TIllerson did illegal business with Iran -- I suppose that's OK too.

Yssup Rider's Avatar
How can this guy be our Secretary of State?

Putin's butt buddy.

Cutting illegal deals with Iran. (And we ALL know what Drumpf had to say about Iran.)

This can't be allowed. The Republicans who fought the Iran deal and refuse to embrace Russia's despot must stand up to Drumpf and his family.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...rson/96359776/

ExxonMobil and Iran did business under secretary of State nominee Tillerson
Oren Dorell , USA TODAY Published 4:26 p.m. ET Jan. 9, 2017 | Updated 23 minutes ago



Rex Tillerson is the CEO of ExxonMobil. His ties around the globe include a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. USA TODAY NETWORK

AFP AFP_J307Q I ERS FRA
(Photo: Eric Piermont, AFP/Getty Images)
ExxonMobil did business with Iran, Syria and Sudan through a European subsidiary while President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of State was a top executive of the oil giant and those countries were under U.S. sanctions as state sponsors of terrorism, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show.

That business connection is likely to surface Wednesday at a confirmation hearing for ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The sales were conducted in 2003, 2004 and 2005 by Infineum, in which ExxonMobil owned a 50% share, according to SEC documents unearthed by American Bridge, a Democratic research group.

ExxonMobil told USA TODAY the transactions were legal because Infineum, a joint venture with Shell Corporation, was based in Europe and the transactions did not involve any U.S. employees.

The filings, from 2006, show that the company had $53.2 million in sales to Iran, $600,000 in sales to Sudan and $1.1 million in sales to Syria during those three years.

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He became a senior vice president at ExxonMobil in August 2001, president and director in March 2004 and chairman and chief executive on Jan. 1, 2006.

The SEC letter questioned ExxonMobil’s failure to disclose to shareholders that it had transactions with three state sponsors of terrorism. Decisions to make such disclosures should be based on “the potential impact of corporate activities upon a company`s reputation and share value,” and not simply the monetary value of the transactions, the SEC said.

Compared to Exxon’s overall annual revenue of $371 billion, “these transactions are not material by any reasonable measure,” Richard Gutman, ExxonMobil’s assistant general counsel at the time, wrote in response to an SEC inquiry regarding the transactions. He did not address the SEC's concerns about the impact on the oil company's reputation

Infineum’s European affiliates manage business transactions in those three countries “under a policy and procedure consistent with U.S. legal requirements and no United States person is involved in those business transactions,” Gutman wrote. The subsidiary has offices in the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore.

“These are all legal activities complying with the sanctions at the time," Alan Jeffers, media manager at ExxonMobil, told USA TODAY. "We didn’t feel they were material because of the size of the transactions.”

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“They (Infineum) have an independent management that operates the entity. And it’s not a U.S. entity,” Jeffers said.

At the time of the SEC inquiry, such indirect transactions between Iran and American companies were not unusual, said Mark Dubowitz, an expert on Iran sanctions at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.

“It’s the reason Congress eventually shut down U.S. companies from doing business (with Iran) through foreign subsidiaries,” Dubowitz said. Congress also required such transactions to be disclosed. The Iran nuclear deal that went into effect in early 2016 reopened the loophole under certain conditions, Dubowitz said.

Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations panel, said he was “deeply skeptical about Mr. Tillerson’s actions as CEO of Exxon that were in direct contravention to express United States policies put in place to secure Americans and our country."

"Finding loopholes to make lucrative business deals with geo-political adversaries, while showing no clear regard for U.S. national interests, is not a resume builder for a prospective diplomat-in-chief," Menendez said in a statement to USA TODAY. "This is one of the many issues I look forward to hearing more about during the upcoming confirmation hearings."
gfejunkie's Avatar
TIllerson did illegal business with Iran Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
So did Obama. What's your point?
bambino's Avatar
So did Obama. What's your point? Originally Posted by gfejunkie
He doesn't have one. Never does.
pussycat's Avatar
Those sanctions are full of shit and totally political. It's like prohibition before it was repealed in 1933. Those kinds of rules are meant to be broken. Anyway the Iranians need nuclear weapons because the Israelis have them and need to be deterred from using them. Like the nuclear deterrence that prevented war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., when Iran gets nuclear weapons there will be deterrence against Israel, who now has a nuclear monopoly. When the Iranians finally get an atom bomb the whole region will become more stable.
The Griffin's Avatar
This is going to be a free for all. If your in business (owner) you will be unleashed, make all you can. If your low wage or some middle wage, you'll have a job but your wage will not move. For the rest of us, the social conservatives will grab their ankles for this guy and his crew becuase they can advanced their agenda and stack the courts, big money gives two hoots about that. I'm waiting to see the rust belt, coal, and line worker do, what are those people going to get. They're all in, BTW, their union right!? Good Luck.
bambino's Avatar
This is going to be a free for all. If your in business (owner) you will be unleashed, make all you can. If your low wage or some middle wage, you'll have a job but your wage will not move. For the rest of us, the social conservatives will grab their ankles for this guy and his crew becuase they can advanced their agenda and stack the courts, big money gives two hoots about that. I'm waiting to see the rust belt, coal, and line worker do, what are those people going to get. They're all in, BTW, their union right!? Good Luck. Originally Posted by The Griffin
And what have the miners and union workers got in the last 8yrs? That's why Trump won the rust belt. Pure and simple.
And what have the miners and union workers got in the last 8yrs? That's why Trump won the rust belt. Pure and simple. Originally Posted by bambino
Miners actually got a lot. There is a line in the ACA that put made mining companies have to prove that the workers seeking benefits from black lung didn't get it from the mines where in the past it was on the miners to prove they did. That made the number of successful claims go up and it allowed the benefits to be passed to their family. So if that's taken away then they will be screwed and you know what, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. It's not hard to do the research on stuff. Hell I'm sure guys have done more research on a provider they were about to see here than some voters did.
Yssup Rider's Avatar
It's gonna be real hard for Senate to confirm Tillerson.
Yssup Rider's Avatar
Those sanctions are full of shit and totally political. It's like prohibition before it was repealed in 1933. Those kinds of rules are meant to be broken. Anyway the Iranians need nuclear weapons because the Israelis have them and need to be deterred from using them. Like the nuclear deterrence that prevented war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., when Iran gets nuclear weapons there will be deterrence against Israel, who now has a nuclear monopoly. When the Iranians finally get an atom bomb the whole region will become more stable. Originally Posted by pussycat
I agree the Iranians need to be kept in check.

After all, Exxon needs their oil, right?
  • DSK
  • 01-10-2017, 09:48 PM
I agree the Iranians need to be kept in check.

After all, Exxon needs their oil, right? Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
We have all the oil we need here in America. Fuck Iran!
lustylad's Avatar
Anyway the Iranians need nuclear weapons because the Israelis have them and need to be deterred from using them. Like the nuclear deterrence that prevented war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., when Iran gets nuclear weapons there will be deterrence against Israel, who now has a nuclear monopoly. When the Iranians finally get an atom bomb the whole region will become more stable. Originally Posted by pussycat
Wow... this is one of the most ignorant posts I have read on eccie. You obviously know nothing about the Middle East. Are you even aware of the Sunni-Shia rivalry? Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting proxy wars all over the place - Yemen, Syria, Iraq. Iran is a Shi'ite country. It wants nukes in order to dominate and DESTABILIZE the entire region. Once Iran gets them, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt (all Sunni countries) will want to follow suit. Sounds like a great idea - let's have a nuclear arms race in the most UNSTABLE part of the world, where wars and terrorism are rampant. That will make everything stable, lol!

You shouldn't comment on topics you know nothing about - it's embarrassing.
bambino's Avatar
Miners actually got a lot. There is a line in the ACA that put made mining companies have to prove that the workers seeking benefits from black lung didn't get it from the mines where in the past it was on the miners to prove they did. That made the number of successful claims go up and it allowed the benefits to be passed to their family. So if that's taken away then they will be screwed and you know what, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. It's not hard to do the research on stuff. Hell I'm sure guys have done more research on a provider they were about to see here than some voters did. Originally Posted by Milly23
That's if they had a job:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...september-2014
bambino's Avatar
It's gonna be real hard for Senate to confirm Tillerson. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
I'll bet you 90 more days he does get confirmed.
That's if they had a job:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...september-2014 Originally Posted by bambino
Yeah there has been a lost in coal jobs. But the claims aren't about those with jobs. If you have black lung you can't work in the mines. The claims are about those who are sick and could die from it getting money from the companies. So that article doesn't really pertain to the benefits of the ACA. Now if you want to talk about the loss of those jobs, well that's in part because natural gas is cheaper. And how do we get that natural gas? Fracking. And isn't Trump pro fracking? Yes he is. So he's for fracking because that's big for Republicans and he's pro coal miners. But you can't really support both since they are competing. But yeah not talk about that part.
Looks legal to me. And don't don't forget to look the other way with Sec of State Clinton and her pay-for-play scheme.