News Release

Tillerson’s Exxon Often Sought State Department Assistance, Docs Show

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STEVE HORN,  steve at desmogblog.com@SteveAHorn
Horn is an investigative journalist and writer for DeSmogBlog.com. He just wrote the piece “Rex Tillerson’s Exxon Often Sought State Department Assistance New Documents Show” for The Intercept.

He said today: “This investigation centers around documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) showing that ExxonMobil — then run by its CEO and current U.S. Secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson — frequently pressed the Obama Administration State Department to intervene on its behalf in Germany to push through fracking when it had come under opposition by grassroots movements in the country.

“We also dug through other State Department diplomatic cables, leaked by Chelsea Manning and published by WikiLeaks, showing similar behavior by Exxon in both Indonesia in the South China Sea and Russia. The South China Sea example is notable, the piece points out, because Tillerson came across as a hardliner vs.China and the South China Sea during his confirmation hearing last week in from of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Exxon has skin in the game, as the article shows, in this territory.”