Maryland AG Frosh Gave ‘Leadership’ to Bloomberg’s Enviro-Lawyer Scheme

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D.) was a key player in the rollout of a well-funded plan by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to place lawyers into attorney general offices across the nation to litigate environmental and climate change issues, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of emails obtained by a D.C.-based attorney.

The scheme has fallen under scrutiny because Bloomberg, not the state, was the source of the salaries for the lawyers placed with attorneys general.

One of the participants in the emails described the plan thusly: "the gist is that Bloomberg is funding through NYU some fellowship positions for mid-career environmental litigators to be farmed out to State Attorney's General to join the fight against Trump's rollback of our environmental protection laws and regulations."

At issue is the practice of allowing a third party to fund the deputizing of attorneys into the highest arm of state law enforcement and whether or not this is an illegal expansion of the OAG's reach. Additionally, the Virginia General Assembly last year required staff to the Virginia attorney general be paid only by funds allocated by the state, and not by any third party.

Emails obtained through open records requests by Chris Horner for the nonprofit organization Government Accountability and Oversight show that Frosh conducted much of this business on his personal Gmail account, raising questions of the extent to which other business about the Maryland AG office might flow through his personal account.

More