[FONT="]records laws – and [/FONT]new court documents[FONT="] provide yet another reason why he might want to keep them hidden.[/FONT][FONT="]It turns out Schneiderman definitely used a private email address to conduct official business while he has been embroiled in his Exxon investigation.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The court documents, submitted by lawyers for the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), explain that we know Schneiderman’s personal email address was used because it is contained within a privilege log of correspondence that he provided to the court. A judge only recognized that the personal email was used after an in camera review of this log.[/FONT]
[FONT="]All of this occurred after Schneiderman’s office claimed that a search for personal email addresses was not necessary because their office has a policy that personal email is “prohibited.” According to the court documents, “The record reveals that the respondents [Schneiderman’s office] took great pains to hide the true facts of the Attorney General’s use of private email addresses in an effort to stave off a court-ordered supplemental search.” (emphasis added) In fact, Schneiderman’s office provided the email that was sent from a personal address in the log they submitted, but did not identify what email address was used for that correspondence. Therefore the Court “accepted the representations made by the Attorney General.” Yet,[/FONT]
“Events subsequent to this Court’s Interim Order have definitively established that the Attorney General did, in fact, use his Gmail (or some other private email platform) for the performance of his duties at OAG. This Court has recognized after in camera review, that Document 160287-210-211 reflects the Attorney General using a private email address.
“At the time the December 21, 2016 Interim Order was signed, neither the Court nor the petitioners had any affirmative evidence that the Attorney General used a private email account. However, events subsequent to December 21, 2016 unequivocally establish that such a private email account was used for official business, and that the initial briefing in this case obfuscated that fact, causing a miscarriage of justice.” (emphasis added)