White House Press Release Copies ExxonMobil's

Both releases contained identical paragraph
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 7, 2017 4:09 AM CST
White House Lifts Paragraph From ExxonMobil Press Release
Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson is now Trump's secretary of state.   (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell, File)

The White House and ExxonMobil were literally on the same page Monday when a White House statement on the oil giant's investment plan lifted an entire paragraph from an Exxon press release issued around 30 minutes earlier. Both statements praised how the company is "strategically investing in new refining and chemical-manufacturing projects in the US Gulf Coast region to expand its manufacturing and export capacity," reports the Washington Post, which notes that the White House claimed credit for the plan to invest $20 billion over 10 years despite the fact that it began in 2013.

Mashable notes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil CEO, had been scheduled to meet with President Trump earlier that afternoon. The AP reports that President Trump issued several tweets Monday praising Exxon and himself and for "bringing back the JOBS" despite the plan's starting date. "This is something that was done to a large extent because of our policies and the policies of this new administration," he said in a tweeted video. "I said we're bringing back jobs. This is one big example of it." (More ExxonMobil stories.)

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