“Imagine a Republican attorney general getting a letter from the National Rifle Association asking if they’d like two full-time paid employees. The cries of outrage…would be deafening,” said Annette Meeks, founder and CEO of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota. “We do not want elected officials…soliciting billionaires to fund official functions of those offices.”
Attorneys general from at least 10 states, including New York, Minnesota and Washington, DC, have accepted private lawyers, to work in their offices as special “assistants,” paid by Michael Bloomberg’s charitable foundation. These lawyers provide “expertise” on issues like corporate environmental liabilities. Their influence most likely prompted attorneys general to act on their behalf and file tort cases and coalition letters demonizing critical energy industry companies. American consumers can’t afford influence like this and neither can our legal system.
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