Official: Tillerson used alias in emails on climate change

Associated Press

DALLAS

The New York attorney general says that while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO of Exxon, he used an alias in emails to talk about climate change.

The attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, made the accusation in a letter from his office to a New York court Monday. He is investigating whether the company deceived investors and the public by hiding for decades what it knew about the link between fossil fuels and climate change.

Schneiderman said Exxon failed to disclose that Tillerson used an account named “Wayne Tracker” to send and receive emails about issues including risk management related to climate change. Wayne is Tillerson’s middle name. The account was used from at least 2008 through 2015, he says.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Alan Jeffers said Tillerson’s regular email address received a large number of emails, including from outside the company, and the Wayne Tracker account was created for secure and quick communication between Tillerson and senior executives over a broad range of topics.

Tillerson resigned as chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. at year’s end, after then-President-elect Donald Trump picked him to become the nation’s chief diplomat.

The State Department declined to comment on Tillerson’s use of an alias for email while at Exxon, but spokesman Mark Toner said Tillerson only uses a State Department email address to conduct government business and an official phone number for work-related calls.

In a letter submitted by one of his deputies, Schneiderman said investigators found the Wayne Tracker account on about 60 documents but that neither Exxon nor its lawyers ever disclosed that it was used by Tillerson.