Oops! Rockefeller-funded “climate” alarmists caught conspiring with rogue officials to persecute their critics by abusing the legal system are almost certainly kicking themselves right now. Responding to what multiple legal experts have described as a potential “criminal conspiracy” among far-left prosecutors and global-warming theorists to target skeptics of their increasingly discredited theory, conservative-leaning state attorneys general have now fired back — big time. Basically, if the same legal logic used by the alarmist prosecutors were applied to climate alarmists, the warming theorists could find themselves in serious trouble.
In a letter sent to their Democrat counterparts who have targeted pro-carbon tax oil giant Exxon and various non-profit organizations, the coalition of more than a dozen Republican attorneys general issued a powerful warning. If climate realists can be prosecuted for the supposed “fraud” of “minimizing” or denying the alleged threat posed by alleged man-made global warming, then climate alarmists can be prosecuted for the fraud of exaggerating the supposed threat. “If it is possible to minimize the risks of climate change, then the same goes for exaggeration,” the officials explained in the letter to the Democrat and alarmist prosecutors styling themselves “AGs United for Clean Power.” “If minimization is fraud, exaggeration is fraud.”
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Unfortunately for climate alarmists and their extremist prosecutorial allies, there are mountains of evidence showing what experts have called deliberate fraud by tax-funded global-warming theorists — including the infamous e-mails leaked in the “ClimateGate” scandal that exposed tax-funded warmists conspiring to “hide the decline” in temperatures and violate Freedom of Information laws. And unlike climate skeptics, who have cautioned that spending trillions of tax dollars on the increasingly discredited man-made global-warming theory was a colossal waste of resources at best, the wild prophecies of climate alarmists have been proven to be routinely and demonstrably ridiculous by the facts and the observable evidence.
Indeed, a few decades ago, many of today’s warming extremists — including Obama’s forced abortion-touting “Science Czar” John Holdren — were predicting catastrophic man-made global cooling that would kill a billion people. Seriously. More recent predictions have proven to be just as absurd, as this magazine has documented extensively. Among other ludicrous claims, climate guru Al Gore, who has made a fortune from his carbon fraud and was at the press conference of “AGs United for Clean Power” when the Democrat probes were announced, argued that the polar ice cap would be gone by 2013, 2014, and 2015. Of course, it is still there, and in the real world, there has been record-high global levels of sea ice in recent years.
Perhaps even more telling is how incredibly wrong the computer models underpinning the hysteria have been. Consider, for instance, that every single one of the 73 United Nations-approved “climate models” used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted varying degrees of warming as concentrations of CO2, known to scientists as the gas of life, rose in the atmosphere. Instead, the satellite and weather balloon record shows unequivocally that there has been no warming in close to two decades and counting. In other words, a monkey rolling the dice would have done infinitely better than the “models” in terms of accurately forecasting global temperatures.
Aside from the fraud concerns, which should not be overlooked, the Republican officials also pointed toward constitutional and free speech apprehensions surrounding the efforts of their counterparts in other states to terrorize, harass, and persecute skeptics into silence. “We think this effort by our colleagues to police the global warming debate through the power of the subpoena is a grave mistake,” they said. “Using law enforcement authority to resolve a public policy debate undermines the trust invested in our offices and threatens free speech.” It also undermines the trust people have in fraud investigations, the officials said.
Freedom of speech, of course, is an unalienable right protected in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as in state constitutions and statutes across America. And according to the Republican AGs, the investigation of skeptics and energy companies by their alarmist colleagues “inescapably implicates a public policy debate and raises substantial First Amendment concerns,” they said in the letter, adding that everyone has a right to participate in the debate. “As our colleagues must know, a vigorous debate exists in this country regarding the risks of climate change and the appropriate response to those risks.”
Indeed, debate or not, the most credible polls, such as this one from Pew, show that just 40 percent of Americans believe the veracity of anthropogenic (man-made) global-warming theory, also known as AGW. But the “AGs United for Clean Power” are trying to chill the debate, perhaps in hopes of bringing those numbers up. “Actions indicating that one side of the climate change debate should fear prosecution chills speech in violation of a formerly bi-partisan First Amendment consensus,” they said in the letter, citing comments by Justice Brandeis arguing that the remedy to danger from speech is more speech, not enforced silence. “Here, the remedy chosen is silence through threat of subpoena. This threat distorts the debate and impoverishes consumers and the general public who may wish to better educate themselves by hearing and evaluating both sides.”
The Republican officials also offered to turn the tables on the climate “fraud” allegations made by AGs for Clean Power. “Once the government begins policing viewpoints, two solutions exist,” the Republican attorneys general said. “The first solution is to police all viewpoints equally. Another group of Attorneys General could use the precedent established by the ‘AGs United for Clean Power’ to investigate fraudulent statements associated with competing interests. The subpoenas currently directed at some market participants could be met with a barrage of subpoenas directed at other market participants. No doubt a reasonable suspicion exists regarding a number of statements relating to the risks of climate change.”
Among other possible examples, and there are numerous ones, the letter cited statements made by a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Speaking at the “AGs for Clean Power” press conference announcing the witch-hunt, the partner with Kleiner Perkins identified “man-made global warming pollution” as “the reason” for “2015 temperatures, the spread of Zika, flooding in Louisiana and Arkansas, Super Storm Sandy, and Super Typhoon Haiyan.” Of course, plenty of evidence to refute those claims exists.
But the AGs asked some important questions, perhaps giving the Democrat prosecutors a small taste of their own medicine. Do the statements by that partner increase the value of “clean energy” investments sold by Kleiner Perkins? Do the statements justify an investigation into all contributions to environmental non-profits by the firm’s partners? Should the questions be settled by state courts under penalty of anti-mafia RICO charges? “May it never be,” the Republicans said. The GOP prosecutors also cited Justice Jackson, who pointed out in a 1945 case that America’s forefathers “did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.”
Concluding, they said: “Stop policing viewpoints.”
There are also a number of other issues. The “AGs United for Clean Power,” as the far-left prosecutors targeting skeptics are styling themselves, argued that Exxon’s disclosures of the alleged risks of alleged global warming might not have been “adequate.” However, in their letter, the conservative prosecutors noted that “green energy” companies — part of an industry that is supported by tax funding — have failed to disclose climate risks as well. If the man-made global-warming theory is officially debunked, or even if the alleged danger of alleged warming is less than politicians and warmists have been led to believe, the crony “green” industry could collapse entirely. “Therefore, any fraud theory requiring more disclosure of Exxon would surely require more disclosure by ‘clean energy’ companies,” the GOP AGs said. Yet investors have apparently not been adequately warned of those risks.
The same goes for funding outside groups. “Similarly, it has been asserted that ‘fossil fuel companies’ may have funded nonprofits who minimized the risks of climate change,” the letter continued. “Does anyone doubt that ‘clean energy’ companies have funded non-profits who exaggerated the risks of climate change? Under the stated theory for fraud, consumers and investors could suffer harm from misstatements by all energy-market participants and the non-profits they support. Yet only companies and non-profits allegedly espousing a particular viewpoint have been chosen for investigation.”
The effort to restore some sanity was led by Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange. Also signing on to the letter were Attorneys General Ken Paxton of Texas, Bill Schuette of Michigan, Craig Richards of Alaska, Doug Peterson of Nebraska, Adam Laxalt of Nevada, Mark Brnovich of Arizona, Sean Reyes of Utah, Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas, Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma, Brad Schimel of Wisconsin, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, and Alan Wilson of South Carolina.
The implications of the letter for the crony capitalists devouring tax money under the guise of corrupt “green” energy — think Solyndra, a “green” company owned by Obama cronies that bilked taxpayers out of $500 million — should be clear. Separately, while not addressed in the letter, legal experts have argued that the alarmist AGs could be setting themselves up for major problems as well. It is a felony under federal law for two or more people to conspire to “injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States.” That includes free speech. The same statute also provides civil penalties. And already, the Virgin Islands prosecutor duped by his colleagues into joining the anti-speech machinations and committing career suicide is facing potential legal sanctions for his abuse of the legal process to intimidate a non-profit.
There has undoubtedly been a great deal of fraud in pushing the AGW theory. However, only against the alarmist “green” side do the allegations of fraud appear to be supported by actual evidence. The AGs United for unreliable, expensive, tax-subsidized, crony-controlled, Big Government-selected energy, along with their well-funded establishment allies, should be very careful what they wish for.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, environment, politics, education, and more. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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