On November 16, United States District Judge Ed Kinkeade ordered Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey and New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman to be deposed by ExxonMobil lawyers in December. The two are further subject to legal discovery from ExxonMobil’s legal team. These are extraordinary things to demand of such prominent public officials; but then again, it appears they have committed extraordinary abuses of their offices.

Healey, Schneiderman, and other Democratic attorneys general have been pursuing a radical legal strategy of trying to charge energy companies under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law designed to take down mobsters. And all because energy companies haven’t completely subjugated themselves to the policy agenda of climate-change activists.