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Matthew Hardin at Republican National Lawyers Association

Membership Level

Regular Member - 1 Year

Employer

Greene County

Email

MatthewDHardin@protonmail.com

Business Phone

434-202-4224

Website

http://www.matthewhardin.com/

Address

PO Box 1028, Stanardsville, VA 22973, United States

GOP Title

Member, Greene Co. Republican Committee

Law School

Appalachian School of Law

Practice Area 1

Constitutional Law

Practice Area 2

Criminal Justice

Practice Area 3

Government Relations


gao

Matthew Hardin – Board Member

Matt Hardin spent over three years litigating what proved to be highly significant open records cases in the New York and Vermont state courts, eliciting damning privilege logs, admissions by defense counsel in court, and of course key public records now housed in GAO’s Climate Litigation Watch documentary trove. After two years serving as chief prosecutor for a rural Virginia County, Hardin returned to transparency litigation in January 2020. He now serves as Counsel for GAO, handling cases from coast to coast in both state and federal courts.

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY & OVERSIGHT

Government Accountability & Oversight is not an agency of the federal, state, or local government, but is a tax-exempt charity under section 501c3 of the Internal Revenue Code.


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REF 4? CT DOC TOE 40K CS 200 PP VAUGHN INDEX?

Status Report – #25 in TOENSING v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (D.D.C., 1:24-cv-02444) – CourtListener.com

JEANINE FERRIS PIRRO United States Attorney By: /s/ Thomas W. Duffey THOMAS W. DUFFEY Assistant United States Attorney 601 D Street, NW Washington, DC 20530 (202) 252-2510 Attorneys for the United States of America /s/ Matthew D. Hardin MATTHEW D. HARDIN, D.C. Bar # 1032711 Hardin Law Office 101 Rainbow Drive # 11506 Livingston, TX 77399 (202) 802-1948 MatthewDHardin@protonmail.com

Now comes the Plaintiff, Victoria Toensing, and the Defendant, the United States Department of Justice (“Department”), by and through undersigned counsel, and hereby submit this Joint Status Report pursuant to the Court’s May 27, 2026, Minute Order. This report follows a June 18, 2026 meeting of the parties and their counsel at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. In attendance at the meeting were undersigned counsel, Plaintiff Victoria Toensing and her husband, Joseph diGenova, and Patrice Parker Hale from the Department of Justice.

Defendant’s Statement The Department represents that it has completed its review and has processed in excess of 41,000 pages. There remain outstanding 29 pages that need to be returned from the Office of Information Policy, which are expected to be returned by the middle of next month. The Department anticipates providing a Vaughn index to Plaintiff addressing approximately 1,000 pages withheld in full pursuant to FOIA Exemptions, and certain partially redacted records to which Plaintiff has conveyed its challenges. This Vaughn will be provided to Plaintiff by July 31, 2026, as contemplated by this Court’s May 18, 2026 Minute Order. The Department is not claiming that records at issue in this case are classified.

....

Plaintiff’s Statement Plaintiff appreciates the opportunity to confer with the Department and its counsel on June 18, 2026. As previously indicated, Ms. Toensing recently began serving as Deputy Chief for Civil Rights in the Criminal Section, of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and Ms. Toensing has extensive obligations in that District related to a grand jury proceeding.

The brief postponement of the conferral allowed Ms. Toensing to better serve our country’s pressing interests in effective and efficient criminal justice. The June 18, 2026 meeting in D.C. was productive in terms of allowing the parties to better understand their respective positions and to agree on a path forward for this litigation. As indicated at ECF No. 22, Plaintiff has received less than 200 pages of records, such that Plaintiff has difficulty understanding how 41,000 pages were processed with so few pages produced. The Department has now clarified that it withheld in full approximately 1,000 pages of records. Still, the Department apparently asserts that approximately 40,000 pages of records were non-responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request. Plaintiff reserves the right to challenge the accuracy of Defendant’s assertions as to the volume of responsive records on summary judgment.

...


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Parties for GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY & OVERSIGHT v. ...

CourtListener

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Matthew D. Hardin. (202) 802-1948. Hardin Law Office 101 Rainbow Drive Pmb 11506. Livingston, TX 77399. ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED. Newsletter. Sign up to receive ...

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United States Court of Appeals

Earthjustice

https://earthjustice.org › document › opinion-cou...

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Jun 26, 2026 — Jackson, Attorney, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Texas, entered an appearance. Matthew D. Hardin and. Christopher C. Horner ...Read more

CASE 0:26-cv-02456-SRN-DLM Doc. 45 Filed 06/25/ ...

Climate Litigation Watch

https://climatelitigationwatch.org › 2026/06 › GA...

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Jun 25, 2026 — Matthew D. Hardin. Matthew D. Hardin, MN. Bar No. 0397178. Hardin Law Office. 101 Rainbow Drive, PMB 11506. Livingston, TX 77399. Phone: (202) ...Read more

9 pages

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TOENSING_v_US_DEPARTME...

PacerMonitor

https://www.pacermonitor.com › public › filings › TOE...

... Matthew D. Hardin MATTHEW D. HARDIN D.C. Bar # 1032711 Hardin Law Office 101 Rainbow Drive # 11506 Livingston, TX 77399 Phone: (202) 802-1948 Email ...Read more

United States of America v. State of Minnesota et al

Justia Law

https://law.justia.com › federal › minnesota › mndce

33-1] filed by attorney Matthew D. Hardin, representing a nonprofit organization known as Government Accountability & Oversight. 1 For the reasons set forth ...

COX COMMUNICATIONS, INC., ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ...

supremecourt.gov

https://www.supremecourt.gov › DocketPDF

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Sep 22, 2025 — MATTHEW D. HARDIN. HARDIN LAW OFFICE. 101 RAINBOW DRIVE, #11506. LIVINGSTON, TX 77399. 202-802-1948. MATTHEWDHARDIN@PROTONMAIL.COM. THOMAS M ...Read more

4 pages

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Case 1:24-cv-01829-RDM Document 38 Filed 01/22/25 Page ...

govoversight.org

https://govoversight.org › 2025/01 › PL-Oppo-MSJ

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Jan 22, 2025 — /s/Matthew D. Hardin. Matthew D. Hardin, D.C. Bar No. 1032711. Hardin Law Office. 101 Rainbow Drive # 11506. Livingston, TX 77399. Phone: 202- ...Read more

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Current Members as of May 7, 2026

Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court

https://creeksupremecourt.com › Current-MCN-Ba...

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MATTHEW D. HARDIN MCNBA# 1027. PHONE: 202-802-1948. THE LAW OFFICE OF MATTHEW HARDIN, PLLC. FAX: LIVINGSTON, TX 77399. Areas of Specialty: Open Records, Civil ...

United States v. State of Minnesota | 26-2456 | D. Minn. | Judgment

CaseMine

https://www.casemine.com › ... › 2026 › June

45] filed by attorney Matthew D. Hardin, representing a nonprofit organization known as Government Accountability & Oversight. On June 8, 2026, Government ...

in the united states district court

New Civil Liberties Alliance

https://nclalegal.org › uploads › 2022/09 › Zywi...

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/s/ Matthew D. Hardin. Matthew D. Hardin, VSB #87482. Hardin Law Office. 1725 I Street NW, Suite 300. Washington, DC 20006. Telephone: 202-802-1948. Email ...Read more


hardinlawpllc.com

https://hardinlawpllc.com

Hardin Law, PLLC - Fighting Government Overreach

The Hardin Law Office handles select civil litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants. Our firm's plaintiff-side civil litigation practice has a special emphasis on suits against the government for violations of statutory or Constitutional rights, and suits involving consumers whose rights have been


Appalachian School of Law

J.D. (2014)

2011 - 2014

Honors: Magna cum Laude

Activities: Editor, Appalachian Journal of Law Editor, Appalachian Natural Resources Law Journal

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Transylvania University

B.A. (2011) | Classics

2007 - 2011


---

NYT

NO LNX

She Inspired Laws to Hold the Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable. Now She’s a Target.

A conservative group is suing for emails of a law professor who helped create legislation to force oil, gas and coal companies to pay for climate damage.

By Coral Davenport

March 27, 2025

Fresh out of law school in 2022, Rachel Rothschild wrote a memo laying out the legal justification for a new strategy to fight climate change: States could force oil and gas companies to pay for the damage caused by extreme floods and wildfires that are made worse by the use of their products.

Ms. Rothschild’s work was foundational. It provided the basis for the nation’s first “climate superfund” laws, which were passed in New York and Vermont last year and could be adopted by as many as six more states as soon as this year. If implemented, they could cost oil companies billions of dollars.

Her work made Ms. Rothschild a target. She is one of a number of lawyers, law professors and judges who have been the focus of a campaign to discredit them led by a conservative group with ties to the fossil fuel industry and the Trump administration.

Shortly after the passage of the Vermont law last June, the group sued the University of Michigan, where Ms. Rothschild now teaches, after the university refused its request for Ms. Rothschild’s emails related to “climate superfunds.” As a public institution, the university is subject to the state’s public records law. The group, called Government Accountability and Oversight, has also sought to have Ms. Rothschild undergo a deposition.

The university, which has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, maintains Ms. Rothschild’s communications are not subject to public records requests because they were written on her private email account. Still, the university told Ms. Rothschild that she must comply with the request for a deposition.

Experts said the actions against Ms. Rothschild seemed designed to discourage her or others from similar work.

“Legal actions and public records requests may be used in a manner that can intimidate or silence scholars, and when that happens, it threatens not only the targeted individuals but also the progress of knowledge and informed debate,” Kyle Logue, the interim dean of the University of Michigan Law School, said in a statement.

The actions regarding Ms. Rothschild appear to be part of a campaign by the fossil fuel industry to quash new legal tools for holding companies accountable for climate pollution. As President Trump moves to end federal efforts to fight climate change, the new state-level “polluter-pays” laws and lawsuits are seen as the next frontier in the battle over global warming.

Image

Protesters unfurl a banner sign outside an office building that shows the Statue of Liberty partially submerged in rising waters. The sign says, "Gov. Hochul: Sign or Sink! Make Polluters Pay!"

Climate activists held a rally outside New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office in Manhattan to deliver thousands of petitions asking her to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act last year.Credit...Erik McGregor/Sipa USA, via Reuters Connect

Executives from nearly two dozen oil and gas companies raised their concerns about the climate superfund laws at a meeting last week with President Trump at the White House. They want the Justice Department to file briefs in support of their litigation against the state laws, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting.

The campaign is being waged by a group that has largely been funded by the foundation created by Joseph Craft III, chief executive of the nation’s third largest coal company and an ally of and campaign donor to President Trump.

Ms. Rothschild’s initial memo — now making its way through statehouses — laid out the case for states to use the model of the 1980 Superfund law, which requires polluters to pay to clean abandoned toxic waste sites, and apply it to the climate damage caused by emissions from the burning of oil, gas and coal. Lawmakers in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Connecticut are now considering climate superfund legislation.

In addition, more than 30 lawsuits have been filed by states and municipalities aimed at forcing oil and gas companies to pay for repairs or adaptations linked to damage from climate change. Many of those cases, some of which could end up before the Supreme Court, argue that the companies knew for years about the dangers of climate change linked to their products but concealed that information.

The approach is similar to those of past lawsuits that led to landmark settlements with the tobacco industry and opioid manufacturers.

The fossil fuel industry counters that climate change is a global problem and that individual state laws are an unconstitutional attempt to assert control over the nation’s energy system.

“These extraordinary, unprecedented laws impose massive retroactive penalties going back decades for lawful, out-of-state conduct that was regulated by Congress,” said Daryl Joseffer, executive vice president and chief counsel for the litigation arm of the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has sued both New York and Vermont to overturn the climate superfund laws.

Twenty-two other states, led by their Republican attorneys general, are challenging the New York law in federal court.

Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group that is also fighting to overturn the climate superfund laws in New York and Vermont, said they were part of “a coordinated campaign against an industry that is vital to everyday life and serves as the engine of America’s economy.”

A key player in the campaign to stop the effort to hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable for damages is Christopher Horner, a lawyer and conservative activist who served on the transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency during Mr. Trump’s first term.

For years, Mr. Horner has used public records laws to unearth emails of climate scientists and disseminate them in ways that aim to undermine their work.

“Chris Horner is the nation’s most prolific user of FOIA and its state equivalents to go after anyone fighting climate change who works for a public entity,” said Michael Gerrard, an expert in climate law at Columbia University.

In 2011, the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science complained that Mr. Horner was making “unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists.”

When President Barack Obama tried to pass a climate law, allies of Mr. Horner worked to spread the emails of climate scientists, gathered by Mr. Horner, to Republicans in Congress.

In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Horner said that had helped kill the bill.

Now, Mr. Horner and his allies are focused on the architects behind the “polluter pays” laws.

Mr. Horner did not respond to several requests for comment.

From 2018 to 2021, Mr. Horner served as a board member for Government Accountability and Oversight, the group that filed suit against Ms. Rothschild. As recently as January, Mr. Horner wrote an article for The Washington Reporter, a conservative media website, in which he said he represented the Government Accountability and Oversight group in federal and state open records matters.

According to public records, a major donor to the group is a nonprofit foundation formed by Mr. Craft, the chief executive of Alliance Resource Partners, the country’s third largest coal company. The Joseph Craft III Foundation contributed $300,000 a year to the Government Accountability and Oversight group from 2020 to 2023, for a total of $1.2 million, according to its public tax filings. That appears to make it a major funder of the group’s activities: During those years, G.A.O.’s total annual revenue averaged $576,172.

Mr. Craft and his wife, Kelly, who served as ambassador to the United Nations in the first Trump administration, have given nearly $3 million to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaigns, the Republican Party and a Republican super PAC.

Image

Joseph Craft III, dressed in a dark sports jacket, white shirt, dark pants and sunglasses, walks on a brick sidewalk next to Kelly Craft, who is wearing a white blouse, a black and white polka-dot skirt and pointy shoes.

Joseph Craft III with his wife, Kelly, in Washington in 2018.Credit...Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Craft foundation and Alliance Resource Partners did not respond to requests for comment.

Matthew Hardin, who serves on the board of Government Accountability and Oversight, wrote in a statement, “Like all nonprofits, G.A.O. relies on contributions from donors to fulfill its independent, charitable mission of seeking transparency in public institutions and educating the public.”

The group’s interest in Ms. Rothschild appears focused on her communications with Lee Wasserman, the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, a philanthropy that has supported efforts to sue oil companies over what it calls climate deception.

It was Mr. Wasserman who first wondered if lawmakers could combine the old Superfund law with new penalties for climate polluters.

Mr. Wasserman brought the idea to the Institute for Policy Integrity, a nonprofit research organization that is housed in New York University’s law school, where Ms. Rothschild was then working as a fellow. She researched whether the idea could stand up legally. The Rockefeller Family Fund donated $50,000 to the Institute for Policy Integrity to fund her research, which led New York and Vermont lawmakers to propose legislation.

When it comes to climate and environmental matters, states often rely on academics for legal advice because many private law firms represent fossil fuel companies, which can create a conflict of interest.

After writing her memo, Ms. Rothschild joined the faculty at the University of Michigan, where she continued to work on climate superfund legislation in her free time, briefing lawmakers and testifying before legislative committees.

“I’m proud of the fact that I do a lot of pro bono work in areas where I have particular expertise, and I was glad I could help states like Vermont and New York draft these laws,” she said in a statement.

Ms. Rothschild’s pro bono work was “critical” to passage of the law in New York, said Justin Flagg, director of environmental policy for Liz Krueger, a Democratic New York state senator who sponsored the legislation. “This was something that had not yet been tested in court,” he added. “So we really hung our hat on her analysis.”

Environmental law professors at other public universities have been targets of similar campaigns. During the Biden administration, Mr. Horner used the state public records law to obtain the emails of Ann Carlson, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ms. Carlson, who had consulted on climate damage lawsuits, was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to run a federal agency that writes rules aimed at reducing climate-warming tailpipe pollution — a position requiring Senate confirmation.

Government Accountability and Oversight gave Ms. Carlson’s emails to Fox News, which published stories about her on its website including one titled, “Biden nominee coordinated dark money climate nuisance lawsuits involving Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Image

Ann Carlson, who has shoulder-length wavy brown hair and large glasses, looks into the distance.

Professor Ann Carlson at the University of California, Los Angeles.Credit...Joyce Kim for The New York Times

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, used the emails to fight Ms. Carlson’s confirmation, at one point calling her an “ethically challenged, environmental zealot.” He introduced an amendment on the Senate floor to strip the salary from her position.

While the amendment failed, she ultimately withdrew her nomination, although she did end up serving in the role in an acting capacity.

“It was ruthless, relentless and baseless,” Ms. Carlson said of the experience of having her emails used against her. “This is a tactic designed to dissuade people from working on important climate policies.”

The campaign has extended to at least one judge. In 2023, Mark Recktenwald, the chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court, wrote a unanimous decision that the local government in Honolulu could move forward with a climate liability lawsuit against major oil companies.

Justice Recktenwald gave a remote presentation to the Environmental Law Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that runs seminars on environmental litigation.

Conservative media outlets including as The Daily Caller and Fox News ran stories noting that a member of the institute’s board had worked at a law firm that defended the climate law in the Honolulu case. The stories did not mention that oil executives also serve on the institute’s board. Justice Recktenwald had also asked both parties in the Honolulu lawsuit for any concerns about his plans to speak at the seminar, and neither side had objected.

But in virtually every story, a group called Energy Policy Advocates, which has named Mr. Horner as its lawyer, charged that Justice Recktenwald’s participation showed improper bias.

Justice Recktenwald declined to comment. The effort to devalue the legal scholars involved in the climate cases reflects the potential impact of the new laws and litigation, experts said.

“These new state laws and this avalanche of lawsuits are threatening the survival of these fossil fuel companies,” said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.

Karen Zraick contributed reporting.

Coral Davenport covers energy and environment policy, with a focus on climate change, for The Times.

A version of this article appears in print on March 29, 2025, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Her Work Inspired Climate Superfund Laws. Now She’s a Target..



CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- Rob Schilling, radio host and founder of SchillingShow.com, and Tobey Bouch, owner of Tobey’s Pawn Shop, have filed a lawsuit against Governor Ralph Northam, State Health Commissioner, M. Norman Oliver, Attorney General, Mark Herring and Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Hingeley due to an executive order requiring Virginians to wear masks in public indoor spaces, according to a news release from Greene County-based attorney Matthew D. Hardin.

On Monday, Hardin filed the Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief and press conference on the Lawn in front of the Albemarle County General District Court.

“There is no one above the law,” Schilling said in the release, “...and that includes the governor and his minions. Executive Order 63 is legally flawed and must be rescinded. The public trust has been seriously abused by the governor’s wanton actions.”

The lawsuit says the executive order requiring masks, which went into effect on Friday, contradicts other state laws banning the wearing of masks in public.

It also so says that masks that are reused or are homemade may increase health risks for the people wearing them.

Hardin said Tobey's Pawn is concerned for the health and safety of its patrons as well as employees.

“The governor has put business owners between a rock and a hard place in suggesting that business entities will be punished for not enforcing his questionable mandates,” Hardin said in the release.

The release stated Schilling and Bouch hope the suit will serve as a warning to wayward government officials across Virginia that they are "bound by law and not by whim."

Part of Bouch's concerns is tied to his stores selling firearms and storing large amounts of money. He says masks worn in his stores could be a security problem.

The lawsuit is asking the court to declare the executive order unlawful and prevent any prosecutions for violations of it.

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RECORDS LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP RE: USE OF DONOR-PROVIDED CONSULTANTS AS CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIVE STAFF

Today, award-winning independent journalist Rob Schilling filed a lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the Clerk and Chief Administrator of the House of Representatives to exercise the public’s common law right of access to records. Specifically, Schilling’s suit seeks certain described emails, and any Skype and similar recordings and logs, pertaining to the use by two committee chairs of donor-provided consultants as professional staff to perform official business.

This follows the revelation that Congress also had joined in a practice, initiated by Democratic governors and attorneys general with the assistance of major donors after the election of Donald Trump as President, ofusing privately funded staff to perform official business to advance the “climate” agenda.Public records show budgets for tens of millions of dollars of in-kind gifts to governors in the form of non-employee climate “staff” and media consultants, and that progressive state attorneys general took in donor-hired and -provided prosecutors.

Now, it appears that the House Committee on Oversight & Reform is using donor-provided consultants as staff to guide what Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ro Khanna told activists to expect will be a “year-long” investigation of private parties, already expanded, for political speech that Rep. Khanna believes has frustrated attempts to legislate the agenda.

Scapegoating congressional failures is not a constitutionally permissible use of Congress’s investigative powers — with or without the financial assistance of activist donors. While the constitutionality of this “year-long” investigation is not yet at hand, Schilling was one of two parties filing two complaints with congressional ethics watchdogs over this work, the Inspector General of the House and the Office of Congressional Ethics.

As the complaints noted, the gray area exploited by some governors and AGs is not present here: House Rules and federal law prohibit private financing of the performance of official House business, in-kind or otherwise.

This new congressional investigation began with oil company executives in October but, according to past behavior and recent hints, seems likely to extend soon to others the “climate” industry views as having impeded its desires. A previous AGs’ campaign noted in today’s suit led to subpoenas to over 100 think tanks, scientists, and others also in the name of pursuing energy companies for purported climate-related sins. This blew up on the AGs when the targets challenged the obvious violation of private individuals’ First Amendment rights, thanks to the   subpoena battle fought by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The AG leading that charge retreated. However, many of the same AG offices involved in that scheme then brought on attorneys privately hired and placed in their offices by a group created by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg, which offices then resumed the investigations. It has thus become clear that none of these abuses of power, in the name of enormous payouts and massive new governmental authority, were ever truly abandoned.

If anything, they have expanded. The complaint also notes the prospect that the Committee objective is to engineer criminal referrals to the U.S. Department of Justice, in aid of a Biden-Harris campaign  promise to engage DoJ on behalf of the climate industry in its lawsuits against private industry. Indeed, the Oversight Chairmen told activists they were eyeing perjury charges against witnesses...a week before any testimony was taken or any questions posed.

Further, however, prompting Schilling’s requests was Committee leadership also letting slip that it had brought in consultants to help guide the campaign, describing them in a way strongly indicating — thanks both to the :{New York Times:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: and the group itself — use of a group funded by Arabella Advisors, the “mothership” behind a Democratic “Dark money juggernaut.”

The suit notes that this expansion of donor-provided climate “staff” comes after previous revelations of a $50 million per year budget request for off-books climate staff for progressive governors by 2020. Then came Bloomberg's millions to staff up AGs to, e.g., push climate prosecutions that — with ever-changing rationales but a constant demand for hundreds of billions of dollars to be politically distributed — appear to be little more than shakedowns.

Now the spawn of both disgraces prowls the halls of Congress, and in this case there is no room to excuse the behavior which on its face violates :{31 U.S. Code § 1342:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, :{House Rules:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: and ethics requirements/prohibitions (House Rule XXIV and :{official:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: House :{interpretations:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: thereof).

Fortunately, the NYT launched the outside consultants’ effort,hiding it in plain sightwith a promotional piece that, tellingly, made no inquiry into what skeptical voices — let alone House Rules or federal law — say about what the Times nonetheless admits (if with understatement) is a “unique approach”. That same article, and the consultants’ website admissions, now tie the hands of the Members of Congress who brought in outside parties on the basis, indeed the confession, that the House did not grant them the level of professional staff the “climate” movement feels it should have to use the power of government to pursue political opponents.

Those opponents have apparently frustrated the “climate” movement beyond the point of caring about rules, a matter which House Inspector General has already declined to examine, about which the Congressional Office on Ethics which has a complaint, and the House Committee on Administration. The latter’s Ranking Minority Member Rodney Davis has already stirred to action out of his own frustration with what he views as coverup by the House leadership.

For now, Schilling’s common law right of access suit seeks to exercise the public’s right to know about this metastasizing of off-books private staffing to Congress, again (as was the case with the AGs) for adjudicative/quasi-judicial matters against private, political opponents.


Plaintiff Robert Schilling hosts The Schilling Show radio program broadcast on Newsradio 1070 and 98.9 FM WINA in Central Virginia, and is the founder and editor of a news, analysis, and commentary web site, SchillingShow.com, whose reporting and investigative journalism has been awarded multiple times by the Associated Press and the Virginia Association of Broadcasters, including two “Superior Awards for Best Investigative Reporting” from the Associated Press.

 GAO Board Member Matthew D. Hardin filed suit for Schilling, following requests for the records made in November and December 2021, which all of the named defendants ignored.



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A Biden administration official who worked to embed climate activists with state attorneys general, using funds from billionaire Michael Bloomberg,…

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Matt Hardin spent over three years litigating what proved to be highly significant open records cases in the New York and Vermont state courts, eliciting damning privilege logs, admissions by defense counsel in court, and of course key public records now housed in GAO’s Climate Litigation Watch documentary trove. After two years serving as chief prosecutor for a rural Virginia County, Hardin returned to transparency litigation in January 2020.He now serves as  Counsel for GAO, handling cases from coast to coast in both state and federal courts.

MEET EPA'S LEADERSHIP TEAM

hardin-portrait

MATTHEW D. HARDIN

Board Member

Hardin spent over three years in the fight to bring transparency to government, litigating what proved to be highly significant open records cases in state and federal courts, eliciting damning privilege logs, admissions by government counsel in court, and key public records now housed in the Climate Litigation Watch documentary trove.

Hardin was elected Greene County (Virginia) Commonwealth’s Attorney in November 2017 and served through 2019.

Gardner

MIKE GARDNER

Board Member

Mike Gardner is an attorney with Meyers Roman in Cleveland, Ohio.

He has served as General Counsel to the largest surface coal mining company in Ohio, a master limited partnership, publicly-traded on the NYSE, as well as Associate General Counsel of the largest independently-owned coal mining company in the United States.

Previously, Mike worked as a mine inspector with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Bill-Rich

BILL RICH

Board Member

Mr. Rich began his career as an engineer with the Army Missile Laboratories and the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He later joined the U.S technical intelligence community, with assignments at the Missile and Space Intelligence Center and the Central Intelligence Agency.

He eventually retired from government service as Executive Director of the U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, then spent several years in business development with SPARTA, Inc. a private sector engineering firm.

Rob-Schilling-Headshot-620x400

ROB SCHILLING

Executive Director

Former Charlottesville City Councilor, Rob Schilling, is a respected voice and a trusted name across central Virginia. Weekdays from noon to 2 PM ET, Rob hosts The Schilling Show radio program on Newsradio 98.9 and AM 1070, WINA .

As editor and founder of SchillingShow.com, a news, analysis, and commentary web site, Rob has launched multiple national news stories, several of which have appeared on The BBC, Drudge Report, The Blaze, Fox News and many other prominent media outlets.

Copyright © 2020 Energy Policy Advocates


https://govoversight.org › matthew-hardin-board-member

He now serves as Counsel for GAO, handling cases from coast to coast in both state and federal courts ...

Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO) - DeSmog

https://www.desmog.com › Database Entries

May 10, 2018 — Matthew D. Hardin also sits on GAO's Board of Directors. GAO's address listed at GuideStar is, according to public records, also registered ...

About Us – Where energy, environment, and truth meet

http://epadvocates.org › about-2

MATTHEW D. HARDIN. Board Member. Hardin spent over three years in the fight to bring transparency to government, litigating what proved to be highly ...

Missing: GAO ‎| Must include: GAO

December 1, 2021 meeting materials - Minnesota Campaign ...

https://cfb.mn.gov › bd_next_meeting_materials

PDF

Dec 1, 2021 — Hardin, who is also a Director of. Government Accountability and Oversight, P .C. ("GAO"); GAO, a foreign professional corporation whose State ...

51 pages

Matthew D. Hardin

http://www.matthewhardin.com

As a former chief prosecutor in Virginia, Matt Hardin understands the tools that the government has at its disposal to investigate criminal activity and ...

Missing: GAO ‎Board

Amicus Brief - Supreme Court of the United States

https://www.supremecourt.gov › DocketPDF › 20...

PDF

Nov 23, 2020 — MATTHEW D. HARDIN. Counsel of Record ... Email: Matt@MatthewHardin.com ... mental Impact Center” Director David Hayes to staff from attor-.

39 pages