Law Enforcement Probes Attempted Mail Bombs

including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. In a news conference yesterday, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and counter Terrorism John Miller confirmed the explosive devices were connected. It appears that an individual or individual sent out multiple similar packages. Joining me is William Banks, professor at Syracuse Law School. Bill. On the one hand, it looks like this was well coordinated. They came at the same time. But on the other,

wrong addresses, misspellings, insufficient postage. What's your take on the person or persons behind the bombs? It does look like it was not a terribly sophisticated uh campaign or attack with the misspellings, use of you know, the post the postal service and stamps, wrong addresses and the like. On the other hand, you know there there were you know, or about ten of these I guess that have been detected so far, and they didn't manage to get at

least through the postal system without being detected. So it's certainly a worrisome case. The Secret Service. Secret Service, of course, takes special measures to screen the mail of the public figures it protects, but some of the people here are obviously not under Secret Service protection. Reportedly, the one center Robert de Niro, the actor, was discovered at an office in New York. Are we coming to a time when packages will have to be picked up that a post

office or screened before they're delivered? Uh? That would not be a crazy uh thought. I think that's possible in the future. You know, we have postal inspectors now, and they've been doing much more, particularly since the the Antrax letters soon after nine eleven, the type and rate of postal inspection of packages increased greatly, not just the public officials but to all of us. But it's impossible to routinely screen every piece of mail that is of a

package size to determine what's in it. So it could be that will have remote collection. Uh. It could be also that that will learn something will will identify who these perpetrators or a single perpetrator, Uh is it was and uh and the threat will be diagnosed and perhaps it will go away. You know. We we've had a number of instances like this. UM we go back to the Antax letters is probably the most prominent example since

nine eleven, but back before that, the Unit bomber. It took an awfully long time to find Ted Kasinski, I think sixteen years or something like that. Yeah, they never did actually apprehend the antifacts mailer, although they likely identified him,

and he committed suicide before he was apprehended. These can be very easy cases to solve the very hard cases, and I think it's fair to say that our investigative techniques, the science of it all, forensics as well as surveillance capabilities in d N a far advanced compared to what they were even after the Antrax letters. Is it incredibly lucky that none of the bombs exploded? Or were they

meant to cause fear rather than injury? Yeah, we're not sure yet, but it could well be the latter because some of these, at least from the reporting I saw, had timers. You don't use timers on devices that are sensored the mail obviously, because you know the mail is of indeterminate length. Uh So they could have been fake or without any kind of way to to explode. But those that were capable of exploding, certainly some of them were. They were certainly powerful enough to have injured or killed

a person. What's your reaction to President Trump's response. He did make a call for unity yesterday morning, but last night a rally, and in tweets today he blamed the media and his opponents for anger in our society. Yeah, his his first public statement was a very good statement. I wish you would stick to those those are appropriate. That's what the President United States should be saying, not

just larn split routinely. And I'm afraid that his rhetoric has certainly contributed to the atmosphere that makes the fear all the more palpable. It's a really sad a moment I think in our society. I want to turn to another topic for a moment, which is The New York Times is reporting that President Trump continues to use an unsecured iPhone and that American intelligence reports indicate that Chinese

spies are often listening. Trump tweeted about the story and says that he rarely uses a cell phone and when he does, it's government authorized, and he said it was a fake story. What is the danger with the president using an unsecured iPhone. It's a great danger. And it's not only the Chinese you're listening to. Anyone with a sort of a modulate degree of hacking capability can listen in on an iPhone. So the Russians are listening, the Iranians are listening, who knows who else. And he's talking

to his friends. I'm not sure he's conducting business on his personal iPhones. I hope not. But but they're learning things about his style or what he likes to talk about, what his interests are, what's on his mind. That's a very dangerous thing to do, and his staff should try to put a kabash on it as quickly as possible. So even if he's not talking about classified information, if

he's just talking to its friends, it's still dangerous. Of course it is, because again you're learning about the man, and what you can gain by learning about the man in terms of the of the negotiations or diplomacy or communications that another state needs to have with him. It's a real advantage for them. I don't think we're capable of doing the same thing with foreign leaders that they're capable of doing with him because of the security of

their devices. Is this a similar concern that the continuing debate over Hillary Clinton's emails raised? Well? Yeah, I think her the shortcomings and her security to the extent that I recall the details, were not nearly as grave as this. Uh it was an email server that might have allowed some things to slip through that should not have been uh insecure. If he's doing this on a regular basis using his own phone that's not been secured, just that

for everyday communications, it's so much more serious. Claw Do you remember, I'm just trying to remember. Did President Obama? Was he forced to use a BlackBerry or something for security reasons? Yeah? Either whatever he was, he either went from BlackBerry to iPhone or vice reversa on account of the security I think he was there was. I remember a report that he was unhappy but resigned to the fact that he had to give up on his favorite device.

That's what I remember. All right, Thanks so much, Bill. As always, that's William Banks. He's a professor at Syracuse Law School. In August, lawyers for ex On Mobile stood before a New York judge and told the state's attorney general to put were shut up in its three year investigation into the oil giants public disclosures about climate change. Well, yesterday, Attorney General Barbara Underwood did just that. She filed a

fraud lawsuit against Exxon in state court in Manhattan. Joining me is Charles Warrant, chair of the environmental law practice at Cramer eleven Chuck. The lawsuit alleges that Exson misled investors regarding climate change, basically setting up two sets of

books for proxy costs. Tell us more about the allegations, yes, what and what they're really saying is that in their proxy statements that they issued to the public, they listed their costs related to climate change, and they listed them really at higher levels than they actually applied them internally.

And so if they had used those public cause what the suit is saying, if they had actually taken their costs as they were um represent to the public, they would have caused they have had to write, you know, a lot of write downs and and shorter asset lives and things like that that would have cost them money and so they're saying that they didn't apply it to their oil sands projects in Canada, and and they had sort of an undercounting of greenhouse gas related expenses by

more than twenty five billion dollars over the lifetime. Those are some of the you know, those are some of

the things that they're saying. And so they're saying this was really a fraud perpetrated on the public because they were giving the public one set of costs that they said were related to the climate change, but they were using another set lower when they were actually doing things on the ground, and so they weren't writing off things that they might have writed written off, they weren't attributing more costs when they should have attributed more costs, and

so that's what they're saying. They're saying it's a fraud under the State Martin Act, which is there New York securities law, which is a fairly broad statute and has been used by Attorney General of the State of New York to bring all kinds of suits related to stock issues, stock market manipulation, and things like that. So, Chuck, this is a change from the kind of climate change lawsuits we've been seeing and which have been getting dismissed, which

blamed the fossil fuel industry for creating climate change. This is really going back to the basics of a shareholder fraud lawsuit that the a G. S Office has used so many times before. That that's correct, tune, that's exactly what they're doing. They're saying that Excellent has committed a fraud on the public and and people who bought their securities based on these statements proxy statements, public statements have

been defrauded. The state has been defrauded, and they want them to pay, you know, stop doing it and pay penalties and to the extent there are any profits that are related to it, to give up those profits. And then this is more in the it's it's obviously they had the climate change, but it's more in the context of your normal securities type lawsuit that the government would

bring against a company. X On, as we've discussed before, has been waging a no holes barred counterattack against investigations by the New York AG as well as the Massachusetts a G. Saying the investigations have politically motivated, violent at the First Amendment and so on. Who seems to be

winning that battle at this point. No, well, at this point, really the governments have won both New York and Massachusetts, have you know, beaten back the efforts by x and to get the lawsuit dismissed or quash too because of political considerations, First Amendment, considering all kinds of those things, and they really have been unsuccessful at this point, and

it doesn't look like they are going to succeed. I mean, so it looks like this is some this is a suit that will end up unless there's some kind of a settlement, uh, you know, going to trial at some point, Chuck. During the hearing before the New York judge in August, the New York a G the deputy New York ag said that there was some smoking gun evidence that they had.

Do they disclose that in the lawsuit? In the allegations, Um, you know, I haven't seen that, but they probably could mean some of the things that they talked about related to the oil sands stuff in Canada and things like that, and maybe that's what they're talking about. I'm not I'm not,

but I haven't seen that, Jim. So they're they're also alleging that this went to the top and that former CEO Rex Tillerson knew about these Yes, absolutely, they said they have alleged that direx Tillerson was intimately involved in doing this and played a key role in this whole effort. Chuck. You know, Exon has been tru ing in different ways to you know, revive or brush up it's it's reputation in this area. How much damage will this lawsuit due

to that? Well, I think it will do some damage, June, There's no doubt about it. I think a lot will depend obviously on how it plays out the lawsuits. But as you indicated, Exxon has done a lot of work. They funded a lot of climate change reports. Uh, they're not denying that climate change is, you know, as man made.

They're investing in a lot of renewable energy sources. I think they're doing that, you know, because it makes sense from a number of perspectives, and so they're trying actually quite hard, I think too, you indicated to burnish their reputation in this area. And it's obviously a suit like this doesn't help. And I think a lot will depend on how it plays out. And you know, whether whether you get a lot of uh, things that are shown to have occurred, you know, and things that they suppressed.

It's almost like the tobacco lawsuits. Where as those lawsuits unfolded, information came out that the company's new way beforehand about this, and that's the kind of I think those are the kinds of things that they run the risk of having

happened to them. All right, Thanks so much, Chuck. That's Charles Warren of Kramer Levin, Exxon spokesperson has said these baseless allegations are a product of closed door lobbying by special interests, political opportunism, and the Attorney General's inability to admit that a three year investigation has uncovered no wrongdoing. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg