Rex Tillerson at the Breaking Point

[octoberlib]

In February, a few weeks after Tillerson was confirmed by the Senate, he visited the Oval Office to introduce the President to a potential deputy, but Trump had something else on his mind. He began fulminating about federal laws that prohibit American businesses from bribing officials overseas; the businesses, he said, were being unfairly penalized.

Tillerson disagreed. When he was an executive with Exxon, he told Trump, he once met with senior officials in Yemen to discuss a deal. At the meeting, Yemen’s oil minister handed him his business card. On the back was written an account number at a Swiss bank. “Five million dollars,” the minister told him.

“I don’t do that,” Tillerson said. “Exxon doesn’t do that.” If the Yemenis wanted Exxon on the deal, he said, they’d have to play straight. A month later, the Yemenis assented. “Tillerson told Trump that America didn’t need to pay bribes—that we could bring the world up to our own standards,” a source with knowledge of the exchange told me.


https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/16/rex-tillerson-at-the-breaking-point

[HipChick]

1. Most global companies have ethical depts to deal with this stuff..

[octoberlib]

2. It's just an example of how Trump is completely devoid of ethics.

Bribing people being a no-no should be common sense.

[WhiteTara]

3. Scum bag needs to bribe people

or threaten them.

[janx]

4. Business and ethics are separate?

In Tillerson’s talk at the University of Texas, he noted that he had a “very close” relationship with Putin. “I don’t agree with everything he’s doing,” he said. “But he understands that I’m a businessman.”

So ethics and business are supposed to be separate? My God. This "I'm a businessman" idea comes up more than once in this NYer article.

[octoberlib]

5. Yeah , Tillersons no Boy Scout and

he’s got some explaining to do about his Wayne Tracker emails. I wasn’t trying to make Tillerson look good as much as emphasize Trump’s complete cravenness.