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.”
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Henry chance – Typical Romm, he can’t understand the difference between science and alchemy.
I read the supoena. It is clear to me. It quotes various leaked e-mails by Mann to his peers. Based on those e-mails from Mann, Mann gives us reason to believe he made some serious false claims while applying for grants.
It will be impossible for Mann to deny he wrote what he wrote.
—————-
sharper00,
Thanks for your response. This is all interesting stuff.
Good question. Maybe only the UoV / Mann know at this point. Maybe Cuccinelli also knows. I do not know.
From what I have read it looks like internal political squabbles within the State of Virginia politicians may have influenced UoV decision to resist the first Cuccinelli CID. If so then I am sorry for the UoV, because that would seem to me to be an unbelievably stupid basis.
Does Cuccinelli have something he is holding back? In my opinion, it would surprise me if he didn’t. Therefore I have my conjecture that he is in receipt of some whistleblower info. Sort of like someone copycatted the CRU release. Merest conjecture.
Is the UoV’s situation such that they know he has it [key withheld info] so are fighting to categorically block any lawsuit at all? Yep, that is what I conjecture. Again merest conjecture. The court decision on the first CID denied their argument that any such lawsuit cannot be brought against them. I think that was a demoralizing blow to them. On that I think hung all the UoV hopes.
I do not think UoV will fight this second CID. But maybe I have been watching way too much law TV? Come gloat at me if I am wrong. I would deserve it. : )
John
From what I have read it looks like internal political squabbles within the State of Virginia politicians may have influenced UoV decision to resist the first Cuccinelli CID. If so then I am sorry for the UoV, because that would seem to me to be a stupid basis.
Does Cuccinelli have something he is holding back? In my opinion, it would surprise me if he didn’t. Therefore my conjecture that he is in receipt of some whistleblower info. Sort of like someone copycatted the CRU release.
Is the UoV’s situation such that they know he has it [key withheld info] so are fighting to categorically block any lawsuit at all? Yep, that is what I conjecture. The court decision on the first CID denied their argument that any such lawsuit cannot be brought against them. That was a bad blow to them.
I do not think UoV will fight this second CID. But maybe I have been watching way too much law TV?
John
Sorry for the double pasting of the same passages in my above comment “John Whitman says: October 5, 2010 at 12:29 pm”
Duh! [slapping myself on the head]
John
@John Whitman
“Does Cuccinelli have something he is holding back? In my opinion, it would surprise me if he didn’t.”
Let’s propose a thought experiment: Cuccinelli’s investigation is based only what’s been presented so far. In this scenario what do you think of the rationale he’s attempting to use to subpoena records?
“I do not think UoV will fight this second CID.”
What would they have to gain? They’ve already missed their opportunity to simply roll over quietly and provide whatever records have been asked for. Even if they know they’re guilty they’d take a shot at winning a second time.
——————
sharper00,
We got a thing going on . . . . : )
You said, “Let’s propose a thought experiment: Cuccinelli’s investigation is based only what’s been presented so far. In this scenario what do you think of the rationale he’s attempting to use to subpoena records?”
You said, “What would they have to gain? [by not fighting the second CID] They’ve already missed their opportunity to simply roll over quietly and provide whatever records have been asked for. Even if they know they’re guilty they’d take a shot at winning a second time.”
Again, maybe toooooo much court and law TV?
John
The key is the emails that have not been made public. Someone has to have them and there is a reason they have not been released. Mann cannot delete them from university servers on his own. If this was all so innocent and above reproach, why wouldn’t Mann just say fine, release everything and I will be exonnorated? Because of some high and might principal of acedemic freedom? Yea right.
@John Whitman
“For your scenario that he only has what he has shown so far, it is obvious to me that he is going forward with the CID process because thinks he is going to utlimately successfully file a lawsuit no matter what and it cannot hurt to get info before the lawsuit . . . “
In that case he’d actually have to have something more than he’s presented so far. A lot more.
If he actually has all the evidence he needs to convict Mann of fraud (and presumably now a number of co-conspirators at the University of Virginia possibly exposing an entire network of fraudulent scientific activity) then he could present some of it as a basis for getting these emails.
The whole point of this filing was supposed to be to show why Cuccinelli actually needs these records. The reasons he actually gave are so ridiculous that the best anyone has been able to guess here is that there’s a secret plan in operation to trick Mann and the University of Virginia into further incriminating themselves.
If we take the position that the only evidence of fraud is what’s presented (i.e. none) and that even Mann’s most vocal critics consider this entire exercise repugnant the more likely conclusion seems to be that is a politically motivated attempt to use the power of Attorney General to harass him.
Now you might say “Boo hoo! He had it coming!” to that but you should always be careful what measures you support the state taking against its political enemies, an election later you might be one of those enemies.
When the Climategate Emails first surfaced I browsed through a few, particularly those relating to Keith Briffa’s Yamal tree ring results.
In late March/ April 2002 (from memory) there was evidently quite a big rumpus between Mann and CRU and another, in which Mann accused Briffa et al of undermining his own work: within this correspondence Mann made a quite blunt reference to grant funding – and, I seem to remember, to keeping the lid on the discussion.
If I was the investigator I think I would be interested in seeing Mann’s other Emails from this period that did NOT end up exposed on CRU’s system, but I fancy these may have disappeared!
mpaul’s “smoking gun”?
sharper00 says:
October 5, 2010 at 10:59 am
@John Whitman
“I have this impression from what has unfolded that Cuccinelli is letting UoV / Mann hang themselves out to dry when he finally shows his whole hand. “
And presumably the University of Virginia is in on this fraudulent use of grant money?
Certainly. Any proposal that I’ve submitted has had to go through the University Research Grants and Contracts Dept. and usually has to be signed by the PI and co-PIs, the Dept Chair and a university officer from the Research Grants Dept. The proposal lays out what the funds will be spent on, when you come to spend it the purchases get vetted to see if they are within the scope of the application, if you want to vary something from the proposal then you have to apply via Purchasing to the relevant person at the grant awarding body for permission. On top of that universities are regularly audited (~5 years) by the federal government covering all grants. I’ve been contacted during such audits asking why I sole-sourced a purchase 5 years earlier (even though a justification was given at the time). Fortunately I always kept good records!
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
October 5, 2010 at 6:57 am
‘Some people think that when something is deleted it’s gone. Doh!’
And to truly have got rid of anything potentially incriminating, they will have had need of the cooperation of people like Harry from CRU and sysadmins/sysops who are willing to potentially incriminate *themselves by going through and destroying backups from way back. I don’t know where it comes from but this little proverb might become relevant in due course …
“Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are easy to annoy and have the root password.”
sharper00,
We have laid out our conjectures. Time will tell.
I think Cuccinelli is not going to stop. I think now UoV knows this and will start to work with him out-of-court to build up a good rapport and non-adversarial negotiation which will benefit both UoV and Cuccinelli.
Some more of my extensive conjecturing here:
I am further conjecturing that right now, even as we comment pleasantly, Cuccinelli’s office and UoV are already having confidential cooperative and informal discussions on how the proceed in an amicable manner, without Mann invited to the process. Even more conjecturing, UoV may be agreeing right now to cooperate fully if Cuccinelli agrees to drop the current CID and if Cuccinelli agrees to a deal with UoV, without Mann being invited to the process. I conjecture that Cuccinelli will accept that offer on the condition that Mann is not part of the process. I conjecture that lawsuits involving Mann will be deal with separately by Cuccinelli without involving UoV.
By that scenario UoV gets out clean. If Mann did something wrong, then he is on his own.
John
Flavio
That isn’t in my view sufficient in of itself to justify the actions taken on the back of it, but it is in no way my specialised subject – and that is the point. Science stands on the credibility of the peer review – these papers can only be taken at face value when other scientists accept that the bodies involved take their responsibility seriously. When you have NASA, the royal society, the UN, countless universities and scientific institutions turning a blind eye to data disappearing, being fudged – demanding trillions of dollars getting redistributed on the back of half complete computer models with arbitrary claimed certainty that have zero predictive ability we have a major problem. I don’t want to be arguing about supposedly reviewed documents outside of my sphere of expertise – I want to see the institutions taking their scientific reputations seriously.
When somebody suggests on a well known blog that the thermometer record is being biased towards warmer stations and in effect the temperature record is dubious and they are being funded by the public to the tune of billions of dollars I expect them to respond with a detailled and reproducible explanation – not circle the wagons and require a state lawyer to drag them through the courts bit by bit. I don’t expect them to stand idly by while renowned sceptics get verbally rebuked by politicians and the establishment. They are supposed to be their to guarantee the science which you are quoting, not selling their souls for extra funding. It is no way the same for a sceptic to denounce a believer – because the believers have the ears of the state and the institutions.
It is the scientific institutions acquiescence in the silence of the debate which has got us to this point, Cucinelli is right to take them to the courts but it would be far better if the institutions involved stood up for the integrity of science. One wonders how many institutions would be solvent if it were not funding from this stuff, and that is deeply worrying.
When was the last time you saw a “scientific” claim by an environmental group torn apart by a scientific institution? They have allowed model outputs from different runs to have the worst case scenarios extracted in the msm giving a view that all of them are going to happen – even though some events are almost certain to be mutually exclusive. 90% certainty in the summed output of lots of different models all based on the same algorithms? Who are we to suggest that is far fetched. This has become a farce with supposed scientists falling over each other to make the most outlandish predictions and nobody having any responsibility for cross-checking or diminishing the more absurd claims. Any simulation with a net positive feedback will predict the system goes to hell in a handcart, the tricky bit is getting a computer model which accurately models the climate. It is always worse than we thought – yet it still appears to be cooler than the original predictions hansen made to congress.
guilty until proven innocent.
No wait: guilty even after proven innocent.
“The AG will eventually prevail — there are plenty of tools at his disposal that make this so. All that Mann has done is energize an 800 pound gorilla. Cuccinelli is now forced to go for the kill or face looking politically weak. There is no longer a graceful exit to this thing for Mann. Very, very foolish.”
Not really. The AG is impotent in the face of the court. The AG has to persuade the court and this latest filing isn’t going to do that. Sloppy science does not equal fraud. The AG is alleging sloppy science. Sorry that doesn’t cut it. Especially when the judge has already turned the AG down. Once a judge makes up his or her mind, it takes quite a LOT to overcome that.
Flavio says: October 5, 2010 at 3:25 am
If the science behind AGW is wrong it should be simple to prove that.
You’re new here, right?
Mike McMillan says: October 6, 2010 at 1:53 am
You’re new here, right?
Actually no. And I am still not convinced…
ginckgo says:
”guilty until proven innocent. No wait: guilty even after proven innocent.”
When was the trial? I guess I missed it. Can you explain why McIntyre and McKitrick were kept out of every one of the proceedings? And, who represented the taxpayers footing the bill?
The cover-ups actually amounted to: ”Innocent – no matter what.” There was no adversarial venue, which is the only way to get to the truth.
.
Flavio, it’s not you who needs to be convinced! It’s the scientists skeptical of AGW that people like Michael Mann needs to convince. But he’s been doing a terrible job of it, what with hiding his data and all.
I do not like Michael Mann. I do not trust his research, but Cuccinelli is wrong.
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2010/10/cuccinelli-a-problem-that-everyone-should-agree-on/
Maybe some of you missed it. UAV has stated that , in accordance with policy, Mann’s computer account was closed, password cancelled and contents deleted when he left the institution. UAV has also stated that some of the info ws recoverable. At this point no-one knows how much there was , how much there is and what is recoverable. aprobably no-one ever will.
What does this prove. Nothing.