Senior Interior Official Gave Industry His Cell Phone #, Was Outed, Then Buried In Angry Calls
After President Trump’s top offshore drilling regulator was outed on cable television for giving out his mobile work number to industry connections, he faced a slew of angry texts. Among the messages: "Drain your swamp!" "You suck." "You're fucking up the oceans, moron.”
Thousands of pages of texts E&E News obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Scott Angelle, head of the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, flooded with a deluge of profanity and criticism after he was highlighted on "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver" encouraging industry to call him as part of a "business opportunity."
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Oliver showed a video of Angelle at a 2017 oil industry event in Louisiana giving out his cellphone number. But the show's producers did not hide his number — in fact, Oliver repeated it later. "This is a business opportunity for you to engage with me on what you believe we ought to be about," Angelle told the industry representatives, asking that they call him, not text, because a text would create a public record. He has made similar statements at other industry events and puts the number on his business card in what he calls an effort toward transparency.
Ed. - Emphasis added.
According to the emails sent or received from Angelle's Virginia phone number for which the agency pays the bills, the BSEE director before Oliver's show aired often texted for mundane reasons, like coordinating with his staff at BSEE headquarters in Virginia or its New Orleans office, communicating with industry officials and sending gospels to his contacts. But once his number was made public, people sent everything from mild criticisms to wishes of violence and attempts to annoy Angelle. "You should do your job and actually regulate the oil industry," said one of the milder messages. Others called him profane names.
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https://www.eenews.net/energywire/2019/07/17/stories/1060749583