I'm glad this was denied, but this application has zero sense whatsoever since the story broke. Exxon must have known this application stood a snowball's chance in hell, they have some really, really smart and competent people, ffs they knew about global warming nearly 40 years ago, and they are one of the biggest and most successful companies out there.

The approval of this application is the type of thing that starts revolts, a "let them eat cake" type of moment. Politically speaking, this is about the worst optics possible: an FBI investigation that Putin colluded w/Trump so the sanctions would be eased. Tillerson is ex-CEO of Exxon, medal-winning "friend of russia" and had made a half a trillion dollar deal with Russia that was torpedoed by the sanctions. And of course, tons of other corruption and cronyism accusations have plagued the administration since the election.

As overconfident and unapologetic as Trump is, surely he would know this is political suicide. There's a small chance this was a hail mary by Exxon, this Black Sea deal expires this year if they do not act, but surely they could've waited a few months for all this to cool down if they were more serious about it. I know this is standard conspiracy-theory fare, but given the extreme political situation, I think Tillerson convinced his buddies to lob them a softball so they could help fix their Russia and cronyism image problems. Exxon doesn't have much to lose, all the focus is on the administration.