MN Attorney: Minnesota needs answers on Ellison's Bloomberg-funded attorneys - Climate Litigation Watch

MN Attorney: Minnesota needs answers on Ellison’s Bloomberg-funded attorneys

Former Minnesota lawmaker and candidate for Attorney General Doug Wardlow wrote a piece in the weekend Duluth News-Tribune citing CLW, and records obtained by the government-transparency group Energy Policy Advocates. Exceprts include:

“Brazenly using his office to advance a political agenda, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, together with the District of Columbia’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit in June alleging that Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, and the American Petroleum Institute conspired to hide the truth about climate change.

And Ellison is using attorneys funded by a private special interest group to do it, as the Washington Examiner and others have reported…

“Public records obtained by Climate Litigation Watch show that Ellison hired special assistant attorneys general who are paid not by the state of Minnesota but by a special-interest group funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg. He did so for the apparent purpose of advancing a far-left climate agenda.

This raises a host of legal and ethical questions….

“The bad news for Ellison doesn’t stop there. He’s been sued under Minnesota’s public-records law to force him to turn over documents showing he sought out activist attorneys and money to help him pursue his climate-related lawsuit. A revealing report from Climate Litigation Watch shows clearly that Ellison highlighted his interest in suing ExxonMobil and others when he applied to Bloomberg’s group for funding.

New information unearthed by Climate Litigation Watch also shows that embedded-attorney Currie is listed on the climate-activist group Climate Generation’s website as a past chair and current advisory board member. A Minnesota-based climate activist group, Fresh Energy, even boasts about lobbying Ellison to use Bloomberg’s guns-for-hire shortly after his swearing-in.”

Read the entire piece here.