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Chevron Ecuador Lawsuit News

The Real Climate Change Racket

Steven Donziger speaks with reporters outside the federal courthouse on April 20, 2015.

A lawsuit against oil companies reflects progressive attempts to criminalize disagreement.

“The first climate racketeering suit is here,” Slate declares

That is not quite true. It’s just that the first big climate-change racketeering case was not what you might have expected it to be. 

The first big climate racketeering case—which did not receive celebratory coverage in Slate or other likeminded media—was a successful action against corrupt climate activists who were led by Steven Donziger. That basketball buddy of Barack Obama’s with deep ties to New York Democrats had  tried to extort billions of dollars from Chevron in a truly outrageous episode involving everything from bribing judges to manufacturing evidence. Beneath all the greenwashing—prominent climate activists including musician Roger Waters had a percentage interest in the corrupt case, as did a few Democratic grandees and media figures—it was, at root, one of the biggest extortion attempts in modern times. If you’d like a flavor of the action, consider this little nugget from the federal court’s opinion on the case: “The wrongful actions of Donziger and his Ecuadorian legal team would be offensive to the laws of any nation that aspires to the rule of law, including Ecuador—and they knew it. Indeed, one Ecuadorian legal team member, in a moment of panicky candor, admitted that if documents exposing just part of what they had done were to come to light, ‘apart from destroying the proceeding, all of us, your attorneys, might go to jail.’” 

Read the full story from the Dispatch.

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#Factsmatter: An international arbitration panel found ‘no cogent evidence’ supporting #Ecuador’s claim that #Texaco failed to comply with terms of remediation in #Amazon. https://t.co/7TqQ6sJhik
The @WSJ sums this case up nicely, “[Steven Donziger] and his team fabricated evidence, promised $500,000 to an #Ecuadorean judge to rule in their favor, ghostwrote much of the final verdict and took other actions that ‘perverted’ the course of #justice. Mr. Donziger disputes the… https://t.co/soQ1qreULA
Shameless. Disbarred and convicted of criminal contempt of court for bribing an Ecuadorian judge in an attempted extortion scheme, @SDonziger is nonetheless accepting invitations to speak at #climate rallies. Read more about this adjudicated racketeer: https://t.co/5eac0lRmN7
Sworn testimony: While Texaco met its environmental obligations in the Amazon, #Ecuador’s national oil company did “absolutely nothing” to address its own remediation in the area. #FactsMatter:
https://t.co/7TqQ6sJhik
DENIED: @SCOTUS rejects hearing case of Steven Donziger, who bribed Ecuadorian judge in failed effort to bilk Chevron for billions of dollars. https://t.co/zT0dlozk5R

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