After a yearlong court battle against a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, the Vermont attorney general’s office says it has no records to turn over relating to a multi-state investigation of groups opposed to climate change policies.
Attorney General TJ Donovan’s office on Monday sent a letter to the Energy and Environment Legal Institute indicating that it had no emails to deliver to the group. A representative from the legal institute told True North the move represents a change in the office’s story.
“It’s a very confusing letter. For almost a year they said that they had records and they were exempt and they didn’t have to give them to us.” Matthew Hardin, a lawyer for Energy and Environment Legal Institute, said. “The court said they have to give us records and now they say they don’t have any records after all.”
“They’ve changed their story and I don’t know what to believe at this point, but we certainly will look into it, figure out who searched for records, where they searched, and what’s really there and what’s not,” he added.
He said civil penalties may apply if further investigation uncovers that the attorney general’s office has records but is denying it.
“The first thing we are going to do is get an explanation from the attorney general’s office about what really happened here. And then they are going to have to tell a convincing enough story for the court to believe,” Hardin said.
The court has been hearing arguments for about a year on why the requested records should be withheld. The saga started last year in March when Vermont joined AGs United for Clean Power, a group of 17 Democrat attorneys general that was threatening legal action against Exxon Mobil for potentially cherry-picking research information about climate change.
As they conducted their work, the AGs and their staff signed pseudo-legal common interest agreements to shield their efforts from public disclosure, including information that might be gleaned from public records requests. In June 2016, Energy and Environment Legal Institute sued then Attorney General William Sorrell for records.
Last month, Vermont Superior Court Judge Mary Miles Teachout ruled the common interest agreements did not create an exemption from records requests. She gave the office 30 days to deliver documents.
RELATED: Vermont Superior Court rules for transparency at attorney general’s office
“I have never had this all happen before in this order,” Hardin said. “Sometimes you send a records request and they say we don’t have any records, but the usual time to say that is when they first get the request. I’ve never had it happen that an agency will say the records are exempt and later on change their mind and say there are no records.”
According to Hardin, the officials involved in AGs United for Clean Power said they would let each other know when they got an open records request and would then either consent or object to turning over records.
He also said computer programming experts can determine if any material or emails have been deleted off a computer, and that they might be called on to testify in court.
“We have a right to discovery, and we will put people under oath, and they will have to explain what happened,” he said.
Search terms requested by the legal institute last year included ‘Frumhoff,’ for Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and ‘Pawa,’ for Matt Pawa of the Climate Accountability Institute. Hardin said the two prominent environmentalists have ties with the various attorneys general in the group.
Hardin explained that what’s most odd about the situation is why the attorney general’s office would fight for a year in court over records that don’t exist.
“Were you telling the truth the first time that you have records that were exempt, or are you telling the truth now that there are no records? They are mutually exclusive,” he said. “They haven’t given us records and they haven’t appealed — instead they’ve changed their story.”
Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North Reports. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorth82X.
If what they’re doing is in the public interest, why hide it? If what they’re doing is not in the interest of the public, why are they doing it? And if they create no records of what they’re doing, how do the coordinate what they’re doing? Even meetings have minutes of the procedure to resolve future “He said… I said” conflicts. And spending a year fighting the release of information that doesn’t exist? The past few years have displayed an utterly astounding series of lost, destroyed, denied then found, then “accidentally” erased records, “recycled” hard drives, smashed hard drives and Blackberries, people in powerful government positions whose memory goes blank, who plead the fifth, who are granted immunity without producing any information, people scheduled to testify that conveniently die, clandestine meetings that shouldn’t happen over grandkids and golf – and it all seems to revolve around the Democrats. What the hell is going on?
They’re just being Democrats. Hardin is certainly tongue-in-cheek when he allows one possible explanation to be non-existence.
Is anyone surprised? These are the Vermont Dems/Progressive incompetents.
Did he bleach his computers and destroy his blackberry with a hammer, too? The man is beyond disgusting, as is the entire Democrat party. Yet the idiot Republicans don’t prosecute them for their felonious and traitorous actions. Amazing.
What else do you expect from a Progressive Democrat , by hook or by crook.
Arrogance abounds in the AG’s office, they think they are above the law.
They have learned from the best (HRC) when it comes from loosing emails or
not knowing what happened. shameful!!
He must have a Clinton approved paper shredder and enrolled in Clinton home study course on lying and not leaving a trail. There is always a trail somewhere.