Perhaps he was drilling for campaign cash, critics now contend after The Post obtained an e-mail that appears to show the state’s top cop was seeking a tree-hugging billionaire’s help to finance a run for governor in 2018.
In March 2016, four months after announcing the Exxon probe, the Democratic AG tried to arrange a phone meeting with hedge-fund mogul Tom Steyer, an environmental activist and Exxon enemy.
“Eric Schneiderman would like to have a call with Tom regarding support for his race for governor . . . regarding Exxon case,” reads the March 10 e-mail.
The note was sent by Steyer lawyer Ted White to Erin Suhr, Steyer’s director of strategic planning at Fahr LLC, which oversees Steyer’s political and philanthropic efforts. White, a Colorado lawyer, is Fahr’s managing partner.
“Anyone have any flags on this call before I add to Tom’s call sheet for Monday?” Suhr replied the next day in an e-mail.
A spokeswoman for Steyer and the two Fahr execs confirmed the e-mail exchange but said the phone meeting never happened.
She also said White has not donated to the AG’s campaign.
Steyer is a heavyweight Dem donor who has poured cash into Hillary Clinton’s coffers, organized a fund-raiser for President Obama and helped bankroll Clinton acolyte Terry McAuliffe’s successful 2013 gubernatorial bid in Virginia. Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action PAC spent nearly $70 million on elections in 2014.
Steyer had accused Exxon of misleading investors on climate change for nearly 30 years. In January, as Schneiderman rallied attorneys general in other states to the cause, Steyer urged California’s attorney general to join the investigation.
But with AGs deserting the case, many wonder why Schneiderman took on an issue so far afield.
“It all smacks of politics,” said former New York AG Dennis Vacco. “What’s unsettling to me about this probe is that many of Attorney General Schneiderman’s supporters are investors in alternative-energy companies and enemies of Exxon.”
The March e-mail alludes to a run for governor, but Schneiderman had denied any such ambition months earlier, telling Politico on Nov. 12, “I am not running for governor in 2018.”
His spokesman, Eric Soufer, called the e-mails “nonsense” and said neither the AG nor his staff communicated with White or Steyer about a run for governor.
“If anything, Mr. White may be referring to Mr. Steyer’s reported interest in a run for governor of California,” Soufer said.
But a source close to White told The Post, “That’s not our interpretation of the e-mail.”
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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