The Washington Post broke the story, in which the former Trump White House praised Exxon Mobil for increasing their investment in Gulf Coast states, including Louisiana and Texas.
First of all, this is barely news, and is certainly not news-worthy. After all, the programs Trump was touting were begun in 2013 – years ago. According to the Post
“There is nothing new or newsworthy here,” said Pavel Molchanov, energy analyst with the investment firm Raymond James.
“At the risk of stating the obvious, plenty of companies, across various industries, have been touting their U.S. job creation efforts in order to get on the Trump administration’s good side — even when the underlying job creation has little or nothing to do with Washington policy. This is simply the latest example of that.”
The White House issued its statement only hours after Exxon Mobil released its own, opening the door to side-by-side comparison.
Nearly an entire paragraph was lifted word-for-word in the two releases. Another sentence was lifted later in the release.
- EXXON MOBIL STATEMENT EXCERPT
“ExxonMobil is strategically investing in new refining and chemical-manufacturing projects in the U.S. Gulf Coast region to expand its manufacturing and export capacity. The company’s Growing the Gulf expansion program, consists of 11 major chemical, refining, lubricant and liquefied natural gas projects at proposed new and existing facilities along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Investments began in 2013 and are expected to continue through at least 2022.”
- WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT EXCERPT
“Exxon Mobil is strategically investing in new refining and chemical-manufacturing projects in the United States Gulf Coast region to expand its manufacturing and export capacity. The company’s Growing the Gulf program consists of 11 major chemical, refining, lubricant and liquefied natural gas projects at proposed new and existing facilities along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Investments began in 2013 and are expected to continue through at least 2022.”
According to The Washington Post, requests for comments went unanswered the Trump Administration prior to their vacating the White House.
CNN reports a White House official admits to lifting the material without any citation,“The expansion program has many different components to it, and we went straight to the source for some of our information,” the source commented.
White House press release (left) contains full paragraph copied verbatim from Exxon press release (right). pic.twitter.com/NlhoUvdqvd
