UPDATE (December 12): The deposition of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey by lawyers for ExxonMobil has been canceled. The Texas federal court judge who approved the deposition voided it without explanation Monday in a one-sentence order.
Dec. 9—Without waiting for a ruling by a federal judge in Texas who has consistently sided with ExxonMobil, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey has filed an appeal to block her deposition scheduled for Tuesday.
Healey explained in a motion filed Thursday with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that a stay is warranted because the judge who issued the deposition order has refused to properly consider her arguments and has not ruled on her pending motion to stay her deposition.
That judge, U. S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade, had earlier sided with Exxon in its request to depose Healey. He said he suspected the attorney general’s climate fraud investigation of the company may be biased.
“That action is completely without precedent, turns basic law enforcement practice on its head, and constitutes a clear abuse of discretion,” according to Healey’s motion.
A spokesman for Exxon did not respond to a request for comment.
Exxon had gone to court in June seeking an injunction to halt Healey’s investigation and asked that a judge rule the investigation was without legal merit.
Healey’s office had issued a civil investigative demand—similar to a subpoena—for Exxon records going back 40 years as part of her investigation of whether the company committed consumer or securities fraud by misrepresenting its knowledge of climate change.
At the same time Healey appealed the deposition order, she also filed an appeal to toss out Exxon’s entire case that seeks to block her investigation.
A key component to Exxon’s case rests on its assertion that Healey cannot conduct an impartial investigation.
“Requiring the Attorney General to explain her investigatory rationale at this stage would make a shambles of the investigation and stifle her gathering of facts,” according to the motion to dismiss the case.
“The only likely outcome of the discovery that the court has ordered is an improper and vexatious investigation into privileged or protected information.”
Exxon also has filed a lawsuit in Texas to block an investigation by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, saying his investigation is politically motivated.
David Hasemyer
Reporter, San Diego
Inside Climate News reporter David Hasemyer is from the red rock country of Southeastern Utah where he grew up and learned to appreciate the importance responsible stewardship of the environment. He is co-author of the Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and co-authored the 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist series “Exxon: The Road Not Taken.” Prior to joining ICN, Hasemyer had an award-wining tenure at The San Diego Union-Tribune as an investigative reporter. Hasemyer’s newspaper work has been recognized by the Associated Press, the Society for Professional Journalists, the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He also has been a finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Social Justice and Human Rights. PGP key: http://ow.ly/iEHN3089Gqg
