14 of the RICO20
Guest essay by Chris Horner
Yesterday, in a Senate hearing, Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged internal discussions about possible Department of Justice racketeering investigations into political opponents for “forestall[ing] America’s response to climate change” — that is, political speech, in opposition to a political agenda.
![forestall[ing] America’s response to climate change](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/shukla-letter-all-signers.png){kind=link}
The most high-profile contribution to this campaign comes from certain publicly-funded professors, expressly in the capacity of their privileged positions, calling for such investigations in the widely circulated “RICO-20” letter. Not one of them cited to any paper authored, no honorary or academic society, or any award as somehow credentialing their stance. They called for these inquisitions solely citing to their positions with (largely) public universities.
In light of these efforts to abuse governmental power, I and the Competitive Enterprise Institute attempted to obtain documents shedding light on how taxpayer-funded professors used their public positions and resources in this campaign.
We were stonewalled by George Mason University, where six of the RICO-20 teach. GMU at first denied it had any records which we now know exist. GMU has since produced them in response to a subpoena, and they are under protective order awaiting ruling on their release — hundreds of emails related to this campaign, sent and received using public resources, but withheld from public scrutiny.
With yesterday’s admission by the Attorney General, we thought the public would benefit from reading about this campaign, including what publicly funded academics using their taxpayer-funded perches to call for such investigations really know about their own demands.
The following is a transcript of a February deposition of George Mason University Professor Edward Maibach, co-ringleader of the “RICO-20”, in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act suit Horner et al. v. George Mason University.
These records we seek are documents the academy doesn’t want to let the public see. Taking the transcript into account and the subject matter of the records requested, one can draw reasonable assumptions about any documents responsive to our request: they shed light on how this letter came about, how this campaign to neuter free speech works, with whom, and that the campaigners are likely recipients of some of the money they see being shaken out of those they view as political opponents.
If the court rules in our favor and orders those emails released, they’ll tell a very interesting story, and be quite instructive to the public.
In the meantime, some aspects of that story can be learned from our February deposition of Professor Maibach, the transcript of which is below. We believe you will see the effort’s two principal objectives are to cut off private funding for others — those who oppose the RICO-20’s political agenda — and obtain ever more money for their campaign, in the form of a settlement modeled after the tobacco master settlement.
In particular, check out pages 17 – 32, 45 – 48, 59 – 60, 67 – 72, 80 – 83.
The Transcript: Maibach Edward 2002-05-2016 (PDF)
Some excerpts:
In broad strokes, the letter was an encouragement to the President and the Attorney General to follow up on Senator Whitehouse’s suggestion to call for a RICO investigation of ExxonMobil based on the possibility that they had knowingly deceived the public about climate change and its potential dangers, and in doing so — you know, for the express purpose of preventing American society and global society in dealing with a clear and present danger.
…
Q. So what you’re telling me is, while you’re not aware of the specifics of RICO and how the law works, you think that what ExxonMobil specifically was doing was troubling and you wanted that stopped?
A. Correct.
…
Q. So what is climate denial? I’ll ask that.
A. What’s climate denial? Good question.
Activities that are intentionally misrepresenting what is known to be true about climate change so as to convince people that climate change is not, in fact, a reality.
Q. So climate denial broadly bothers you then?
A. Mischaracterization of the truth specifically intended to undermine the public’s well-being, yes, typically does bother me.
Q. Can you give me an example of these misrepresentations by ExxonMobil or others?
A. No, not off the top of my head.
…
There have been activities being funded by to American – the 9 American people and people worldwide.
Q. So you believe that someone knowingly misrepresenting a risk posed by climate change merits investigation?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Okay. So if someone, for example, were to knowingly hide data indicating an increase in temperatures over the years, that would merit investigation?
A. Say it again, please.
Q. If someone were to hide or misrepresent or deceive the public relating to data which showed an increase in global temperatures over time, that would merit investigation?
A. It would be — I suppose it depends on who it is. But, yes, it would certainly be a deception. And as such, it would be an act that, in my view, ought to be exposed.
…
Q. So you said hiding an increase in temperatures would be a knowing deception, depending on who it is. I believe that’s what you said a minute ago; is that correct?
A. Sure.
Q. What if you knowingly hid a decrease in 20 global temperatures? Would that be a knowing deception?
A. Sure.
…
Q. I have one question — I’m sorry, Thomas, and Professor Maibach — I forgot.
I want to follow up on one thing. Mr. Hardin had asked you about individuals, if they knowingly deceived the American — is – knowingly deceived the American people about the risk of climate change is the offense or what warrants investigation, right?
A. In my view.
Q. Okay. So if Christy and Spenser[sic] — they keep the satellite temperature record. If they were found to have increased — I’m sorry, not increased — hidden an increase in the temperature in the satellite record, would that warrant investigation as knowingly deceiving the American people?
A. They — they as individual climate scientists, if they are fudging their data, then I would say, yes, that would be investigation worthy.
But I wouldn’t think that that would be investigation worthy by the Federal Government. I would think it would be investigation worthy by their funders or by the journals that had published their work.
MR. MONCURE: You’ve already made it clear that you’re not an expert on RICO. A. Correct.
MR. HORNER: But he is an expert on what he wrote. He’s the world’s leading expert on what he wrote. And he wrote that, “knowingly deceiving the American people about the risk of climate change warrants investigation.”
BY MR. HORNER:
Q. And I’m saying, it’s not just — I mean, of all the people who know, it would seem to be climate scientists as opposed to CEOs is my premise. So as opposed to going after CEOs, how about a scientist?
If they knowingly deceived the public by hiding an increase in temperatures, does that also warrant investigation? That’s my question.
A. It does.
Q. Okay. What if they hide a decline in 6 temperatures? Does that warrant an investigation?
A. Any knowing deception warrants – in science warrants an investigation.
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Basically the argument seems to be “We know what we know, a priori. There is no possibility that we could be wrong. Anybody who reports ‘evidence’ that does not support what we know should be investigated for possible criminal behavior.”
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
So, if Exxon Mobil is not an “ongoing criminal organisation”, does RICO have any legs at all?
It seems very odd that the judge forwarded the complain to the FBI if this is the correct meaning of RICO.
@ur momisugly Greg Cavanagh
I am not an attorney so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
RICO was intended for the prosecution of organized crime families. Over the years aggressive prosecutors have expanded that meaning to a much narrower definition of nearly any organized criminal enterprise. The issue then becomes whether Exxon Mobile had some criminal intent in its “global warming” research.
IMO, based on prior posts on WUWT I doubt that is true, but the Obama justice department has been shown be very unscrupulous and aggressive in the pursuit of Administration policy. An administration that would attempt to usurp legislative authority with executive orders is capable of anything.
Can RICO be applied to these academics who are calling for RICO? Can the group be expanded to include for example Gavin Schmidt who may be intentionally phonying up NOAA’s temperature dataset?
“Q..deceive the public relating to data which showed an increase in global temperatures over time, that would merit investigation? A. It would be — I suppose it depends on who it is.”
It depends on who it is?!
Did this Professor Edward Maibach actually say that, really?!…… Holy Shh…..
Glad you emphasized that, klem — it popped out at me, too.
Yeah… I meant to write, addressing an AGWer, “… it depends on who it is,” blockhead. lololol
D’oh! 🙂
You’re right; if there was any semblance of truth or justice involved in this purge, Maibach destroyed Lynch’s case.
GEORGE WASHINGTON’S WARNING TO AMERICA:
“It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of separation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a separation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.” (George Washington, shortly before he died, read John Robison’s book Proofs of a Conspiracy and immediately expressed his belief to the preacher who had sent it to him, that the designs of the Illuminati were infecting our country. Letter to Reverend G. W. Snyder, Writings of George Washington, p 518-519.)
This is a scaled down version of how things work in command and control countries. They call it PUTIN in Russia and CASTRO elsewhere.
Question: Can RICO be applied to people who attempt to “hide the decline”? Just asking.
Probably not, it wasn’t data tampering, just data hiding. The data was there in plain site, it just wasn’t obvious that it represented two different data types.
It’s the temperature adjusters who should be very very worried about this line of questioning.
Not really. As distasteful as it is there are no approved standard methods for temperature adjustments to raw data so the accused get to claim best professional judgement.
Unethical and shoddy and maybe even profitable for some but not illegal. They set it up nicely that they get to accuse without being accused.
Not a word about the anthropogenic component of climate change, just climate change. There’s a whole discussion not even mentioned. I presume that would come next.
Some observations re. DOJ investigation of climate deniers, 3/10/2016.
(1) Socialism is to statism as capitalism is to individualism. Once a state begins to regulate any enterprise for the good of the state, individuals will immediately work around the law for individual gain. Hence, another round of laws, continuing, ad nauseam, until not a liberty remains.
(2) Re TonyL @ur momisugly 11:5o am: The US Government has taken a stand on what constitutes science, endorsing four of Popper’s five criteria (four intersubjective criteria plus falsification), and reversing a fifth. (Reversed was Popper’s requirement that scientific models take into account their social consequences. Even the High Court could see through that because it ran contrary to authority reserved to the trier of fact.) Daubert v. Merrell Dow, 509 U.S. 579, 1993. Popper created Post Modern Science (PMS) by deconstruction Modern Science (MS), which suited those sucking on the public teat just fine. In academia, it’s publish or perish; in industry, it’s predict or perish.
(3) IPCC-type climatology is an admitted product of PMS. E.g., IPCC, AR4, §2.9.1 Uncertainties in Radiative Forcing, p. 200; Technical Summary, ¶TS.1 Introduction, p.21
(4) Political correctness. Something is politically correct just in case it is not correct any other way. Conformity to academic, publish or perish science is political correctness.
(5) The problem with enforcing political correctness is not in the idea judged but in the enforcement. Its voice is the we in what are we going to do about it?
(6) As long as DOJ has some free time to investigate things, it might focus on the conspiracy that converted Modern Science into PMS for tenure and government grants. It’s the cancer of for-profit universities, nourished by the student-loan racket. DOJ could be well on the way to cleaning house not just on AGW (climate change in PC), but on the ignorance and corruption that spawned it.
Re. William McClenney, 3/10/2016 @ur momisugly 11:49 am.
“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrarywise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” — Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Carroll (1866), it would seem, anticipated Wittgenstein Tractatus (1922) by 56 years. Unfortunately, the passage is not in the book. It’s Alice talking to her cat, dialog from the 1951 animated Disney film. Wikipedia. The movie also misspelled Carroll, chintzing on one L. IMDB.
Maybe DOJ could look into all that for us, too.
For the mere hint of her willingness to entertain discussion about how to suppress the speech of citizen, the AG should be impeached.
I agree – I suggest that the AG’s actions to date constitute an impeachable offence.
Next question: Who is going to bell the cat?
As to climate change. The climate is always changing. We only have to look at why the quaint cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde were abandoned by the indigenous peoples of the area in order to see climate change hundreds of years ago. Further back we only have to notice the ruins left by people attempting to raise crops on Greenland to see the climate changed. And some 15,000 years ago, the area now occupied by the President’s own favorite city, Chicago, was under about 1000 feet of solid glacial ice due to climate change.
I am still waiting for those who insist that human activity is causing meaningful changes to the climate to show what the average climate is, and whether our present climate is below or above this average. But alas, there appears to be no appetite for this key metric.
This should not come as a surprise especially when it is recalled that the vast majority of demands, suggestions and recommendations that accompany what passes for climate science all rapidly converge on statism, collectivism and the destruction of personal liberal and the resulting suppression of prosperity. It is a shame that so many otherwise brilliant and supposedly secular people are so duped away from true science by the oldest religion in human experience, gaia worship.
Perhaps it’s already been said but, if the raw (unadjusted) data and the “methods” were freely made available to the public and questioning scientist (What other kind should there be?) then there’s no need for the “Big Stick” of Government to get involved….unless it’s all about the politics.
After experiencing the machinations of this administration I doubt any ‘justice’ will be served that doesn’t suite their agenda. “Proof” and “facts” seem to be in the eye of the beholder and supported by the MSM to maintain a permanently duped populace. I’ll never get over them declaring CO2 a pollutant and getting away with it.
Q. So climate denial broadly bothers you then?
A. Mischaracterization of the truth specifically intended to undermine the public’s well-being, yes, typically does bother me.
Q. Can you give me an example of these misrepresentations by ExxonMobil or others?
A. No, not off the top of my head.
Then;
WHY THE HELL ARE YOU CLAIMING TO BE BOTHERED? ARE YOU ONLY “BOTHERED” WHEN YOUR ECHO CHAMBER BUDDIES TELL YOU TO BE?
Yes Don, that leaped out at me as well.
It is interesting that the use of the true scientific principals such as observations, experimentation and other empirical forms of science have been thrown out the window and now these bureaucrats want to file charges under the RICO statue on scientist for speaking out when the findings do not concur with the computer models. Computer modeling isn’t a reliable tool in short term weather forecasting, much less in any long term studies in climatology. This should prove interesting, especially if they decide to target an oil company… it will be tied up in court for decades.
Spot on – I hope it happens.
Maybe that court case could help reinstate scientific integrity.
The Hispanic angle is starting to heat up ….
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2016/01/what-do-latinos-really-care-about-mi-tierra/
“If they knowingly deceived the public by hiding an increase in temperatures, does that also warrant investigation? That’s my question. … A. It does.”
What about UHI effects in sensor placement being knowingly sited near hot urban objects, and scientists and forecasters allowing such misleading data to stand uncorrected for decades, and misusing it to represent a fake global warming trend?
What about BOM interpolating from disparate sites a regional temp and deliberately excising older records with don’t sit well with their partial data contrivances, and concocting a misleading database of lower temp ‘records’, so they can keep falsely claiming, “The Hottest Evah!” of this and that alleged temp ‘record’ being broken … to deliberately deceive … when there has barely been for 18 years any global temp trend change?
When are they going to ‘do time’ for concerted deception to harm the public interest and money allocation and distort all policy discussions with irrelevant ‘climate’ (weather!) change piffle?
Pot –> Kettle –> Black –> Hypocrites
Alan Alda at his press conference in Oz reckons we need to trust what scientists say ,I say bullshite !
Shorter RICO20 letter:
“Someone disagrees with me. That should be illegal.”
Precisely; the sole relevant statement justifying the persecution of dissidents in a fascist, totalitarian NWO regime.
The science is settled. Continued debate over CAGW is an affront to the well being of society and a distraction from a brave new energy future. Your value system rooted in elevating the freedom of the individual above the needs of society does not allow you to see our vision for a better future.
AhhhHmmmm … yup, now you know. You’ve been warned and will not be treated well when the new society flourishes.
/sarc … snippet from a recent real life encounter.
SLAPP writ Federal.
“…Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged internal discussions about possible Department of Justice racketeering investigations into political opponents for “forestall America’s response to climate change” — that is, political speech, in opposition to a political agenda….”
Called my Representative and asked him to go after her for malfeasance. Would urge others to do the same. This needs to stop.
President Hillary promises to get to the bottom of Area 51 and space aliens.
Now there is an investigation for you.
Everything you need to know about Mr. Maibach you can see in his response to this question (truncated):
Q. If someone were to hide or misrepresent or deceive the public relating to data which showed an increase in global temperatures over time, that would merit investigation?
A. It would be — I suppose it depends on who it is…
How can hiding or misrepresenting anything be OK “depending on who it is”? I can almost see him squirming in his seat as he starts backing away from this question.
But but our adjustments are well within norms of the industry practice. We used our most sophisticated computer run filters to create an unbiased representation of the consistently ocurring anomalies. We couldn’t figure out why it kept giving those readings that were inconsistent with our conclusions.
When we were done we submitted the methods used for adjustment to the IPCC working group and they concurred.
The warmists are creating the precedent to put their high priests into jail. I know which side of the debate is misleading the American public.
Q. So what you’re telling me is, while you’re not aware of the specifics of RICO and how the law works, you think that what ExxonMobil specifically was doing was troubling and you wanted that stopped?
A. Correct.
Holy Moses, can you imagine a professor who put together a letter calling for RICO investigations “without being aware of the specifics of RICO and how the law works!”
What kind of a professor puts together, or sign, such a letter – without understanding the meaning of it.
George Mason University is one of the last universities I will let my kids go to study.
They left bread crumbs to follow. GMU profs didn’t pen that letter or even come up with the idea. Follow the crumbs. Lots of emails and telephone records in that little group.
I’d like to know who originated the idea.
knutesea-
“It seems likely therefore that the organizer Jagadish Shukla worked with Whitehouse, possibly even on Whitehouse’s behalf, to organize colleagues in support of investigation or prosecution,” Chris Horner, an attorney with CEI, told TheDCNF.”
(http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/25/emails-suggest-this-dem-senator-is-behind-the-effort-to-prosecute-global-warming-skeptics/#ixzz42fCHJiZh)
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/432641/krauthammer-impeachable-if-obama-actually-prosecutes-climate-skeptics
Thanks Aphan.
Krauthammer lays the gauntlet down.
Re: U.S. Attorney General Lynch Looks Into Prosecuting ‘Climate Change Deniers’
I suggest that one’s predictive track record is perhaps the best objective measure of one’s scientific competence.
The IPCC and the global warming alarmists have a negative predictive track record, because none of the alarmists’ scary predictions of runaway global warming, wilder weather, climate refugees, or countless other warming-caused disasters have materialized.
Based on its negative predictive track record, the IPCC and the warmist camp have NO scientific credibility.
It is truly remarkable that anyone with such a total lack of credibility would consider trying to bully anyone else.
I suggest that standing up to bullies is the most effective way to deal with them. As discussed previously, I propose a “Civil RICO” (or similar) lawsuit in the USA against the leaders of the global warming alarmist camp AND their institutions.
I suggest that there have been many parties in the USA that have been financially damaged by global warming alarmism.
There is an interesting field of US law that employs the RICO (anti-racketeering) statutes to provide treble (triple) damages in civil cases. That might be a suitable approach.
“Despite congressional attempts to limit the scope of civil RICO, only one major area of law has been removed from the RICO Act. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (15 U.S.C.A. § 77 et seq.) eliminated liability for RICO claims based on securities Fraud, unless the defendant has already been criminally convicted of securities fraud. The act thus removed the threat of treble (triple) damages in such cases. Congress concluded that federal securities laws generally provide adequate remedies for victims of securities fraud. Therefore, it was unnecessary and unfair to expose defendants in securities cases to the threat of treble damages and other extraordinary remedies provided by the RICO Act.
Critics of the RICO Act applaud this congressional action but argue that the same reasoning can and should be applied to other areas of Civil Law. These critics maintain that the act’s broad scope has given plaintiffs an unfair advantage in civil litigation.
One criticism of civil RICO is that no criminal convictions are necessary to win a civil case under the act. The plaintiff need only show, by a Preponderance of Evidence, that it is more likely than not that the ongoing criminal enterprise occurred. As a result RICO has been used in all types of civil cases to allege wrongdoing. By contrast, a criminal RICO case must be proved Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
In addition, the judge and jury in a criminal RICO case are prohibited from drawing an adverse inference from a defendant’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment Privilege against Self-Incrimination. No such ban exists, however, in a civil RICO case. Critics contend that it is unfair for a party in a civil RICO case who has concerns about potential criminal liability to be forced to waive his or her Fifth Amendment privilege in order to mount an effective defense in the civil action. Once testimony is given in the civil case, the party has effectively waived the privilege against Self-Incrimination, and the testimony may be used in a subsequent criminal prosecution. Critics contend that the RICO Act should be amended to stay (delay) a civil RICO proceeding until a criminal RICO proceeding has been concluded.
The critics of civil RICO also believe that its use has given plaintiffs an unfair tool that often serves to coerce a party to settle out of fear of a treble damages award. These critics believe that no civil RICO action should be allowed unless the party has been convicted under criminal RICO.”
[end of excerpt]
I suggest the Climategate emails could provide the necessary evidence of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the public, through fraudulent misallocation of government-funded research monies, and wind and solar power schemes that were forced upon consumers and which were incapable of providing economical new energy to the electric power grid due to intermittency of supply.
Two decades ago, the question was:
Is global warming alarmism simply false or is it fraudulent?
Now, after the Mann hockey stick fiasco, “Mike’s Nature trick”, “Hide the Decline”, the fabricated aerosol data used to false-hindcast the warming alarmists’ climate models, the Climategate emails, and the many false “adjustments” of the surface temperature data record, there is no question:
Global warming alarmism is clearly fraudulent – in financial terms, it is one of the greatest frauds of all time.
May I quote you?
Yes you may quote me.
grazie
I’d love to see them try to prosecute someone as a climate change denier. It would force them to try to prove their case for AGW in a court of law. It’s impossible, and they would look like the utter fools and con artists they are. Unfortunately this whole dog and poney show is probably nothing more than another attempt to intimidate the skeptics. It won’t work.