The First Amendment is under direct attack.

Zitat

---

A coalition of Democratic attorneys general in 16 states announced Tuesday an unprecedented campaign to pursue companies that challenge the catastrophic climate change narrative, raising concerns over free speech and the use of state authority to punish political foes.

Standing beside former Vice President Al Gore, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the state officials are committed to “working together on key climate-related initiatives,” including queries into whether fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil have committed fraud by deceiving the public and shareholders about the impact of man-made carbon dioxide emissions

Two states — California and New York — already have launched probes into ExxonMobil, while attorneys general from Massachusetts and the Virgin Islands indicated Tuesday that they would follow suit. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, an independent, is the only non-Democrat involved in the campaign, called AGs United for Clean Power.

“The bottom line is simple: Climate change is real; it is a threat to all the people we represent,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “If there are companies, whether they’re utilities, whether they’re fossil fuel companies, committing fraud in an effort to maximize their short-term profits at the expense of the people we represent, we want to find out about it. We want to expose it and want to pursue them to the fullest extent of the law.”

Mr. Schneiderman also announced that 20 attorneys general representing 18 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands filed a brief Tuesday in support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan rule, which has been challenged by attorneys general in 25 mostly red states.

---

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016...ocratic-ags-cr/ (emphasis added)

Zitat

---

In a truly outrageous abuse of his authority and a misuse of the law, the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Claude E. Walker, has served a subpoena on the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) demanding documents related to CEI’s research on global “climate change.” Walker is part of a network of state “AGs United for Clean Power” who have formed a grand inquisition to go after those that they claim have lied about climate change—which is a contentious, and unproven scientific theory.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy institute (like the Heritage Foundation) that researches and publishes studies and reports on issues that it believes are “essential for entrepreneurship, innovation, and prosperity to flourish.” It is dedicated to the principles of “limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty.” CEI is well-known for its high-quality, objective research on energy and climate issues, which clearly has made it a target of Inquisitor Walker.

Although Walker’s jurisdiction does not extend outside of the Virgin Islands (a U.S. territory) he had a subpoena issued through the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, where CEI is located.

The voluminous, harassing 14-page subpoena says that Inquisitor Walker is investigating ExxonMobil for “misrepresenting its knowledge of the likelihood that its products and activities have contributed to and are continuing to contribute to climate change in order to defraud the Government … and consumers.” This supposedly violates the Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is the Virgin Islands-version of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act or RICO.

The subpoena demands that CEI turn over all documents, communications, statements, emails, op-eds, speeches, advertisements, letters to the editor, research, reports, studies, and memoranda of any kind–including drafts–that refer to climate change, greenhouse gases, carbon tax, climate science, and the like, in any way related to ExxonMobil or the “products sold by or activities carried out by ExxonMobil [that] directly or indirectly impact climate change.” It covers the period between January 1, 1997 and January 1, 2007. And Walker wants donor information, too.

There are so many things wrong with this that it is hard to know where to start. First of all, the basis for the investigation is absurd. Walker is using a criminal statute designed to go after major drug dealers and mob organizations to go after a company that produces the gasoline and diesel fuel that Americans (and the rest of the world) use in their cars, trucks, boats, lawnmowers and other equipment of every kind. And ExxonMobil and CEI are being targeted for having taken what these legal barons consider to be the wrong side of a scientific theory that is being actively debated and questioned.

The fact that ExxonMobil produces a relatively cheap, reliable energy source that helps power our world but that is disfavored by Progressives and their political representatives like Walker seems to be what the company is really guilty off.

The root of what is going on here appears to be an effort to intimidate, harass, frighten, and possibly imprison or fine anyone who Walker and his fellow warders think are saying the wrong thing and who are standing in the way when it comes to forcing the rest of us to switch to politically-correct and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar.

This investigation is intended to silence and chill any opposition. It is disgraceful and contemptible behavior by public officials who are willing to exploit their power to achieve ideological ends. As CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman says, “it is an affront to our First Amendment rights of free speech and association.”

---

http://dailysignal.com/2016/04/08/the-le...ion-new-target/

Zitat

---

The U.S. Virgin Islands attorney general has revoked his subpoena of the free market think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute as part of an investigation into ExxonMobil Corp. and the energy company’s research about climate change.

Claude E. Walker, the the Virgin Islands attorney general, is one of a 17-member network of state attorneys general who are investigating whether Exxon misled the public and investors about the harm of climate change.

But Walker went further than the other state attorneys general, by including subpoenas to private organizations like Competitive Enterprise Institute, seeking to obtain those groups’ communications with Exxon in order to find evidence that the energy company funded such groups to spread its message opposing climate change regulations.

After Competitive Enterprise Institute resisted Walker’s demands, and took to the public to express its displeasure, Walker has agreed to revoke the subpoena.

Still, the Competitive Enterprise Institute will continue to pursue sanctions against Walker in court because the nonprofit believes the attorney general violated its right to free speech.

“CEI is going forward with our motion for sanctions because Walker’s withdrawal only strengthens our claim that this subpoena was a constitutional outrage from the very beginning, violating our right to free speech and our donors’ right to confidentiality, and threatening the right of all Americans to express views that go against some party line,” said Sam Kazman, the general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a prepared statement.

The withdrawal of the subpoena comes after Republican attorneys general of Texas and Alabama filed motions to block Walker’s investigation.

It also comes after the Competitive Enterprise Institute took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times last week opposing Walker’s action.

Linda Singer, an attorney representing Walker, sent a letter May 13 to a lawyer representing Competitive Enterprise Institute defending the subpoena as being issued legally under the Virgin Island’s “statutory authority in the course of a law enforcement investigation.”

Singer wrote that Walker did not violate Competitive Enterprise Institute’s right to free speech because the subpoena is part of an investigation into potential fraud, and “the First Amendment does not shield fraud.”

“This subpoena neither restricts CEI’s speech nor compels speech,” Singer wrote. ‘It simply seeks the production of documents related to an investigation that is not targeting CEI.”

While Walker ultimately agreed to remove the subpoena against Competitive Enterprise Institute, Singer, in her letter, left open the possibility that it could be reissued over the course of the investigation into Exxon.

---

http://dailysignal.com/2016/05/23/virgin...nst-think-tank/