Free Republic

It seems the prosecutors feared it would just be too humiliating to admit they had nothing, and hoped they’d somehow stumble on . . . something. Still, Thursday’s final retreat, dropping most charges at the very end, was a shocker. It left the judge dismissing those charges “with prejudice,” so the state can never refile them. And Exxon’s infuriated lawyers say those claims “have cost in many respects the most severe reputation harm to the company and to the executives,” so they want still stronger sanctions. Judge Ostrager has 30 days to issue a decision. The prosecutors are surely praying he’ll find...

The Venezuelan Navy illegally entered the waters of Guyana this weekend and forced a ship contracted by Exxon Mobil to conduct oil research in the area to vacate, The incident, which Guyanese authorities angrily denounced and vowed to bring to the attention of the United Nations, reignites a feud Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro began with the neighboring country in 2015, claiming as much as two-thirds of Guyana itself belonged to Venezuela. Guyana has repeatedly noted that Venezuela signed an agreement in 1899 on the territory in question and no disputes remain as to who owns that land. Exxon Mobil...

A New York state judge found Exxon Mobil Corp. not guilty of fraud, saying Tuesday that the New York state attorney general had failed to establish the oil giant had deceived its investors about how it accounted for the cost of future climate-change regulations. The verdict, which capped a nearly three-week civil trial between Exxon and the New York attorney general’s office, is a victory for the company, which had spent several years fighting the case. The company is also battling similar accusations in other state and federal courts. In his 55-page ruling, New York State Supreme Court Justice Barry...

Last Thursday, in a move that surprised everyone but perhaps shouldn’t have come as a surprise at all, New York State Attorney General Tish James withdrew two counts of fraud against ExxonMobil during her closing arguments in the flimsy case she and her predecessor, Eric Schneiderman, spent the last half-decade pursuing against the energy giant. Tellingly, AG James dismissed the two of her original fraud counts that were based on laws requiring demonstration of actual harm in order to obtain a positive judgment. Her suit claimed that ExxonMobil’s alleged “fraud” of keeping two separate estimates of the future costs of...

New reports indicate the Cuomo administration tried to subvert information about a cancer-causing chemical in the water supply of the town of Hoosick Falls … and nobody seems all that concerned. Documents obtained by Politico show the New York State Department of Health dismissing warnings from the EPA, and refusing to alert residents of the very dangerous situation. Over a year ago, health department officials issued a ‘fact sheet’ indicating that “health effects are not expected to occur from normal use of the water” within days of a contradictory declaration by the EPA which advised residents not to drink or...

A former official with the Democratic National Committee has worked in recent months with a convicted domestic terrorist-turned-activist known as the “Speedway Bomber” to gather information on Donald Trump, The Daily Caller has learned. That work culminated in a Washington, D.C. meeting in December between the ex-DNC operative, Alexandra Chalupa, the convicted bomber, Brett Kimberlin, and a South Africa-born Israeli man named Yoni Ariel. Ariel, whose real name is Jonathan Schwartz, traveled to Washington, D.C. to brief Chalupa and Kimberlin on his knowledge of Russia’s activities during the campaign. Chalupa, an activist of Ukrainian heritage who is strongly opposed to...

An elaborate hoax based on forged documents escalates the phenomenon of “fake news” and reveals an audience on the left that seems willing to believe virtually any claim that could damage Trump. In the third week of January, an Israeli named Yoni Ariel flew from Tel Aviv to Rome carrying $9,000 in cash on a secret mission to bring down Donald Trump. There, he met with an Italian businessman. Seated at a table toward the rear of a café, away from the street where they might attract unwanted attention, Ariel recalled, he handed over the cash. In exchange he was...

The Obama administration is under increasing pressure to investigate allegations that Exxon Mobil Corp. misled the public about its knowledge of climate change. All of the Democratic candidates for president have called on the Justice Department to launch an investigation, joining a number of Dem lawmakers and major environmental groups. Some are also pushing for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to probe whether the company broke federal law. The pressure on the feds to act only intensified on Nov. 5 when it was revealed that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had launched his own probe. The allegations are...

Should government officials be able to cut off donations to groups because they employ people disparaged as "climate change deniers," even if the group in question is a think tank that studies a wide range of topics, only a few of which relate to climate change at all, and the "denial" in question includes telling politically inconvenient truths about the cost of proposed climate change legislation? Only a single-issue zealot with ideological blinders and a contempt for the First Amendment would think so. But that hasn't stopped New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and California Attorney General Kamala Harris investigating...