In July 2015, documents emerged proving that Exxon Mobil executives knew there was a connection between fossil fuels and climate change as early as the 1970s. New York Attorney General Eric Scheiderman began an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil committed fraud by concealing this information from investors. In a court filing this week, NY Attorney General Scheiderman revealed that Rex Tillerson used the email alias “Wayne Tracker” to communicate with executives. From Bloomberg:
Tillerson sent messages from the account to discuss the risks posed by climate change, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a court filing about his office’s fraud investigation of the company. Tillerson, whose middle name is Wayne, used the Wayne Tracker account on the Exxon system from at least 2008 through 2015, Schneiderman said.
Exxon officials gave a lame explanation for the secret account. Tillerson’s regular email inbox was just too darn full:
Tillerson used the account for "secure and expedited communications between select senior company officials and the former chairman for a broad range of business-related topics," after his primary account began receiving too many messages, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said in an email.
Exxon did not turn over the Wayne Tracker emails and that could mean legal trouble:
The development “raises a lot of questions” about whether Exxon complied with the subpoena, said Carrie Cohen, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan who is now a white-collar criminal-defense lawyer at Morrison & Foerster in New York.
“It could be misleading to not tell the attorney general the actual owner of that email address,” said Cohen, who isn’t involved in the dispute.