New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has deposed Exxon executives and issued new subpoenas in his quest to discover whether the company destroyed evidence related to the “Wayne Tracker” email alias used by former CEO Rex Tillerson, now the U.S. secretary of state.
“The expanded investigation comes after Exxon conceded that it failed to preserve all documents from Tillerson’s shadow email account, under the alias Wayne Tracker, and has failed to turn over other documents from top executives,” InsideClimate News reports. “New York investigators said in the brief that ‘no preservation hold was placed on Wayne Tracker’ emails by Exxon, a process meant to ensure they were not destroyed.”
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In its legal brief, Schneiderman’s office states that “because of concern about spoliation of documents, and in conformance with proceedings before the New York court on that issue, the [New York Office of the Attorney General] has taken, pursuant to subpoena, testimony of witnesses who may possess information relevant to spoliation.”
Exxon has until June 16 to respond to the latest round of legal jousting, ICN notes. The attorney general’s investigators believe Tillerson “used the Wayne Tracker email account for eight years to discuss, among other things, climate change-related issues and the risks they posed to the company’s business.”
