Bloomberg "SAAG" Withdraws from Ellison "Climate" Case She Filed - Climate Litigation Watch

Bloomberg “SAAG” Withdraws from Ellison “Climate” Case She Filed

Rockefeller Family Fund ‘Cutout’ Revealed Ellison Suit Was Held Until Bloomberg Lawyers Were Provided

Friday afternoon brings news of the withdrawal as counsel from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison‘s lawsuit against energy companies for purported climate sins.

That SAAG is Leigh Currie (the remaining SAAG is Peter Surdo, who boasted on his LinkedIn site he had been “embedded” in Ellison’s Office). That suit is the one that we now know was orchestrated by the Rockefeller Family Fund using local cutout greens — and a UMinn academic who rather incredibly put a memo pushing the suit, ghost co-written by “the lawyers advising Rockefeller family fund,” on University stationery — and which was held until the Bloomberg group provided the Office with the lawyers who, yes, did in fact file the suit.

The sordid tale is laid out with receipts here.

The records documenting this are courtesy of Energy Policy Advocates, which CLW readers may recall has initiated numerous Minnesota Government Data Practices Act lawsuits against Ellison’s Office for records pertaining to his use of these mercenaries. One case was recently heard at the State Supreme Court after EPA prevailed at the Court of Appeals level. 

The MN media has blacked out any coverage of what’s going on, other than the Star-Tribune which weighed in in advance and in (hindsight reveals) somewhat clumsy support, with an editorial calling for “reinforcements” for the AG following a meeting with Ellison a few days after Ellison requested the Bloomberg group provide him his two SAAGs. Speaking truth to power and all that.

Nonetheless, lawmakers have gotten wind. At a recent hearing by a Senate committee looking into enacting a ban on what’s transpiring in Ellison’s Office along the lines of what Virginia’s legislature has done, the chair referenced OAG’s efforts to not comply with EPA’s MGDPA requests.

The AG’s Office testified against the bill rather imperiously, when not expressing bewilderment or ignorance, taking the position that as a constitutional Office it can’t be regulated by the legislature. (Existing statutes suggest that’s something of a stretch…) The OAG witness claimed utter ignorance of the relationship and, curiously, adamant opposition to the bill at issue to prohibit it. Regardless, OAG’s testimony didn’t go over well — nor did DFL efforts to change the subject — and the bill advanced 5-3.

That hearing seems to have left a mark, given the OAG’s woeful performance (available on Youtube) and today’s withdrawal.