vermont AG’s office for comment but did not receive a response in time for the publication of this article.
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