via the SPPI Blog:
Cuccinelli reissues global warming subpoena to U-Va.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has sent a new civil subpoena to the University of Virginia, renewing a demand for documents related to a work of a former university climate scientist that was stymied when a judge blocked his previous request in August.
The new Civil Investigative Demand revives a contentious fight between Cuccinelli and the university over documents related to the work of Michael Mann, a prominent climate scientist whose research concluded that the earth has experienced a rapid, recent warming. Mann worked at U-Va. until 2005; he is now employed by Penn State University.
In the demand sent to the university last week, Cuccinelli once again asked that the school turn over all e-mails exchanged between former university professor Michael Mann and 39 other scientists as well as between Mann and his secretaries and research associates.
An Albemarle County judge had quashed a previous demand from Cuccinelli at the request of the university, ruling that Cuccinelli had not properly explained his rationale for believing fraud may have been committed. He also ruled that Cuccinelli had no right to documents about grants conducted using federal instead of state dollars.
…
“Specifically, but without limitation, some of the conclusions of the papers demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect,” the CID alleges.
…
Mann said with Cuccinelli’s narrowing of his request, he has now limited the request to documents related to a grant that funded research unrelated to climate change.
“I find it extremely disturbing that Mr. Cuccinelli has sought to continue to abuse his power as the attorney general of Virginia in this way, in the process smearing the University of Virginia and me and other climate scientists,” Mann said. “The people of Virginia need to be extremely disturbed that he is using their tax dollars to pursue this partisan witch hunt.”
=======================
See the new civil subpoena (PDF)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
How come that freaker Hansen gets a walk?
Mann said. “The people of Virginia need to be extremely disturbed that he is using their tax dollars to pursue this partisan witch hunt.”
Witches used to use tricks?
“I find it extremely disturbing that Mr. Cuccinelli has sought to continue to abuse his power as the attorney general of Virginia in this way, in the process smearing the University of Virginia and me and other climate scientists,” Mann said. “The people of Virginia need to be extremely disturbed that he is using their tax dollars to pursue this partisan witch hunt.”
How typical. In just these two sentences we see Mann firstly playing the victim card, and then we see an astounding display of gall with regards to misuse of tax dollars.
Last para ” ….using tax dollars to pursue this witch hunt”
Those words won’t come back to haunt him will they.
Rhetoric off.
I don’t know why Cuccinelli is still bothering with this.
Any documents incriminating Mann will have long ago disappeared into the ether.
The lessons of Climategate will have been learned well by Mann and the rest of the team, namely that the purveyors of bad and flawed science must be prepared at very short notice to destroy all evidence of their wrong doings.
I’m strongly concerned when the power of the state is used to harrass, intimidate or ruin an individual or a small group of individuals.
That said, as a taxpayer, I believe it’s wrong to feed at the public trough unless you give the taxpayer fair return for their money.
The CRU e-mails indicate that at some point, the taxpayers may have been ripped off. It’s worth having a look. The finding from this investigation will either be fraud, bad science, or inconclusive research that taxpayers may no longer wish to fund. Can anyone think of any other possible findings?
Given that no state dollars were used to fund the contentious research, it’s hard to see what defense Cuccinelli could have against Mann’s accusation that it’s become an ideologically motivated state funded witch hunt.
The Virginia Bar ethics guidelines state:
“A lawyer should use the law’s procedures only for legitimate purposes and not to harass or intimidate others.”
Cuccinelli has probably stepped over that line.
“I find it extremely disturbing that Mr. Cuccinelli has sought to continue to abuse his power as the attorney general of Virginia in this way, in the process smearing the University of Virginia and me and other climate scientists,” Mann said. “The people of Virginia need to be extremely disturbed that he is using their tax dollars to pursue this partisan witch hunt.”
Was not Mann involved in a ‘witch hunt’ when he and his cohorts resolved to stymie every effort to access records, and keep others from publishing research which ran counter to his received knowledge and that of his fellow witch hunters?
And was not Mann, et al, seen (via Climategate emails) to have conspired to both discredit and threaten skeptics with one or another form of career termination, i.e., being blacklisted?
If anyone is guilty of something, it is Mr. Mann, and he has much to answer for.
Perhaps it is that which so frightens him: The release of further damning communications.
At this juncture, it would not surprise me in the least that things begin to turn up missing …
@Peter miller, its a risk to delete emails and claim they dont exist because other organisations have copies.
so what paper is he on about, anyone know? i don’t think he can prosecute for a scientist producing a bad paper.
Federal dollar versus state attorney, any problems? Who are familiar with this jurisdiction issue? please explain what is the normal way of doing?
Peter Miller says: “Any documents incriminating Mann will have long ago disappeared into the ether. The lessons of Climategate will have been learned”
The lessons of climategate were that the “scientists” are a dithering bunch of fools who are so incompetent that they cannot even keep track of their own data. They haven’t a clue what they are doing, and they certainly don’t know much about that new fangled technology called “computers”.
10:1 a decent IT person will track down all the emails they have “hidden” in a matter of minutes.
If Cuccinelli does not believe that the science behind global warming is sound he should come up with the scientific proof of that, instead of resorting to slander and personal attacks on a highly respected scientist like Michael Mann. Mann has written over 100 peer reviewed articles. You don’t really believe that someone like that could get away with fraud?
If the science behind AGW is wrong it should be simple to prove that. Climate skeptics have tried to do that for the past 30 years; they have failed utterly and are now apparently having a go at the scientists in stead of the science.
It’s sad really…
Another deep breath. Looks as if the VA AG modified his subpoena to “fix” what amounted to mostly a matter of form. Even the judge in the first scuffle acknowledged the AG’s power to investigate UVA grants under the authority granted to the AG.
What will likely happen next is another round of motions and hearing(s) then, eventually, onto the actual data. Given the incestuous nature of popular climate “science” during the Mann made global warming period, there are likely footnotes cited which will allow the AG to pretty much investigate the entire cabal if he chooses.
If the investigation leads to testimony by Mann, then reality will finally confront junk science.
Regretably in the interval between the quashing of the last subpoena & now I assume it will have been perfectly legal for them to have deleted emails by the barrowload
‘“Specifically, but without limitation, some of the conclusions of the papers demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect,” the CID alleges.’
So the VA AG is now being paid to determine the rigor with which statistical analysis is carried out in scientific papers and punish those who do not meet his specific expectations? I’m sure his degree in law and political aspirations make him extremely qualified for this feat. Does no one else find this utterly ridiculous and scary.
The smart, maybe just hopeful, money says this one gets thrown out too.
I don’t know if the data being requested by the AG’s subpoena is covered under Electronic Discovery rules but if it is and if UVA deleted any of that data, they are in serious trouble. The discovery rules are very clear, in that they not only require organizations to protect data that is subject or relevant to litigation but also data that the organization has reason to believe may be subject to civil litigation. If it comes to trial, and if it is determined that the party destroyed relevant data, the remedy is the judge can instruct the jury to assume the data would have shown worst case.
The other aspect of this is it’s really hard to delete anything these days. With backups and copies of things being saved and sent all over the place it’s likely if someone did try to delete something, there is another copy of what they deleted floating around somewhere. And if that was the case, and it was discovered, then it would get really ugly.
While Dr. Mann might not be the most ethical scientist of all time. This is obnoxious and it is the type of behavior that in general discredits the skeptics.
Speaking of Dr. Mann. I was involved in a rather contentious discussion on a warmist site that was focused on why CO2 should be classified as a pollutant. They chose to use the Taylor Dome ice core to show what the “natural” values of CO2 were in the atmosphere for the past 10,000 years.
So I pointed out that in general ice cores show cooling for the past 6,000 years. So I found the temperature data and compared it to the CO2. Sometimes the results can be breathtaking.
The Taylor Dome also clearly shows 4 major warming periods in the past 1,000 years. The current period is nowhere near as warm as the other periods in the past 1,000 years. It kinda blows the tree-ring proxies out the window. After pointing the flaw in a genuinely polite response, my comment was removed. I had been silenced….. on their website. 🙂
John Kehr
The Inconvenient Skeptic
At last someone is doing something about exposing this fraud. The beast of GW is staggering along, maintained only by inertia. One fraud prosecution of one of its perpetrators will see the rest runnning for cover. I thouhgt we had it with Jones. Did he ever change his tune! But the UK government didnt have the balls to take it to the wire. Lets hope the US can!
Flavio, you have this backwards. It is not for sceptics to attempt to prove a negative. It is down to the alarmist scientists to prove their hypothesis is correct and substantiated by empirical evidence. This is what they have utterly failed to do.
The hypothesis states that for a doubling of CO2, the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere will increase by X.
A) Many climate scientists cannot agree, and there is great debate within the scientific community, what the value of X should be. Do projections of 1.5 degrees centigrade, 2 degrees, or up to 6 degrees of warming by 2100 ring any bells?
B) They have failed to prove that the temperature will increase by X beyond reasonable doubt.
A projection of X based upon a model simulation does NOT constitute proof, or even reliable evidence. It only clarifies what X should be in the hypothesis. It does not prove the hypothesis is valid.
And in addition flavio..”they have failed utterly and are now apparently having a go at the scientists in stead of the science.”
Nope you are wrong again. This is a case of a State’s attorney general investigating a claim of fraudulent application for funds. This is not “them attacking a person instead of the science”.
I am NOT claiming the Mann has committed a fraudulent act. I will await the outcome of the investigation. IF at the end of that, the accusation is supported by evidence and it is shown beyond doubt that Mann committed a fraud, then I am happy to let the evidence speak for itself. IF Mann has NOT done anything wrong, then I will happily let the evidence speak for itself also and hope that the AG will offer a full and public apology to Mann for the inconvenience caused.
Are you worried that one of the heroes of the cAGW movement has got something to hide?
Thanks to Mr. Cuccinelli, the issue of misuse of taxpayer dollars is at least being fought in the courts. Earlier AGs let it pass. Academic freedom became academic license so many years ago that most young people (say, under 40) have never known it any other way; it is time for a public-spirited person like Cuccinelli to remind us of the difference. If Mann was performing true science, then he and UVA have nothing to fear from the inquiry; but we all know better than that.
But when Michael Mann uses tax dollars in smearing other scientists reputation who do not toe the line regarding climate change, that is not a witch hunt and people should welcome it with open arms. What a hypocrite.
Its important to read the entire subpeona, not just cherry pick the “lack of rigor” statement, which is really just a summary statement. The DA is of the opinion that Mann falsely misrepresented his science when he applied for the grants. Its an attempt to hold Mann accountable for his research and is a shot across the bows of institutions that when public funds are used, the research had better meet reasonable standards of care and due diligence. He’s basically pursuing the concept of wilful negligence in the conduction of the research. I personally believe this is an important fight, and long overdue.
Flavio, you do have it backwards. Just to add to the words of Ken Hall at Oct 5, 4:07 a.m.. It is up to those who support the hypothesis of AGW via CO2 to prove the null hypothesis false AND their hypothesis true. They have failed on both counts.
1) Do not overlook the fact that the visiting judge who made the first ruling had a conflict of interest — yet he proceeded anyway.
2) Cuccinelli is also suing the EPA over its CO2 endangerment ruling. He may just be on a fishing expedition to see if there is anything regarding intentional manipulation of data that could provide further ammunition in his suit against the EPA, or perhaps there could be more Climategate type e-mails that certainly could provide icing on the cake. Coal mining is big business in western Virginia, and Cucinelli is looking out for the best interests of the people of Virginia.
3) If you have never listened to Cuccinelli being interviewed live on TV, you are missing a treat. This is one sharp dude.