The Wall Street Journal - USA (2020-12-01)

A6| Tuesday, December 1, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

This recount is a rescanning of

ballots through machines, ac-

cording to state rules.

“Once this recount is com-

plete, everyone in Georgia will

be able to have even more

confidence in the results of

our elections,” Mr. Raffen-

sperger said Monday.

President Trump has criti-

cized Georgia’s recount process,

along with Mr. Raffensperger

and Mr. Kemp, both Republi-

cans. On Monday, Mr. Trump

said on Twitter that Mr. Kemp

should overrule the secretary of

state and order reviews of voter

signatures and of the number

of envelopes versus ballots.

Kemp spokesman Cody Hall

said Georgia law prohibits the

governor from interfering in

elections.

The Trump campaign said

Monday it again asked Mr.

Raffensperger to conduct an

audit of the signatures on all

absentee ballot applications

and envelopes in the Nov. 3

general election. Signatures al-

ready were verified, the secre-

tary of state’s office has said.

If the signatures were consis-

tent, the envelopes were then

separated from the ballots to

safeguard voters’ privacy.

“There are those who are

exploiting the emotions of

many Trump supporters with

fantastic claims, half truths,

misinformation, and frankly

they are misleading the presi-

dent as well,” Mr. Raffen-

sperger said Monday.

In one of the Jan. 5 runoffs,

Republican Sen. David Perdue

is facing Democrat Jon Ossoff,

a documentary filmmaker. In

the other, Democrat Raphael

Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer

Baptist Church in Atlanta, is

challenging Republican Sen.

around 20,000 votes after his

advantage grew by 84 votes.

The Trump campaign and

its supporters have said they

are considering further legal

action. Mr. Trump tweeted

over the weekend that more

challenges would be coming

after Wisconsin’s recount.

Judges have so far rejected

their lawsuits.

Both Wisconsin and Arizona

allow legal challenges post-

certification.

Senior Trump legal adviser

Jenna Ellis criticized the Ari-

zona certification on Twitter,

calling it misconduct that has

disenfranchised the state’s vot-

ers. She called on state law-

makers to appoint pro-Trump

electors to the Electoral Col-

lege, which meets on Dec. 14 to

officially cast its votes.

Also on Monday, President

Trump’s lawyers asked Ari-

zona’s Republican lawmakers

to override the certification at

an event they billed as an

election-integrity hearing.

At the hearing, Mr. Trump’s

personal attorney Rudy Giu-

liani spoke about voter fraud,

voting irregularities and for-

eign-owned voting systems.

No evidence of widespread

fraud has emerged. Federal of-

ficials have said the election

was carried out freely and

without interference or rigging.

U.S. NEWS

Kelly Loeffler.

Mr. Raffensperger said state

officials are investigating com-

plaints of wrongdoing in the

2020 elections, and he named

several organizations being in-

vestigated over their registra-

tion efforts ahead of the Senate

runoffs. One group, America

Votes, is sending absentee-bal-

lot applications to people at ad-

dresses where they haven’t

lived since 1994, Mr. Raffen-

sperger said. A spokesman for

the progressive America Votes,

Sahil Mehrotra, said the group

sent mailings to the list of reg-

istered voters maintained by

the secretary of state’s office.

Another group, Vote For-

ward, attempted to register a

dead Alabama woman to vote

in Georgia, Mr. Raffensperger

said. The New Georgia Project,

a voter-registration group

founded by former state House

Democratic leader Stacey

Abrams, sent voter-registration

applications to New York City,

Mr. Raffensperger said.

The New Georgia Project

said its efforts to register eli-

gible Georgia voters are legiti-

mate.“Thesecretaryofstate

is resorting to desperate at-

tempts to smear law-abiding

organizations and scare eligi-

ble Georgians from registering

to vote in critical upcoming

elections,” said Nsé Ufot, CEO

of the New Georgia Project.

Vote Forward didn’t respond

to a request to comment.

Georgia Secretary of State
Brad Raffensperger said state
officials are investigating third-
party groups trying to register
people in other states to vote
in Georgia, but he pushed back
against accusations of wide-
spread fraud in the state’s Nov.
3 election results.
The investigations into at
least four groups’ efforts come
ahead of the Jan. 5 Senate run-
offs that will determine control
of the U.S. Senate. Mr. Raffen-
sperger also said the state’s
machine recount of the presi-
dential race is on schedule to
be completed by Wednesday.
Gov. Brian Kemp and Mr.
Raffensperger certified Geor-
gia’s Nov. 3 election results
over a week ago, on Nov. 20,
declaring President-elect Joe
Biden the winner of the state
with 16 Electoral College votes.
Mr. Biden’s margin of victory
was 12,670 votes, according to
official results. A hand audit
confirmed the outcome.
Last week, the state’s 159
counties began a post-certifica-
tion recount of the state’s five
million presidential votes, which
the Trump campaign requested.

BYALEXACORSE

Vote Registrations Probed

Georgia rejects notion

of widespread fraud,

but looks at actions

of third-party groups

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday.

BRYNN ANDERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two important battle-

ground states certified elec-

tion results Monday, with Wis-

consin and Arizona handing

narrow victories to President-

elect Joe Biden and further ce-

menting his win over Presi-

dent Trump.

With Arizona and Wiscon-

sin’s vote counts finalized, the

six most hotly contested bat-

tleground states have all certi-

fied their results for Mr. Biden.

The others are Georgia, Michi-

gan, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Mr. Trump hasn’t conceded the

race and has contested the

outcome in those states.

In Arizona, Monday’s certi-

fied election results showed

that Mr. Biden won the state’s

11 electoral votes with a popu-

lar-vote margin of just over

10,000.

Wisconsin also certified

election results Monday when

the chair of the Wisconsin Elec-

tions Commission signed the

latest vote tally after recounts

in the state’s two most popu-

lous counties, Milwaukee and

Dane, which includes Madison.

The Trump campaign paid

about $3 million for a recount

in only two of the state’s 72

counties. In the end, Mr. Biden’s

lead in the state ended up at

BYDEANNAPAUL

ANDBENKESLING

Battleground States

Certify Biden Wins

U.S. WATCH

SHUTDOWN: A row of small businesses in Los Angeles was closed Monday as the county’s new stay-at-home restrictions took effect to curb the spread of thecoronavirus.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

cused on improving earnings
and strengthening its balance
sheet to manage future price
swings and maintain its divi-
dend, which costs Exxon about
$15 billion a year.
Exxon said in October that
it plans to cut as much as 15%
of its global workforce, which
includes contract and full-time
employees.
Exxon cut its expectations
for future oil prices for each of
the next seven years by 11% to
17% as part of a financial-plan-
ning process conducted this
fall, The Wall Street Journal
reported last week, citing in-
ternal documents. The sizable
reduction suggests Exxon ex-
pects the economic fallout

ContinuedfromPageOne

CALIFORNIA

Navy Ship Damaged

In Fire to Be Scrapped

The U.S. Navy will decommis-
sion the amphibious assault ship
Bonhomme Richard after it was
heavily damaged in a five-day
fire in July off the coast of San
Diego, officials said Monday.
Rebuilding the ship would
have cost as much as $3.2 bil-
lion and taken up to seven
years, Rear Adm. Eric H. Ver
Hage, commander of Navy Re-
gional Maintenance Center, said.
About 60% of the ship would
have needed replacement, Adm.
Ver Hage said. “It will ultimately
be scrapped,” he said.
Decommissioning the ship
will cost $30 million, Adm. Ver
Hage said. A new ship to replace
the Bonhomme Richard is slated
to cost $4.1 billion and take six
years to build, he said. The Bon-
homme Richard cost $750 mil-
lion to build in the 1990s.
Within days of the fire, Navy
officials feared the ship was be-
yond repair and said that, at best,
it would take months to restore it.
The Navy had intended the ship,
commissioned in 1998, to be a
part of the Navy fleet for roughly
40 years. The Navy is still investi-
gating the cause of the fire, which
damaged 11 of the ship’s 14 decks.
The ship was among a hand-
ful of amphibious assault ships
reconfigured to enable the F-
Joint Strike Fighter to take off
from its deck. That capability
had allowed it to be used for of-
fensive air operations.
—Nancy A. Youssef

MILITARY

Trump to Pick New

Asia Operations Head

The Trump administration is
preparing to name a new head
of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Com-
mand, which oversees operations
and strategy for China and else-

where in Asia, U.S. officials said.

President Trump is expected

to nominate Adm. John Aquilino,

currently the commander of the

Navy’s Pacific Fleet, to head all

military operations in Asia, the

officials said.

If confirmed by the Senate,

Adm. Aquilino would succeed the

current commander, Adm. Philip

Davidson, who is expected to re-

tire. The incoming Indo-Pacific

chief would execute military pol-

icy in the Pacific Asia region, ex-

pected to be a prominent feature

of President-elect Joe Biden’s

foreign and national-security pol-

icy as tensions continue to rise

between the U.S. and China.

—Gordon Lubold

CONNECTICUT

Zappos’s Hsieh Died

Of Smoke Inhalation

FormerZappos.comInc. Chief

Executive Tony Hsieh died from

complications of smoke inhala-

tion, according to the Connecti-

cut Office of the Chief Medical

Examiner, which ruled the death

an accident.

Mr. Hsieh, who led online

shoe retailer Zappos.com Inc. for

two decades, died Friday at the

age of 46. His attorney, Puoy

Premsrirut, said Mr. Hsieh died

from injuries suffered in a Nov.

18 fire in New London.

First responders in New Lon-

don rushed to a burning three-

story, beachfront home around

3:30 a.m. on Nov. 18, and saw

dark smoke coming from a stor-

age area at the back of the

house, police said Monday.

People at the scene told first

responders that Mr. Hsieh was

locked inside the storage area,

and emergency personnel then

broke down the door and extin-

guished the fire, police said.

According to a radio recording

of first responders, an emer-

gency worker said one man was

“stuck inside.” Some firefighters

and dispatchers referred to the

victim as “trapped,” while one

said he was “barricaded” inside.

—Kate King

WASHINGTON

U.S. Hits Chinese Firm

Over Venezuela Sales

The Trump administration on

Monday blacklisted a major Chi-

nese government-owned defense

company it said sold goods to

Venezuela that aided political re-

pression by the regime of Presi-

dent Nicolás Maduro.

The U.S. Treasury Depart-

ment said goods sold byChina

National Electronics Import &

ExportCorp., or CEIEC, helped

the Maduro government restrict

internet service and conduct dig-

ital surveillance and cyber opera-

tions against political opponents.

CEIEC didn’t respond to a re-

quest for comment.

The Maduro government

called the sanctions an effort to

destabilize the country ahead of

parliamentary elections.

The Treasury Department said

CEIEC has provided software,

training and technical expertise to

Venezuela government entities

since 2017. The Treasury said the

software and hardware that

CEIEC provided Venezuela is a

commercialized version of China’s

“Great Firewall,” a nationwide sys-

tem of web blocks and filters

used to maintain strict online cen-

sorship and control the flow of in-

formation from outside China.

—Ian Talley

from the pandemic to linger

for much of the next decade.

Exxon’s growth plan had set

it apart from rivals that pared

back spending in recent years

amid low commodity prices.

Even before the pandemic, the

fossil-fuel industry was con-

tending with an oversupply of

oil and gas unleashed by U.S.

frackers as well as increased

competition from renewable-

energy sources and electric

vehicles, and the prospect of

increased climate-change reg-

ulation around the world.

Exxon will have to funda-

mentally remake itself to pros-

per in a prolonged period of

lower oil prices, according to

Doug Terreson, an analyst at

investment bank Evercore ISI.

But investors would welcome

a permanent turnaround from

its growth aspirations, he said.

“The market is indifferent

as to whether they are larger

or smaller, investors want

them to be more valuable,” Mr.

Terreson said.

Exxon said Monday it would

now give priority to investing

in Guyana, where it made one

of the largest oil discoveries of

this century, and in the Perm-

ian Basin in West Texas and

New Mexico, the largest U.S.

oil field. The company also

said it would focus on oil dis-

coveries in Brazil and its

chemical business.

Exxon’s three straight quar-

terly losses this year are its

worst stretch on record. Its

share price fell about 16% over

the past six months, the most

among similarly sized oil-and-

gas companies. Its shares closed

down 5% at $38.13 on Monday.

Exxon had stood out among

its peers this year for resisting

large write-downs. Its disclo-

sure on Monday that it could

take a huge one comes after

months of pressure from ana-

lysts and others who argued it

needed to do so.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC said

earlier this year that it would

write down the value of its as-

sets by up to $22 billion, and

BP PLC is writing down as

much as $17.5 billion. Last

year, Chevron Corp. said it

would cut the value of its as-

sets by $10 billion. All three

cited internal forecasts for

lower commodity prices as the

cause of the impairments.

Exxon said its potential im-

pairment isn’t related to any

changes to its long-term price

views or a reaction to short-

term price fluctuations. In-

stead the company said it has

been strategically evaluating

which assets are worth invest-

ing in under current market

constraints, a process that has

resulted in spending cuts

made public Monday.

The primary projects Exxon

decided to withhold invest-

ment from are dry gas assets

in the U.S. and Canada as well

as properties in Argentina. Ac-

cording to Exxon, because

those assets now have no fu-

ture cash flows due to can-

celed investment in them, the

assets must be impaired. The

company said it would explore

selling the assets.

Most of the properties in

question are a part of Exxon’s

subsidiary XTO Energy Inc., a

natural-gas driller it pur-

chased for $31 billion a decade

ago. Several oil-and-gas ac-

counting experts have alleged

that Exxon’s reluctance to ad-

just the value of XTO and

other assets on its balance

sheet amounts to accounting

fraud in a series of complaints

filed to U.S. authorities.

The group, which filed a

whistleblower complaint with

the Securities and Exchange

Commission in 2015, estimates

Exxon should have taken a $

billion impairment loss this

year and a corresponding $

billion reduction of its re-

ported assets on its balance

sheet in the second quarter.

The SEC previously de-

clined to comment.

Exxon has rebutted the crit-

icism of its write-down prac-

tices, saying the company is in

compliance with accounting

rules and SEC regulations

about disclosures to investors.

Exxon has said it is able to

avoid write-downs because it is

extremely conservative in ini-

tially booking the value of new

fields and wells and doesn’t re-

spond to short-term commod-

ity-price fluctuations. Before

2016, Exxon had never recog-

nized an asset impairment un-

der U.S. accounting rules im-

plemented in the 1990s.

When Exxon said it planned

to acquire XTO in December

2009, the company’s second-

largest deal ever, U.S. natural-

gas prices averaged $5.35 per

million British thermal units.

But over the past five years,

gas prices have mostly stayed

below $3/MMBtu.

“We probably paid too

much,” former Exxon CEO Rex

Tillerson said of the XTO deal

at a conference last year, cit-

ing natural-gas prices.

Exxon Cuts

Costs, Value

Of Assets

The oil giant’s three

quarterly losses this

year are its worst

stretch on record.