Politics

Speaking to a private gathering of conservative operatives and fossil fuel advocates in January, a top deputy to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gave “the inside story” about how his office bullied Wells Fargo, one of America’s biggest banks, into dropping out of a global initiative to reduce carbon emissions.

The official spoke in January at the exclusive Consumers’ Research Summit in Sea Island, Georgia. Rolling Stone has exclusively obtained audio and documents from the event.

Brent Webster, the First Assistant Attorney General of Texas, recalled how his office moved to cut off lucrative bond business to Wells Fargo. Webster then shared how he, in a private dinner at the governor’s mansion with Gov. Greg Abbott, Paxton, and the bank’s execs, told the bank Texas could “reinstate the bond market” if it left the Net Zero Banking Alliance.

When the Wells Fargo team got flustered, Webster said he threatened an antitrust lawsuit against them, telling the bank’s executives they were this close “to being sued right now.”

After the Texas attorney general launched an antitrust lawsuit against BlackRock and other large asset management firms, Webster said he called up his contact at Wells Fargo and warned, “you guys might be next.” It worked: “They left a week later,” he said. “They left the Net Zero Banking Alliance, and then all the banks followed.”

It's always fun to discover that no matter how bad things are as publicly presented, they're actually worse.