Mother Jones: Climategate and the Democrat Email Hack were Both Russian Plots

Portrait of Vladimir Putin, Source kremlin.ru,
Author Russian Presidential Press and Information Office

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t Willie Soon – Mother Jones thinks the Climategate email leak and the Democrat Podesta Email hack were all part of a grand Russian conspiracy to subvert the West.

7 Years Before Russia Hacked the Election, Someone Did the Same Thing to Climate Scientists

“Why does this story sound so darned familiar?”

REBECCA LEBER AND AJ VICENSJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 ISSUE

One Saturday morning in June, two days after the president had announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, Michael Mann was tweeting about Donald Trump.

Mann, a Penn State professor who is one of the world’s most prominent climate scientists, was thinking about the daily barrage of revelations surrounding Russia’s efforts to help Trump win the previous year’s election. The hacked Democratic documents posted on WikiLeaks. The media craze over private emails that had been ripped out of context. Smear campaigns circulating on social media.

“#Russia #Wikileaks #HackedEmails #Sabotaged #ClimateAgreements,” tweeted Mann. “Why does this story sound so darned familiar?”

Seven years earlier, Trump was riffing on a very different set of hacked emails. The real estate mogul had called into Fox News after a blizzard to declare that climate change was a hoax. Trump claimed that “one of the leaders of global warming” had recently admitted in a private email that years of scientific research were nothing but “a con.”

In hindsight, the Climategate hack, clearly timed to disrupt the Copenhagen negotiations, looks like a precursor to the hack that helped shape the outcome of the 2016 election. That’s how John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman whose stolen emails were posted on WikiLeaks in the final weeks of the campaign, sees it. The parallels go beyond the hacks themselves. “I think it was the intentionality of influencing the public debate,” he says.

At the time, some observers openly wondered whether Russia might have orchestrated the Climategate hack. Investigators and other experts haven’t found much to support that hypothesis—the true culprit remains a mystery. Mann himself has pointed to the incident’s “curious connections” to Russia and WikiLeaks, but he, too, notes there’s no specific evidence that Moscow was to blame. Still, Mann sees other ways in which the episode was similar to what Hillary Clinton experienced in 2016. Both hacks, he notes, were “intended to impact the global political scene in a significant manner.”

Podesta, a leading advocate of climate action during the Obama years, describes Climategate as an early example of hackers conspiring “to take the fruits of illegal behavior, weaponize them, then use them in a political context.” And though the emails contained no evidence of scientific misconduct, Podesta notes, climate change deniers successfully used them to “change public perception and increase skepticism about the need for action at a pivotal moment.”

Sound familiar? Russian intelligence agents followed a strikingly similar blueprint in 2016 after they hacked the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Podesta’s personal Gmail account.

“If you were a Russian operative [and] pitching influence ops for the DNC, and somebody’s like, ‘Eh, I don’t know about that,’ literally you just turn around and go, ‘Look at how well it worked [with Climategate],’” says Jake Williams, a cybersecurity expert and former analyst at the National Security Agency. “I wouldn’t necessarily say one influenced the other, but certainly it’s good proof that that’s a technique that works.”

To access Podesta’s emails, the hackers used a targeted phishing attack that led his office to inadvertently turn over his login credentials. The DNC was hacked by two groups associated with Russian intelligence—one starting in 2015 and another in 2016—also via targeted phishing attacks. Tens of thousands of emails were eventually made public, along with Democratic fundraising reports and other planning materials. Batches of the stolen documents were given to individual news outlets, while other chunks were published directly to the blog of Guccifer 2.0—an online persona thought to be a front for Russian intelligence.

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/climategate-wikileaks-russia-trump-hacking/

The Podesta hack and the Climategate leak were very different events.

The Podesta hack was ridiculously unsophisticated. Anyone with minimal software development training or a few illicit third party scripts could set up a similar hack. In my opinion as a software expert there is no reason to think the Posdesta hack was specifically aimed at Podesta. The hackers probably had no idea what they had stolen until they analysed their haul. These kinds of hacks are normally aimed at 10s of thousands of potential victims, in the hope someone will be stupid enough to click the fake web link. There was no secrecy about how the Podesta emails were stolen.

From Wikipedia;

… SecureWorks concluded Fancy Bear had sent Podesta an email on March 19, 2016 that had the appearance of a Google security alert, but actually contained a misleading link—a strategy known as spear-phishing. (This tactic has also been used by hackers to break into the accounts of other notable persons, such as Colin Powell). The link—which used Bitly, a URL shortening service—brought Podesta to a fake log-in page where he entered his Gmail credentials. The email was initially sent to the IT department as it was suspected of being a fake but was described as “legitimate” in an e-mail sent by a department employee, who later said he meant to write “illegitimate.” …

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta_emails

Climategate in my opinion was an inside job by a whistleblower. The “sophisticated technique” used by the offender to conceal their location was likely a proxy server or series of proxy servers – computers which relayed the original file transfer request through a series of different computers, to conceal the back trail. The computer which was accessed which “could not be accessed easily” was probably an orphan computer sitting on a forgotten part of the network, likely with no password protection. FOIA was worried about being identified, so FOIA was likely someone known to at least some of the people whose emails he or she leaked.

… The incident began when a server used by the Climatic Research Unit was breached in “a sophisticated and carefully orchestrated attack”,[5] and 160 MB of data[8] were obtained including more than 1,000 emails and 3,000 other documents.[18] The University of East Anglia stated that the server from which the data were taken was not one that could be accessed easily, and that the data could not have been released inadvertently.[19] Norfolk Police later added that the offenders used methods that are common in unlawful internet activity, designed to obstruct later enquiries.[5] The breach was first discovered on 17 November 2009 after the server of the RealClimate website was also hacked and a copy of the stolen data was uploaded there.[20] RealClimate’s Gavin Schmidt said that he had information that the files had been obtained through “a hack into [CRU’s] backup mail server.”[21] At about the same time, a short comment appeared on Stephen McIntyre’s Climate Audit website saying that “A miracle has happened.” …

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy

It is not impossible that some spy agency orchestrated both incidents, but neither incident demonstrated an unusual level of technical sophistication. A superficial read of the descriptions of both incidents make the incidents seem the work of criminal masterminds – but exagerating the prowess of the opposition is what people do when someone makes them look like incompetents.

The use of Russian servers is not evidence of Russian involvement. There is a good reason hackers and whistleblowers often choose to publish sensitive material on Russian servers; Russian servers are generally beyond the legal jurisdiction of Western governments and Western law enforcement agencies. The owner of a US file share server could have been intimidated into censoring the content of their server, of removing the material as soon as it was discovered, and could have been forced to surrender details of whoever saved the file on their server.

There is evidence Russia is concerned about Western obsession with Russian political interference. Putin recently accused Russia conspiracists of “Political Schizophrenia”. I’m not suggesting that Russia should be given a free pass – but scapegoating Russia for every domestic political setback without substantive evidence of actual Russian involvement could have dangerous consequences.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
232 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Lucius von Steinkaninchen
January 12, 2018 9:04 am

Hilarious. At this pace, they would soon end up saying that Watergate was the work of Russian hackers – if Nixon was a democrat.

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  Lucius von Steinkaninchen
January 12, 2018 9:22 am

Just wait, the Lewinsky episode is ripe for “repositioning”.

RockyRoad
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 9:32 am

Isn’t “Lewinsky” a Russian surname?

/sarc

Mr Bliss
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 11:51 am

Isn’t “Lewinsky” a Russian surname? – OMG it all makes sense now – a pure honey-trap scam

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 12:04 pm

Not only that, but “Monica” is derived from the Latin “monere,” which means “to warn.” Obviously there’s more here than we are aware.

Bryan A
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 12:36 pm

Lucious,
I thought that would be Hillarious

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 12:47 pm

Oh dear God, what have I started… 😮

Bryan A
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 2:06 pm

NME666
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 13, 2018 12:01 pm

Lewd-in-sky???

Komrade Kuma
Reply to  Lucius von Steinkaninchen
January 12, 2018 10:08 am

Leaving aside the issue of who did the hacking, surely it is the content of the hacked material that is of significance.

I mean, do you hear the liberal leftards whining about the Pentagon Papers being stolen or say the material sent by Bradley Manning to Wikileaks being stolen by a serving military person sworn to maintain secrecy? No, its the content that got them all in a tizzy.

Typical whinging, whining hypocrisy from the usual suspects.

Reply to  Komrade Kuma
January 12, 2018 10:57 am

Komrade +10

Bill Powers
Reply to  Komrade Kuma
January 12, 2018 11:03 am

It is the double standard that is required for ideological adherence. One cannot be an activist without duplicity. Which is further evidence that CAGW is a political movement.

kenji
Reply to  Komrade Kuma
January 12, 2018 9:17 pm

Mother Jones doesn’t “trade” in the TRUTH. It’s like hot burning coals on their head.

graphicconception
Reply to  Komrade Kuma
January 13, 2018 5:10 am

“… the content of the hacked material that is of significance.”

Exactly so. If the contents were not so damning no-one would be batting an eyelid but in both cases it shows how devious and underhand the main characters were. I notice they never deny that part.

Louis
Reply to  Komrade Kuma
January 13, 2018 11:20 pm

Yes, the content should be what is most important. If Russian hackers were to obtain emails showing that the GOP is behaving badly and rigging primary elections unfairly for a particular candidate, I would actually want them to release those emails to the public. I want to know when my Party is misbehaving so steps can be taken to fix the problem. What I don’t understand is why so many Democrats want to cover up any revelations of the DNC acting badly. They’re not claiming the emails are fake, so why do they want to shoot the messenger who revealed what was really going on behind the scenes? You would think they’d want to thank the hackers for exposing this bad behavior. Instead, they seem to be OK with their Party cheating and undermining the vote of the people as long as they don’t get caught. And when they do get caught, they want to blame whoever caught them instead of the wrongdoers. Maybe I’m unusual in today’s world, but I don’t want my team to win by cheating. I want them to win fair and square.

afonzarelli
Reply to  Lucius von Steinkaninchen
January 12, 2018 11:28 am

(funny how libs seem to take issue with hacking, but have no problem with deep throat)…

Walter Sobchak
Reply to  afonzarelli
January 12, 2018 11:37 am

You mean Clinton’s girlfriend?

afonzarelli
Reply to  afonzarelli
January 12, 2018 12:05 pm

(no, not that deep throat)…

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  afonzarelli
January 12, 2018 12:11 pm

Nor do they seem concerned by Bill Clinton’s tobacco interests.

Komrade Kuma
Reply to  afonzarelli
January 12, 2018 2:15 pm

Nn that line of thought I have a little ‘thought ‘ experiment re the election of Donald Trump as POTUS.

Imagine a conversation between POTUS candidate DT and ex POTUS Bill C backstage before one of the ‘debates’ with Hillary….. ‘Buddy I heard that recording of you talking about groping women’s crotches ‘n stuff, gee man that was bad luck gettin’ caught out like that … Hilary thought it was Christmas for her campaign… but the real pain will be that if you don’t get elected then you won’t be any blow jobs in the Oval Office from foxy young interns…. and I will, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk….’. Hardly the stuff of complete fantasy, is it?

Does anyone really wonder why Hilary wasn’t elected? Bill is just another tip of the Weinstein-Spacey-Hoffman-#MeToo sexual predator/complicit hypocrite ‘iceberg’ and I reckon most Americans were uncomfortably aware of that. All part of that same broader culture of convenient hypocrisy on other matters from Vietnam to climate change. Talk about an ‘inconvenient truth’ wannabe POTUS Gore. eh buddy?

mrmethane
January 12, 2018 9:11 am

Wasn’t there some moaning by former Nobelist Andrew Weaver about a breakin and laptop theft some years back? Gotta play that “victim” card.

January 12, 2018 9:13 am

Obvious fake news, but even if it were true, so what? They’ve been trying to subvert the West for 70 yrs! Blatant scare-mongering.

James Francisco
Reply to  beng135
January 12, 2018 1:25 pm

I’m glad that finally the lefty’s are concerned about the Russians. It seems to me they are mad at the Russians for seeming to give up on communism.

graphicconception
Reply to  beng135
January 13, 2018 5:14 am

I find it ironic that “hacking” (whatever that actually means) of emails is some kind of mortal crime while instigating regime change in Iraq and killing over 100,000 Iraquis in the process is somehow OK. Not to mention Libya, Ukraine Afghanistan etc.

Mike Wryley
Reply to  graphicconception
January 13, 2018 9:21 pm

Especially Libya, still trying to understand who got fat on that deal, and orchestrated the emptying of Gadaffi’s weapon bunkers into the hands of our enemies.

January 12, 2018 9:14 am

How does it benefit Russia? They don’t buy the climate bs. They are better served to let us waste the trillions…

Alan Robertson
Reply to  gymnosperm
January 12, 2018 10:55 am

Exactly.
If you view everything that Mother Jones (and most visibly during the past administration, the DNC,) has to say as being in support of their long term goal of turning the US into another Communist utopia, then it all starts to make sense.

MarkW
Reply to  Alan Robertson
January 12, 2018 2:50 pm

As someone once pointed out to me, “The only people who want to live under communism, are people who aren’t currently living under communism.”

I would add, “and those who believe they will be the ones running the asylum.”

Pop Piasa
Reply to  gymnosperm
January 12, 2018 11:30 am

It doesn’t make sense that Russia would undermine the methods of the socialist factions in the US. This is the old “enemy within/enemy without in collusion” trick, but not to well executed by this rag.

Walter Sobchak
Reply to  gymnosperm
January 12, 2018 11:42 am

The Russians may not believe iin CAGW, and their attitude may be we want global warming, and we want it now. But it is fairly clear that they have subsidized American warmunists in the hope that they might be able to prevent drilling in the US. They have been hurt by the low oil prices of the past couple of years.

Reply to  Walter Sobchak
January 12, 2018 11:57 am

Sure, but the conspiracy Mother Jones was working on undermined the warmunists and Hillary. MJ seems to be operating under the assumption that CAGW is given and the Russians are deliberately undermining our efforts to prevent it. That would be stupid if the Russians believed in CAGW, but they do not. It would also be stupid if they do not believe in CAGW. Russians are not stupid. Mother Jones is stupid.

Phillip Bratby
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
January 12, 2018 12:04 pm

The Russians support the anti-fracking movement in the UK.

richard verney
Reply to  gymnosperm
January 12, 2018 8:03 pm

This point is equally valid to the argument that Russia interfered in the US elections.

President Trump wants to make America great again, he wants to put American interests first. How does this attitude assist Russia?

paqyfelyc
Reply to  richard verney
January 15, 2018 3:46 am

Hillary was a declared enemy of Russia, messing with the old Bear in Ukraine, Syria, etc. And that is only the public part, you can bet that more secret things happened.
On the other hand Donald claimed to focus at home, in a typically American isolationist stance. Obviously a better choice for Russia (and the whole world, methink….)

graphicconception
Reply to  gymnosperm
January 13, 2018 5:23 am

The main point is not about benefiting Russia. It is more that Russia needs to be perceived as an enemy.

Russia is one of the few powerful countries that has not fully signed up to the “New World Order” (NWO) scenario which is the path the US has been following since the time when Prescott Bush (GHW’s father) financed both sides in WW2 and made the Bush’s fortune.

The NWO team are playing a long game. The UN is part of the plan but it needs a constant supply of money that cannot easily be taken away from it. That is where the climate scam comes in. What better than to tax the whole world on the pretext of “saving the planet” and then funneling the proceeds through the UN. They would then be a self-sustaining entity that would not care what Nick Haley said to them.

Reply to  graphicconception
January 13, 2018 11:25 pm

graphicconception, please stop with the crazy Bircher / Alex Jones “New World Order” conspiracy nonsense.

President G H W Bush left out a few details in this account, like how they completed the mission and limped out to sea as far as they could before bailing out, how his parachute only half-opened, how the paddle for his raft was lost, so he paddled with his hands, to exhaustion, to keep from being blown in to the Japanese-held island downwind, and how the USS Finback, with him aboard, was subsequently attacked with depth-charges by a Jap destroyer before they got back to Pearl.

If you really think President G H W Bush’s father was financing the Axis powers while his son was heroically fighting them, I think you need to get your meds adjusted.

Reply to  graphicconception
January 14, 2018 7:49 pm

“If you really think President G H W Bush’s father was financing the Axis powers while his son was heroically fighting them…”

Dave, the pre-WII German connection with certain US and UK interests is a riddle that’s still unraveling. Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Joseph Kennedy and the Duke of Windsor are notable examples personalities voicing against Britain’s continued resistance in its darkest hour. In Anne Lindbergh’s 1940 book, “The Wave of the Future,” fascism was the inevitable wave and Hitl@r was just the “scum on the wave.” Despite the Lindbergh’s support for the Axis Charles ended up shooting down two Japanese aircraft in the Pacific. Joseph Kennedy’s oldest son Joe Jr., was killed piloting an experimental bombing mission that pre-maturely detonated.

The answer to the puzzle: the Soviets were the greater threat before and after Hitl@r. The Cold War started in 1917 [Russian revolution,] at least for the scared-to-death industrialists who instituted an anti-communist international policy for the west. FDR fought the industrialists for those reigns and won. (See 1934 Smedley Butler Wall Street Coupattempt.) I don’t know about the Bush family’s specific actions pre-WWII but Ford, Rockefeller and Dupont ties to the Third Reich continued until Pearl Harbor. Charles Lindbergh’s known close relationship with key Germans was pressed into action with Operation Paperclip. The Lone Eagle personally convinced hoards of German aeronautic engineers scientists to emigrate to the US after the war.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  graphicconception
January 15, 2018 4:32 am

Graf
You mean, the same FDR who admired Mussolini, and tried for 12 years to implement the very same policies that the Duce did? The FDR that organized Evian Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/w/Evian Conference so as keep german jews out of USA?
You cannot read 30s and early 40s feeling and actions as if later war events were already in the background, and this is exactly what you are doing.
Pre-WII German connection with certain US and UK interests is NOT a riddle, it was just business.
In the 30s, pretty much everyone with political affiliation was a fascist, either a red one (aka communist) or a non red one (aka fascist, anti-communist, or whatever) (Not sure it changed that much, unfortunately…) . Racism and antisemitism were literally normal. War events reorganized priorities, so much so that deeply anti-jew people in Europe nonetheless saved persecuted Jews, because nazis and friends deporting women and children was even more disgusting to them. Meanwhile, progressives turned collaborators with nazis (part out of love for peace, in a prequel of the “better red than dead” slogan, and part out of shared anti-industrialists ideology)
Bottom line: stop rewriting history, and start learning about it.

Reply to  graphicconception
January 15, 2018 6:11 am

@paqyfelyc I forgot to mention Jews or anti-Semitism and I concur that racism was an accepted norm, as exemplified in the US refusal to accept the Jewish refugees of the voyage of the St. Louis and instead forced them to sail back to Europe. In fact, the German eugenics program was born from the US and UK eugenics “science.”

You’re also correct that Mussolini was widely embraced by the west as a bulwark against communism, as was Hitl@r by some until the support for both gradually dwindled. My point was there were a lot of people who were “just doing business” with them or even voiced support all the way to Dec. 1941. And the fact that many of these same people had children fight in the war does not prove otherwise.

But instead of debating whether George H.W. Bush’s father’s had dealings with Hitl@r one can just Googled it.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  graphicconception
January 15, 2018 7:04 am

Graf
Mussolini was embraced, not as a bulwark against communism, but as a non-communism bulkward against industrialists and capitalists, accused of being war profiteers (WWI) and even warmongers
Whether George H.W. Bush’s father’s had dealings with Adolf is just irrelevant, as much so as to know whether he had dealings with Japs (before july 41 oil embargo), Stalin, Albert king of Belgium, or whoever. Businessmen are not supposed to turn down legal business opportunities just because the customer/provider is later turned into n°1 public enemy, are they?

Reply to  graphicconception
January 15, 2018 7:35 am

There’s a big difference between someone doing business with companies in other countries while at peace, and graphicconception’s false accusation that “Prescott Bush (GHW’s father) financed both sides in WW2.”

There are persistent efforts by leftists to smear the “Bush family” (say it like you’d say “Gambino family”) with such false accusations. To get a feel for the intensity of their hatred you can read the archived Wikipedia Talk page about Prescott Bush, where the Wikipedia leftists argued about how blatantly they should smear him. Even Jimbo Wales got involved.

Reply to  graphicconception
January 15, 2018 11:41 am

I voted for Bush the younger twice. This does not mean I can’t condemn his grandfather if he may have been a Nazi or his father if he concealed that he was recruited into the CIA out of Yale. A good student of history should realize that all sides have made mistakes in the past. To think ancestors were infallible or inherently evil are both equally unhealthy biases. There is good evidence that many Americans had wrong-headed ideas throughout its history. Those people happen to include powerful industrialists. The strength of the country has proven to be its ability to self-correct (for the most part) in the midst of the natural forces of corruption, group-think and radical ideology.

Kpar
January 12, 2018 9:16 am

No denial of the contents of those emails, I see. Are the Russkies doing us a favor? I’m surprised they did not include the DNC hack on Wikileaks. Of course, Assange has clearly stated that no “state actor”- i.e. Russia- was involved, but that hasn’t stopped the Dems and their lickspittles in the MSM from braying on and on promoting the false story.

Reply to  Kpar
January 12, 2018 9:30 am

Podesta was spearphished. The DNC was likely like Climategate. An inside job leak by a Bernie Sanders supporter disgusted with the DNC Clinton bias. No reason not to believe Assange on this. He also said the thumb drive was handed to his Wikileaks operative in Washington DC. Also explains why DNC never turned over the email server to FBI for examination—FBI would show was an inside leak rather than a hack. The whole DNC/Crowdstrike ‘investigation’ was a coverup, according to an NSA official. And now we know that Clinton/DNC was behind the Trump/Russia fake Fusion GPS dossier that led to the present witchhunt ‘insurance policy’ against Trump discussed iin McCabes FBI office between McCabe and Strzok. We live in interesting times.

R Shearer
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 10:19 am

Ask Seth Rich.

Hugs
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 10:33 am

I’m left mute by your internal politics. Can explain this GPS stuff in English? Please, I’m confused by everything?

Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 11:21 am

“Ask Seth Rich.”

Just another body to add to the Clinton total count.

The Democrats are totally losing their minds obessing over Trump. 3 more years of TDS will send them all to nut farm and drive them to self-destruct.

afonzarelli
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 11:43 am

Seth Rich

(probably the reason law enforcement won’t touch the clintons with a ten foot pole)…

Reply to  ristvan
January 16, 2018 5:30 pm

Gary, in the interest of completing your list let’s not forget the stonewalling of Congress on Obama’s DOJ’s failed gun walking sting that gave automatic weapons to Mexican drug lords, with tracing only bearing fruit to allowing the verification of their use in murdering US border patrolman. Obama used Presidential privilege to shut down the Congress’s oversight to find who was responsible, shielding his personnel. On the using the IRS (US tax dept) to target opposing political party to prevent them from organizing in the 2012 election, Obama claimed he learned of the scandal from reading it in the news. The IRS employee that was in charge of the department engaged in targeting was allowed to retire with full benefits after refusing to testify to congress on the grounds it would be self-incriminating. She had destroyed her hard drive containing her emails. The search by Obama’s IRS’s right hand could not locate the backups while the left hand was destroying them illegally by “routine de-gaussing” (erasing to save space).

When Trump tweeted on March 4 2017 that he’d been wiretapped by Obama he was rightly blasted by the press (and Obama himself) for not presenting evidence, only his suspicions. Since that time Trump has been continually accused of collusion with Russians (Putin) with no evidence except the dossier. This dossier we learned just last fall was ordered and funded exclusively through cutouts controlled by Hillary Clinton and laundered through British intelligence personalities to dress it as an intelligence document to be fed to the FBI and leaked to the media. We are also learning that Trump was in fact under surveillance during the campaign and transition by the US IC as a direct result of use of the Clinton controlled dossier as an intelligence document. Trump’s instincts about Obama were correct. If Trump did make promises to Putin in exchange for hacking the DNC (if Russia did it) then I would call for his impeachment. But regardless if it turns out to be true would not change the fact that it was an unconfirmed campaign opposition research doc dressed up illegally as an intelligence document in order to place an Presidential candidate under surveillance. Bad enough if this were an isolated incident. But there it’s now clear this was the culmination of a developing MO by a corrupt administration. Here is a list of Obama politically targeted surveillance compiled by Fox News last March. Hillary was an apprentice but likely to surpass her master had she won.

Reply to  Kpar
January 12, 2018 11:53 am

Hugs, in a nutshell here what we know to now. Clinton/Obama weaponized the NSA surveilance program against Trump and his campaign in 2016. Tools were FBI and DOJ National Security office. Means was FISA 702.17 about queries. To look at the culled NSA results, need a Search warrant from the FISA court. This was apparently granted based largely on the Fusion GPS dossier paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign. Based on emails now finally in possession of congress, The whole shocking an unconstitutional mess was refered to as the ‘Trump insurance policy’ in case Clinton did not win. Those email words refereded to a discussion in FBI deputy dorector McCabe’s office between himself and Agent Strzok (head of FBi counterintelligence), who headed the FBI Clinton email server investigation and then the FBITrump Russia investigation until forced off by Special Counsel Mueller when he learned of the emails found bynthe DOJ inspector general six months before congress for them after subpoenaing DoJ for them.

The Clinton email investigation has been reopened as a result of obvious bias—plus she and Abedin clearly broke US law about handling of confidential classified materials. So far, the Trump/Russia investigation has uncovered nothing but unlawful subversion of the national intelligence apparatus by Clinton/Obama to spy on and subvert Trump. Rep. Nunes held a press conference confirming that he has seen hard evidence of this prior to the DoJ subpoena. The unmasking of Trump supportes by Susan Rice and Samantha Power is further evidence of this subversion. Clappers effort to fire Admiral Rogers (NSA head) after Rogers discovered the FISA 702.17 about query abuse, stopped it, then personally informed Trump just after the election is curth evidence. Thismis all a VERY big deal.

Koslowski
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 12:49 pm

Ristvan, I have been following this whole sordid affair over the last year or so. And your summary describes it quite well. High level people need to go to jail over this or we will continue to see the subversion of the tools of power for partisan uses again and again. That type of behavior cannot be normalized. If the only cost is a job, many are wiling to pay that price, for however rare their misdeeds are uncovered.

SMC
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 5:42 pm

I doubt anyone goes to jail. I would love to see some folks go to work in the quarry turning big rocks into little rocks but, I doubt it’ll happen.

Taphonomic
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 6:07 pm

Good summation.

Add in that the only “evidence” that the DNC was “hacked” comes from CyberStrike, a company hired by the DNC. The DNC never allowed any intelligence agency to examine its servers. In another instance, CyberStrike screwed the pooch claiming that the same Russians using the same malware hacked the Ukraine military, when no hack actually occurred. CyberStrike had to re-issue a report on hacking in the Ukraine.

And just for good measure, consider also the whole media-buried Imram Awan affair, including his auto dealership that seemed to be a hotbed of money laundering.

TA
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 7:56 pm

Good summation, Rud.

As for the company, Fusion GPS, they are a company that specializes in smearing the opponents of whoever hires them by digging up lies and half-truths about the opponents and then selling them as legitimate facts. They then use the news media to push the story to the public. You should hear some of the horror stories the Fusion GPS victims have to tell.

And with regard to the Hillary/DNC financed Trump “Dirty Dossier” the Fusion GPS people seem to have a very intimate relationship with high officials in the FBI and the DOJ, and one of Fusion GPS’s employees is the wife of one of the principal FBI investigors on both the Hillary Clinton email case and on the investigation of Trump.

Fusion GPS’s CEO reportedly tried to influence the FBI to downplay the Hillary email investigation, when Comey came out publicly after discovering more Hillary emails. Now ask yourself. How many CEO’s in the United States have that kind of influence with the FBI? Seems rather too intimate to me. Like they were all in on it (defending Hillary) and all on the same page.

Fusion GPS was hired to find dirt on Trump whether it was true or not, and Fusion GPS said they did not confirm any of the details given them by the British agent Steele, although what Steele was really getting was propaganda from the Russians.

So Fusion GPS gathered up all these salacious claims about Trump and started promoting it to the news media reporters, and to John McCain and to the FBI, even though none of the claims were corroborated (and have not been to this day). To give you an idea of how uncorraborated the Dirty Dossier was, even the Leftwing news media wouldn’t publicize it because they couldn’t confirm the details. Then Buzzfeed decided to print the whole Dossier and make it public. My bet is Fusion GPS had something to do with that.

So, it was Fusion GPS’s job to dig up the dirt and then spread it around to as many places as possible before the election. Hillary paid Fusion GPS over $10 million to do this. I would love to know what they spent that $10 million on. And we *will* know before too long.

The revelations of criminal wrongdoing by the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton are going to be coming hot and heavy over the next few weeks. I heard tonight that a very familiar Hillary Clinton minion is going to be named shortly in some pretty damaging revelations.

The Obama administration and Hillary thought they were cute. This whole deal was a setup to put Hillary in the White House. Had she won, then noone would be the wiser about all this criminality they perpetrated.

But she didn’t win, and now it’s going to get interesting. I wonder if Obama was smart enough to insulate himself from this scandal. He no doubt knew about it, but proving it might be difficult. But you never know. Some of Nixon’s closest associates started singing as soon as a little pressure came their way. There may be some equally weak individuals in the Obama administration.

The collusion with the Russians is not about Trump, it is all about Hillary and the Democrats and the Leftwing Media.

Trump has alread called one FBI agent a traitor to his country, and Trump is exactly right. Trying to overthrow a duly elected president using illegal means is a traitorous act and deserves jail time.

TA
Reply to  ristvan
January 13, 2018 10:34 am

And let me add that it appears that the Russian female lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr., was also associated with Fusion GPS. She reportedly met with Fusion GPS before she went to the meeting with Don Jr., and after the meeting she again met with Fusion GPS. It appears she got here instructions from Fusion GPS, went to the meeting with Don Jr., and then reported back to Fusion GPS on the meeting.

This is the same meeting the Democrats claim is evidence of Trump/Russia collusion, and it looks like one big setup by Hillary, and Fusion GPS to try to compromise Don Jr.

This whole Trump/Russia collusion deal stinks to High Heaven.

One encouraging note: We are probably going to learn every little detail about this conspiracy to undermine Trump’s campaign, and will be able to point the finger of blame at those who deserve blame.

sy computing
Reply to  TA
January 13, 2018 11:03 am

“This is the same meeting the Democrats claim is evidence of Trump/Russia collusion, and it looks like one big setup by Hillary, and Fusion GPS to try to compromise Don Jr.”

Or the Russian lawyer really was there solely to discuss the Magnitsky Act and just used the “dirt” on Hillary claim in the hopes of maximizing her potential to get the meeting with Jr. Had Hillary won the election we’d likely never have heard about the meeting nor would anyone be complaining about it.

Now, however, in desperation the political enemies of Trump have taken the meeting as “evidence” of wrong-doing.

Otherwise, we need to give Hillary a good deal of credit as to her forethought in creating this “setup” in case she lost.

Given her behavior on election night, along with the behavior of most everyone else in the nation (incredulity), I doubt she had anything to do with this. Not very many people (or so it would appear) on her side really believed she was going to lose.

Dave Fair
Reply to  sy computing
January 13, 2018 12:49 pm

But the FBI leadership believed they needed “insurance” just in case. Buy popcorn futures.

Paul Courtney
Reply to  ristvan
January 13, 2018 10:50 am

Ristvan started quite a string here, very well-informed folks. Andrew McCarthy at NR has a great post up today explaining Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and his testimony some months ago (released by D. Feinstein to embarass Trump, but it is backfiring). Wish I knew linking, but evidently don’t wish hard enough. Also saw great posts last Oct. at Climate Audit re: lack of evidence to support Crowd Strike “russian hack” attributions. Comments there very top shelf, after you filter out Brandon Shollenberger Mcderangement syndrome display. Seems there’s no evidence identifying hackers of Podesta and DNC, but Crowd Strike is sure both were russian, and press simply repeats it.
Hugs, I’ll try to condense it: The top law enforcement agencies of U.S. gov’t (FBI & Justice Dep’t) in 2016 were using left hand to create a sham investigation to get to the predetermined “no charges” outcome of one presidential candidate (Hillary, same party as then President Obama); and at the very same time using right hand to invent cause to wiretap operators of the candidate of the other party (I say invent because the info used to support the wiretap orders included the false Steele dossier, paid for by Hillary and delivered to FBI by-ta da- Glenn Simpson of Fusian GPS). I have not read his testimony, but it is apparently very anti-Trump, but he never told ’em who was paying him! Hugs, a past president named Nixon tried to suborn FBI and Justice to corrupt purposes, but he failed mostly due to an independent press. Now our press will hide that corruption in the noble cause of attacking Trump. Do these comments help you see? I hope so, they’re very good.

sy computing
Reply to  ristvan
January 13, 2018 1:04 pm

“But the FBI leadership believed they needed “insurance” just in case.”

More than likely this was the dossier don’t you think?

Let it not be that the FBI could be so inept as to believe the Don Jr. meeting would get them anywhere. But then the individuals involved in the text messages are of a particularly Leftward philosophical persuasion…

Gary Pearse
Reply to  ristvan
January 14, 2018 5:09 pm

Rud, but what are your thoughts on whether or not anything is going to be done about it! If not, it represents a precedence that you may not need to uphold the law. I thought by now, Wasserman Schultz and the mysterious Pakastani computer consultant who smashed up hard drives demanded by the police…. the Clinton setting up shop for influence peddling in the Secretary of State offices, the Bengazi Affair, all the illegal use of government agencies to “get Trump”, ignored subpoenas by NOAA on the Karlization of temperatures, investigation of the Shukla affair and the gang of 20 – I’ve been very disappointed. I think the Democrats need a really big hammer to put this kind of behavior to rest for a long long time.

Reply to  ristvan
January 16, 2018 5:34 pm

Gary, my mis-threaded comment to you is here.

Reply to  Kpar
January 12, 2018 12:58 pm

The articles quotes Podesta, without any reservation, with regard to the Climategate E-Mails “… though the emails contained no evidence of scientific misconduct …”. Rubbish – the E-Mails showed significant lack of personal and professional integrity.

MarkW
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
January 12, 2018 2:53 pm

Perhaps Podesta tried to hide the server in his underpants?

martinbrumby
Reply to  Retired_Engineer_Jim
January 12, 2018 8:25 pm

+1000
Exactly the point which other commenters ignore.
The incompetence and conspiratorial malice revealed in the Climategate emails remains very strong evidence that the whole cAGW agit-prop campaign is totally without merit.

TA
Reply to  Kpar
January 12, 2018 7:27 pm

“Of course, Assange has clearly stated that no “state actor”- i.e. Russia- was involved”

Yes, he has said that over and over again. Now that Assange is an Ecuadorian citizen maybe he will reveal where he got the documents.

graphicconception
Reply to  TA
January 13, 2018 5:30 am

The main point about the hack v leak argument appeared to be settled by someone looking at the timestamps of the original copy of the files.

That showed that the files were copied in a very short time consistent with being copied from a computer to a thumb drive. The time was far too short for the files to have been transmitted over any internet connection connected to the DNC.

Ian Magness
January 12, 2018 9:18 am

There are two issues with this nonsense:
1) It is not clear what Russia has to gain from this, and indeed it is not obvious that Russia has since made any capital out of this at all, which they probably would have done if they could see an advantage; and
2) the far bigger issue is not who perpetrated the hack but what it exposed. Correct me if I am wrong, but the people concerned were exposed for scientific subterfuge and none have actually denied writing the stuff.
To sum up, who cares who did it? The subterfuge uncovered stands as factual.

RockyRoad
Reply to  Ian Magness
January 12, 2018 9:22 am

Indeed: President Trump has bolstered the US military and opened energy exploration on all coasts of the US–neither of these would make Putin happy.

Hugs
Reply to  RockyRoad
January 12, 2018 10:35 am

What? I was just told Trump is Russian agent? / sarc

Alan Robertson
Reply to  RockyRoad
January 12, 2018 11:18 am

Hugs,
Despite claiming that you don’t understand our politics, it looks like you are starting to catch on.
Here’s a bit more for you to chew on:
Some have suggested that the reason that the pretense of the Russian hack/Trump involvement is so adamantly maintained, is because all other roads lead to Seth Rich.

RockyRoad
Reply to  RockyRoad
January 12, 2018 2:14 pm

Wikileaks claims to have received over 44,000 emails from Seth Rich. Methinks the plot thickens!

Pete
Reply to  Ian Magness
January 12, 2018 11:27 am

Those are your only two issues? How about the fact that “Guccifer 2.0” was a fake? https://bigleaguepolitics.com/hacker-guccifer-2-0-planted-fake-russian-fingerprints-account/

D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 9:23 am

I see the tinfoil-hat brigade has finally found gainful employment with Mother Jones.

Sheri
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 10:30 am

They always have.

commieBob
January 12, 2018 9:25 am

Is the idea that it is somehow evil to point out criminal wrongdoing?

If the Russians exposed corruption, we should thank them.

Sheri
Reply to  commieBob
January 12, 2018 10:31 am

Yes, it is evil to point out criminal wrongdoing if it involves Democrats or climate science. (/s)

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Sheri
January 12, 2018 11:00 am

That sarc tag is inappropriate.
At least, it was during the Obama administration.

Reply to  Sheri
January 12, 2018 11:25 am

The Obama Admin operated like the mob. Violate the code of silence, called Omerta, and become a snitch and lose your career if not your life.

The mob is always harder on its own who break omerta than an outsider who does not have inside information.

SMC
Reply to  Sheri
January 12, 2018 5:48 pm

Sherri, it’s not sarcasm when you are pointing out a fact… At least, a fact according to the leftists.

Jim Moran
Reply to  commieBob
January 12, 2018 11:57 am

I agree. If the Russians are behind these email dumps and are exposing the liars and fakes, we owe them our gratitude for these spotlights on our “elites”. Historically, most countries collapse from internal decay. The Russians also have a bunch of nukes pointed at us and and represent our biggest external threat. We must guard against both.

Reply to  Jim Moran
January 12, 2018 1:07 pm

Or the PRC. Or both.

TA
Reply to  Jim Moran
January 12, 2018 8:06 pm

Both.

Dan
January 12, 2018 9:29 am

Well if it truly was the Russians then I have to say my opinion have them has gone way up!!! Anyone who wants to expose the truth has my respect. Now if they were spreading lies or unsubstantiated rumors like some British spy, that would be a bad thing!

I find it so hypocritical that the same people that complain about exposing of truth love to embrace the latest rumors and anonymous tips.

DGP
January 12, 2018 9:32 am

Podesta wasn’t hacked, he gave away his password to a phishing e-mail like an idiot.

No word on his arrangement with the Nigerian prince, yet. but he’s still hopeful.

TA
Reply to  DGP
January 12, 2018 8:08 pm

Supposedly, Podesta’s IT guy told him it was safe to click on the phishing email.

graphicconception
Reply to  TA
January 13, 2018 5:32 am

Wasn’t Podesta the one who had a password of “password”?

Christopher Simpson
January 12, 2018 9:32 am

All the information leaked/stolen/liberated or whatever has been confirmed. Nobody on either side denies its truthfulness. Both Climategate and Wikileaks reveal coercion and conspiracy by the parties involved.

So back in the Cold War when Western agencies would dig up damaging information about the Soviet governments and powerful organizations and release it to the population, this was an honourable thing — it was an attempt to reveal to the people of the USSR the corruption of their government.

Now tables are turned (according to their present narrative). The Russians are digging up damaging information about our own governments powerful organizations and releasing to the population. This is a dishonourable thing.

Seriously, to me this is like somebody who gets caught with child pornography on their phone complaining that whoever found it there shouldn’t have been looking on his phone in the first place.

Mickey Reno
January 12, 2018 9:33 am

That the ClimateGate e-mails were posted by someone calling him or herself FOIA suggests that the person was someone who worked at the CRU who became disgruntled about the attitudes of Phil Jones and others at the CRU in thwarting UK Freedom of Information law, and perhaps about the unscientific attitudes of those same people to the fundamental science process of repetition and replication of established experiments. All it would take is for someone like that to have had administrator access to the CRUs mail server.

The notion of a Russian government hack is ludicrous. The Russians help fund anti-fracking activists all over Europe. They LIKE the CAGW scare, because they know more useful idiots in the West protesting fossil fuels will mean less Western independence in natural gas and fossil fuels, ergo more Russian hegemony and less European independence in fossil fuels.

January 12, 2018 9:40 am

I don’t have a problem with leaks that expose evil that turns out to be true. However; I doubt Russia had much to do with these two, especially since climate change driven stupidity is in their best interest. Climate-gate was an inside job by an individual with a conscience and Podesta didn’t know what passwords were for. The extent of Russia’s involvement was to provide safe haven for Assange and Wikileaks.

However, Russia surely knew that Hillary had a private server and I’m sure that they and dozens of other countries, including many allies, would have tried to crack in to it in order to gain an advantage if she happened to win the Whitehouse. They would have surely known that the only reason for her to have a private server was to hide incriminating correspondence that would be very useful for blackmail down the road.

Gums
Reply to  co2isnotevil
January 12, 2018 12:59 pm

+10

Plus another example of arrogance and not subject to same laws and procedures as we deplorable “proves” ( see 1984 Wiki entry).

Gums…

Gums
Reply to  Gums
January 12, 2018 1:02 pm

“Proles”. An obvious ref by Orwell based on Marxist doctrine

Dave Fair
Reply to  co2isnotevil
January 12, 2018 1:28 pm

If I remember correctly, her own IT people reported multiple breach attempts (breaches?).

January 12, 2018 9:44 am

Is the a less reputable lefty rag than Mother Jones?

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  lancifer666
January 12, 2018 12:22 pm

New York Times? The WaPoo? The Grauniad?

January 12, 2018 9:47 am

I don’t much care who orchestrated the hack, and neither should anyone else. What we should all care about is what was in them.

Perhaps it is time for WUWT to run an article on the highlight comments from ClimateGate? Its been long enough that many people have forgotten or joined the debate after they had faded from the news. The best way to push the “it was the Russians” narrative off the front page is to remind people what those emails actually said.

Reply to  davidmhoffer
January 12, 2018 10:42 am

I agree. It’s a good idea to run another article, or at least post links.

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  davidmhoffer
January 12, 2018 12:26 pm

Absolutely. I’m not sure I saw all of the most relevant emails at the time. I do remember seeing the comment, “A miracle has happened” and a bunch of other that should have been embarrassing enough to send certain parties away to hide their faces in utter shame.

January 12, 2018 9:54 am

I suppose the record cold we’ve had this winter is a Russian plot as well. Wnen will this nonsense end??

Ed Zuiderwijk
January 12, 2018 9:56 am

These people really believe their own fake news.

J.H.
January 12, 2018 9:57 am

It’s the content of the ClimateGate Emails that is important…. Not who “leaked” them…. and it is more than likely that it was a Whistleblower and not a “hacker” anyway.

Griff
Reply to  J.H.
January 12, 2018 10:14 am

Yes, it is… that there was no evidence of any fakery in them, except that ludicrously invented, is the important point

Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 10:32 am

except that ludicrously invented

Nice try Griff. There was not a single email in the ClimateGate releases that the author’s ever said “no, I din’t write that, it wasn’t me”. In fact the opposite, Phil Jones attested to the authenticity of the first release. Those emails were a stomach churning journey through the political machinations being undertaken to subvert science in service of political goals.

Climate change is too important to be left to scientists – least of all the normal ones.

~ Mike Hulme, a professor in the school of environmental sciences at the University of East Anglia

I don’t care who leaked what, I don’t care how many commissions said nothing illegal was done. I only care about what he actual science said. Phil Jones statement (which he admitted was his) that he would work to keep some papers out of the official record even if it meant redefining peer review was illuminating. Conversations between scientists agreeing to delete data, discussing ways to keep data secret, gloating that they’d found a way to “trick” people and “hide the decline” from them via misdirection and obfuscation, these are all emails that there is no question are legitimate and which show clearly that science is being manipulated to create a perception that serves a political purpose, not science.

WUWT readers should be exposed to all of them again.

Sheri
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 10:32 am

Some people simply will not see reality, will they?

Michael 2
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 12:20 pm

I don’t quite understand the point you are trying to make. As others have said, there is little doubt, nor can there be, as to substance, meaning, words, intentions. It is the opposite of transparency, the opposite of my understanding of good science that is challenged and withstands challenge.

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 12:27 pm

And speaking of ludicrously invented, heeeeeeeeere’s Griff!!

Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 12:49 pm

Just as giffiepooed has revealed, repeatedly, that it doesn’t read the article it comments on; now it is obvious giffiepooed, never read the Climategate emails; or even read the assembled subsets.

Instead it invents specious nonsense, then spins sophistry around that nonsense.

Bryan A
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 8:13 pm

Sorry Griff, nothing in the Climategate emails were faked, unlike the Heartland theft of Peter Gleick that contained numerous fake documents

Reply to  Griff
January 13, 2018 2:22 am

“No evidence of any fakery,” Griff? Seriously??

Here are a few counterexamples, from the Climategate emails:

1. In 1254108338.txt Tom Wigley wrote to Phil Jones and Ben Santer, proposing to adjust-down the “1940s warming blip” by 0.15 degC. Excerpt:

So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip.

I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip…

It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip…

In other words, change the data to straighten the “hockey stick handle,” and support the political narrative.

Obviously that doesn’t prove that all of the “hockey team” member sare dishonest, but it certainly proves that Wigley is, and it also proves that he believed that Jones and Santer are as dishonest as he is. (I think it is pretty clear that he was right about Jones, at least.)
 

2. In 0942777075.txt Jones reports using “MIke’s Nature trick” to “hide the decline” in the proxies, in the “hockey stick” graph for the cover of that WMO Report.

http://sealevel.info/wmo_1999_climate_report_cover_hockey_stick_mann_hides_the_decline.png

Note that six (6) of the biggest names in climate science were part of that email conversation: Phil Jones, Mann, Bradley, Osborn, Hughes & Briffa,

Here’s the Report:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120112160443/http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/statemnt/wmo913.pdf

The graph is labeled as showing three proxy-based temperature reconstructions, only. All three are shown as going sharply up at the end, forming the “blade” of the hockey stick.

But, in fact, the proxy-based temperature reconstructions did not go up at the end. One of the three proxy reconstructions was essentially flat at the end, the second slightly declined, and the third sharply declined.

That was a very big problem, because it was inconsistent with the instrumental temperature record.

That inconsistency proves that the proxy-based temperature reconstructions were not reliable. For the only time period in which it was possible to check the proxy-derived temperatures against actual temperature measurements, they did not match. They weren’t even close!

Those proxy-based temperature reconstructions were the basis for the straightening the “handle” of the Hockey Stick, which erased the MWP. They were the basis for declaring that 20th century’s warming was unprecedented. And their inconsistency with the actual measured temperatures meant the proxies couldn’t be trusted.

That’s where Mann, Jones, etc. went off the scientific rails. Instead of truthfully reporting that their method was unreliable, they chose to cover up the inconsistency between their proxies and the temperature measurements, by hiding the decline in proxy-derived temperature reconstructions.

That graph, on the WMO Report cover, which shows all three proxy-derived temperatures going sharply up at the end, was a lie. From 1961 onward, the graph substituted actual measured temperatures for the proxy reconstructions.

The graph labeled the red trace as Jones et al 1998. It was actually Jones et al 1998 through 1960, and measured temperatures thereafter.

The graph labeled the blue trace as Mann et al 1999. It was actually Mann et al 1999 through 1960, and measured temperatures thereafter.

The graph labeled the green trace as Briffa et al 1999. It was actually Briffa et al 1999 through 1960, and measured temperatures thereafter.

They even smoothed the splice points in the traces, between proxies and instrument data, to hide the the transitions.

A suspicious person might have marveled that the three proxies were suddenly perfectly consistent at the end, and wondered if they were telling the truth. But there was no indication on that graph that instrumental temperature measurements had been substituted for the proxies, nor that the proxies were inconsistent with the measurements.

There were three labeled traces on that graph, and all three were lies.

Here’s Muller explaining the it:

Muller sounds like a cheated-on spouse. He says he’s “infuriated” by Michael Mann’s fraud. He says Mann’s team is the group he “trusted the most,” but from now on he won’t even read their papers.
 

3. In 1054736277.txt Mann writes to
Phil Jones, Ray Bradley, Tom Wigley, Tom Crowley, Keith Briffa, Kevin Trenberth, Michael Oppenheimer, Jonathan Overpeck & Scott Rutherford, saying it would be nice to ‘”contain” the putative Medieval Warm Period’ (again, to help straighten the “hockey stick handle”).
 

To my knowledge, the most comprehensive analysis of the 2009 Climategate revelations was this one:
http://www.webcitation.org/65tXhwudk

catweazle666
Reply to  Griff
January 14, 2018 12:36 pm

Making stuff up again, [snip]?

Why bother, you just keep making a bigger and bigger fool of yourself every time you post.

Griff
January 12, 2018 10:14 am

Hmm… so if it wasn’t the Russians leaked the Climategate mails, who?

Nobody stepped up to admit they did it…

Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 10:20 am

Little green men in UFO’s. They didn’t admit it either, so it must also be them?

What a stupid comment.

D. J. Hawkins
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 10:27 am

Argumentum ad ignorantum. We can’t think of anything else, so it must be whatever we propose.

AndyG55
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 11:05 am

“Argumentum ad ignorantum”

Hey, it what griff does… always.

afonzarelli
Reply to  D. J. Hawkins
January 12, 2018 12:28 pm

(argumentum ad ignorantum griffum… ☺)

Pete
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 11:31 am

If it was an inside job, they’re not going to step up and admit it, as it would likely cost them their job. Hackers, on the other hand, like to brag about their accomplishments…

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Pete
January 12, 2018 12:31 pm

There are trillions of dollars involved. If they’re found out, it will cost them their life.

Roger Knights
Reply to  Pete
January 13, 2018 8:45 am

“If it was an inside job, they’re not going to step up and admit it, as it would likely cost them their job.”

Or their pension, if now retired.

Bill Illis
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 11:52 am

The climategate emails were zipped up and left out in the open on an FTP site.

The reason they were all collated and zipped up is that there were the subject of an FOI request (FOI officers collect all the documents that might pertain to the FOI). On the Wednesday before the Friday release of the emails, CRU made a decision that they would not release the emails which were the subject of the FOI. Two days later, someone grabbed them off the FTP site and released them.

It was fairly common at the time that many agencies just left stuff on FTP sites thinking no one knew they were there. Some still do that.

Doesn’t sound exactly “hacky” does it. Nor was it timed for the Copenhagen climate extravaganza. It was just a coincidence of the timing.

Caligula Jones
Reply to  Bill Illis
January 12, 2018 12:45 pm

Indeed.

Yeas ago, a few minutes after I got back to my desk from yet another useless and redundant meeting where our IT bragged about how safe everything was on our system, I fired up a kewl hacking tool called “Windows Explorer” that I got from a Russian dark web site and searched for *.exe (got tired of peeking into the “top secret” questions filed in the “Job Selection Process” folder…).

And hey, look what popped up: a full (and legal, at least for our organization) copy of Adobe’s full suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.).

Since the unit that bought the software had no discernible use for it…I decided that I would make a “backup” for my personal use at home as a sort of “modified site licence”.

So, yeah, “hacking” doesn’t require as much mad tech skillz as many thing…

Michael 2
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 12:17 pm

If I told you, would you believe it?

sy computing
Reply to  Michael 2
January 13, 2018 9:06 am

+1

RockyRoad
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 2:16 pm

You forget that the Russians never claimed to have been responsible, either, Griff.

gwan
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 2:37 pm

Hey Griff
Your warmist mates need no enemies when they have you for a friend .
The climategate emails were hacked by some one one calling them selves FOIA an inside job for sure . There’s another acronym for you Griffy .think about for a minute .
I will tell you FOIA Freedom Of information for All
Someone on the inside fed up with lies and B/S

Pat McAdoo
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 3:13 pm

Well, err….ever heard of a whistleblower?

Gums..

eyesonu
Reply to  Griff
January 12, 2018 8:37 pm

Maybe I did it.

Dave Fair
Reply to  eyesonu
January 13, 2018 11:32 am

I am Spartacus.

sy computing
Reply to  Griff
January 13, 2018 8:02 pm

“Nobody stepped up to admit they did it…”

He’s likely dead.

catweazle666
Reply to  Griff
January 14, 2018 12:46 pm

The grand total spent by Norfolk police on the UEA hacker investigation since the November 2009 theft is just £80,905.11.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/uk-climategate-investigation_b_1113849.html

Here is the result of the FOIA request:
comment image

Anyone who has any experience of the cost of police investigations will appreciate that such a sum would barely cover the coffee and donut bills for any significant amount of work much beyond a serious road traffic offence.

There was clearly no effort to investigate malfeasance by any external organisation, it was tacitly agreed that the release of the emails was the result of an internal leak and the investigation was terminated to save UEA CRU from further embarrassment.

You can take that to the bank.

January 12, 2018 10:17 am

Not a bit surprising that this conjecture focuses on the manner of disclosure and deliberately ignores the content, which was the relevant aspect of climategate.

Sunderlandsteve
January 12, 2018 10:20 am

As many comments have pointed out, it really doesn’t matter how the emails reached the public domain, it’s the content that matters.

Sheri
Reply to  Sunderlandsteve
January 12, 2018 10:36 am

I’m not sure I agree. If hacking of emails is justified by the end result, how can we tell anyone that it’s wrong to hack emails. They MIGHT find something. If someone breaks into your house and finds material that will incriminate you, are you okay with that? Are you okay with someone breaking into your car to find said materials? Unless email is declared public property by the Supreme Court, I see Fourth Amendment concerns in all of this.

afonzarelli
Reply to  Sheri
January 12, 2018 1:02 pm

It may well be wrong, but hey, never thump a free melon…

Dave Fair
Reply to  Sheri
January 12, 2018 1:37 pm

Sheri, the Climategate emails were released by an insider, disgusted by the immediately preceding actions of politicians/bureaucrats to hide the truth in response to a legitimate FOIA request.

Taphonomic
Reply to  Sheri
January 12, 2018 6:17 pm

I worked on computers before there was an internet. As it developed, the first rule of e-mail was always: “Never put anything in an e-mail that you don’t want to see on the front page of the New York Times.”

Some people never learn this.

Roger Graves
January 12, 2018 10:20 am

It is highly unlikely that the Russians would have intervened in the US election with the purpose of advantaging Donald Trump, because it would have been far better for them had Hilary Clinton become president. When all is said and done, Russia is a petro-state; it relies overwhelmingly on the sale of oil and gas to fund itself. Trump as president has instituted a ‘drill, baby, drill’ philosophy, thereby increasing world oil & gas supply and placing a downward pressure on oil & gas prices by the iron laws of economics. Clinton would have followed in Obama’s footsteps and effectively strangled US oil & gas production, thereby decreasing world supply and forcing prices up.

Whatever the Russians are, they are not fools. Had Clinton won the election, they would have been laughing all the way to the bank, and they know it.

Reply to  Roger Graves
January 12, 2018 11:40 am

I disagree. If I were running Russia, I would have wanted Hillary Clinton defeated. She repeatedly pursued policies that put the U.S. on colission course with Russia. In the Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU tried to oust the pro-Russian prime minister and place a U.S./EU friendly prime minister in charge. In Syria, they tried to oust a Russian ally from power and then gave military aid to Non ISIS rebels who then promptly handed them over to (or were conquered by) ISIS. Had Clinton gotten her way, Russia would have lost its only Mediteranian naval base to a country that would have been hostile to its allies. Both of these events threatened Russia’s only year-round warm-water naval port’s access to the world’s oceans. Furthermore the incredibly stupid U.S. policy in Libya, which appeared to be motivated solely by a desire to show up Bush II by undoing about the only good thing that came out of the invasion of Iraq, would make me question her sanity and stability.

Sure, Trump would end the Obama era policies of artificially raising energy prices, and those high prices benefitted Russia. But you can negotiate with Trump. But, Clinton strikes me as someone who is not only reckless, but also that scary combination of clueless and pugnacious that makes me very, very uneasy.

I think for rulers of countries such as Russia, Clinton’s negatives would far outweigh her positives relative to Trump.

sy computing
Reply to  tarran
January 12, 2018 12:11 pm

The Obama administration was awash with buffoons like Clinton. The world laughed at us and at the same time respect for the United States became nil…for good reason. We didn’t deserve respect.

Obama wasn’t going to “collide” with Russia…he couldn’t even handle a ragtag group of terrorists. If he was going to “collide” with Putin he would’ve during the Ukrainian invasion. Rather, Obama’s administration had their lips securely super glued to the behind of Putin.

He would be a moron if he wanted Hillary defeated.

Dave Fair
Reply to  tarran
January 12, 2018 1:40 pm

Certain Russian actors were having fun riling up the MSM to confuse everybody about everything.

PiperPaul
Reply to  tarran
January 12, 2018 6:24 pm

That’s a fair assessment.

TA
Reply to  tarran
January 12, 2018 8:34 pm

“He would be a moron if he wanted Hillary defeated.”

I agree.

Hillary was NOT a hawk, as so many people seem to think. The only real aggression she ever perpetrated was the debacle in Libya, but all she did there was promote some bombing until Kaddafy was killed, and then she and Obama walked away like they were innocent bystanders and allowed Libya to descend into chaos.

Obama even went so far as to try to blame the Libyan debacle on the Prime Minister of Britain, as if Obama had no involvement.

The Left doesn’t prosecute wars, they run away from them. To think Hillary was a hawk is laugable. She would probably not have been as pacifist as Obama, but who is.

Yeah, Obama and Hillary presided over the destruction of half of Iraq and Syria through allowing the Islamic Terror Army to rise and gain power, and of Libya, and they destablized the entire Middle East as a result of their stupidity.

The Russians and the Chinese and the North Koreans and the Mad Mullahs of Iran would have been delighted if Hillary had been elected. Every one of them know they could roll Hillary any time they wanted. They have the appeasers on the American Left pegged, and know just what buttons to push to make them obey.

Hillary would have been a disaster, if elected. I’m not sure the U.S. would have been able to recover from her rule. Four years of her administration and the U.S. would start looking a lot like China: Keep your mouth shut if you are not onboard with the Elites of society.

The U.S. would be crashing and burning with Hillary at the helm.

graphicconception
Reply to  tarran
January 13, 2018 5:38 am

” … he couldn’t even handle a ragtag group of terrorists.”

If you are talking about ISIS then be fair, his Democrat (and RINO) mates had only just created them.

sy computing
Reply to  tarran
January 13, 2018 7:57 am

“If you are talking about ISIS then be fair, his Democrat (and RINO) mates had only just created them.”

I think you just made my point for me 🙂

Pat McAdoo
Reply to  Roger Graves
January 12, 2018 3:22 pm

With all the hacked emails and other intell the Russians and many other folks prolly had, then there were tons of blackmail documents from the careless, arrogant candidate.

Why wouldn’t they? Think about all the $$$ the warlords would get from the U.S. if the Paris “agreement” was followed to the letter.

Sheesh, if we think that foreign governments do not want to influence our elections or gain influence from the new administration, then we are truly clueless.

Gums…

MLCross
January 12, 2018 10:27 am

For 60 years Democrats and leftists laughed at and belittled warnings about the Russians as ridiculous red-baiting. They lose 1 election and suddenly the Rooskies are trying to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

Reply to  MLCross
January 12, 2018 11:09 am
MLCross
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
January 12, 2018 11:53 am

They hacked us and now look at the big board, they’re getting ready to clobber us!

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
January 12, 2018 12:46 pm

Slim Pickens’* most memorable role. Unforgettable.

* (Louis Burton Lindley Jr.)

SAMURAI
January 12, 2018 10:31 am

Spacibo, Comrad Putin!

Bill Powers
January 12, 2018 10:37 am

Only People driving the U.S. towards a one world governance worry about a “global political scene>”
There is no global political scene but Mann would like to create one. Too many Star Trek movies is my guess. I believe in world peace but do not advocate for global politics. We have managed to FUBAR politics nationally we would create world war 3 on a global scale.

January 12, 2018 10:37 am

So it wasn’t the Russians then who corrupted the the models? Who did that then?

George Tetley
Reply to  son of mulder
January 12, 2018 11:31 am

Sh! don’t tell anyone but ( GRIFF ) ?

Dave Fair
Reply to  son of mulder
January 12, 2018 1:43 pm

Remember, SOM: The Russian climate model is the only one with anything close to accurate predictions.

Gary Pearse
January 12, 2018 10:38 am

Do these Dimocrats not get get the implications of what they are saying? If the material on Podesta’s email account and the DNC is all sweetness and light, instead of stuffed with dirty tricks on how they plan to undemocratically screw Bernie Sanders out of a fair contest and all the other slimy activities he, Hillary and Wasserman Schultz were up to, the usual civilized communications would be boring and of no interest to anyone.

Ditto the climategate emails, even if they contained catty remarks about other colleagues is ok. The fact that they conspired to break the law re FOI, gatekeep sceptical papers out of journals, engaged in intimidation of editors forcing some to resign for publishing sceptics, character assassinations, advise on destroying public documents and climate data and employing “tricks” to make data do what you want it to, is the rub!

What Mother Jones has done in the hands of bankrupt Dem ‘strategists’ is tie the ugly smarminess of Climategate to the same cesspit that was the DNC/Podesta/HRC/Debbie communications. If you were given a chance to dig into Sister Teresa’s or Podestas emails for dirt which would be the best one to choose. Tarring Podesta/DNC/Hillary/Debbie with the same brush from climategate is so revealing of these lost souls. They are mired so deep in the swamp they think that the only thing horrible that was done was revealing the muck to the people. The actual devious, undemocratic, felonious plans they had for the people seems okay to this lot. Thanks Mother Jones for revealing the underbelly of this beast. It has more clout coming from yourselves.

Gee Rebecca, before sallying forth on other adventures of this sort, I suggest takin it to Father Jones for a first look.

January 12, 2018 10:47 am

The same Russian outfit appears to have hacked the IOS and WADA concerning the banning of the Russian team from the Olympics.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-cyber/russians-may-be-planning-hack-to-cast-shadow-on-olympics-researchers-idUSKBN1F031G?feedType=RSS&feedName=sportsNews

TomRude
January 12, 2018 11:00 am

Canadians should be more concerned about how their political process is subverted by US Foundations…
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/files/vivian-krause-who-is-behind-leadnow.pdf
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/files/who-is-dogwood-7dec2017.pdf

Caligula Jones
Reply to  TomRude
January 12, 2018 12:54 pm

Canadians, most of whom could not tell you how OUR government works, spend most of their time discussing how Trump is going to be impeached/charged under the Logan Act/tar and feathered.

My neighbour is obsessed with American politics, and when Justice Scalia died tried to lure me into a deep discussion about his replacement.

“Can you name a single Canadian Supreme Court Justice”?

“Um….”

“Thanks for playing…”

RockyRoad
Reply to  Caligula Jones
January 12, 2018 6:13 pm

The way Canadian politics works, does it even matter if they have a Supreme Court?

graphicconception
Reply to  Caligula Jones
January 13, 2018 5:44 am

Did Justice Scalia just die or was he pushed?

What did the doctor who attended say?
What did the autopsy conclude?
What did he supposedly die of?
Are “heart attack guns” available?

jackson
January 12, 2018 11:01 am

Why would Putin want Trump instead of Clinton?
Putin makes money selling oil- with Trump the price will stay low because he will encourage production, whereas Hilary would try to stop production and send the price higher.
Working with Trump– he might say anything at anytime apparently. Hilary reads from cue cards written by others. Which would Putin prefer?
Finally, I don’t know how much the Russians spend at Trump resorts, but I think Putin must have approved the 70-100 million dollars the highly connected Russian operatives gave Hilary.
Of course Putin would want you to think he would want the other guy…

PiperPaul
Reply to  jackson
January 12, 2018 6:32 pm

I have a difficult time understanding why Russia, with it’s economy as it is, would want to donate tens of millions of dollars to a “charitable” American foundation. Doesn’t make sense.

Does Russia typically donate to charities in the United States?

TA
Reply to  PiperPaul
January 12, 2018 8:41 pm

“Does Russia typically donate to charities in the United States?”

No, they don’t. But Russians are perfectly happy paying money to a charity if they get something of value from doing so, like American uranium.

Reply to  PiperPaul
January 13, 2018 8:25 am

TA January 12, 2018 at 8:41 pm
“Does Russia typically donate to charities in the United States?”

No, they don’t. But Russians are perfectly happy paying money to a charity if they get something of value from doing so, like American uranium.

Except of course they didn’t get any American uranium, the deal was all about Kazakh uranium.
Also Frank Giustra isn’t Russian he’s Canadian.

sy computing
Reply to  Phil.
January 13, 2018 8:51 am

“But Russians are perfectly happy paying money to a charity if they get something of value from doing so, like American uranium.”

Or, like the opportunity to slow down American energy products on the world market:

Putin Is Funding Green Groups to Discredit Natural Gas Fracking
By Kevin Mooney On 7/11/17 at 12:44 PM

http://www.newsweek.com/putin-funding-green-groups-discredit-natural-gas-fracking-635052

TA
Reply to  PiperPaul
January 13, 2018 9:13 am

Well, Phil, the FBI had an inside informant on this Hillary/Russian Uranium One deal, so we are going to know all the gory details in the future, and you will be proven wrong about there being no Russian involvement.

Reply to  PiperPaul
January 14, 2018 8:59 am

TA January 13, 2018 at 9:13 am
Well, Phil, the FBI had an inside informant on this Hillary/Russian Uranium One deal, so we are going to know all the gory details in the future, and you will be proven wrong about there being no Russian involvement.

Well what I posted was: “Except of course they didn’t get any American uranium, the deal was all about Kazakh uranium.
Also Frank Giustra isn’t Russian he’s Canadian.”

Frank Giustra is the friend of Bill Clinton who owned the canadian company which bought the stake in the Kazakh uranium mines, he subsequently sold his stake in the company to Uranium One in 2007. He then made a large donation to the Clinton Foundation ($131 million) in 2007. The russians purchased a minority share in Uranium One in exchange for an interest in a Kazakh mining venture in 2009, followed by the acquisition of a majority share following government approval in 2010. Uranium One became a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosatom in 2013, six years after Giustra sold his stake.
So the vast bulk of related donations to the Clinton Foundation were from one man, who sold his stake in the company three years before the russians acquired an interest in Uranium One, and 18 months before Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State.

January 12, 2018 11:03 am

The Russian economy is almost entirely dependent on oil and gas exports and keeping those prices as high as possible, while ensuring Europe remains reliant on Gazprom supplies.
Thus Putin and his Russia have every self-interest in perpetuating the climate hustle’s demise of Western economies and energy supplies. It would be against this self-interest to publish CRU’s dirty laundry.

This is merely John Podesta’s and the Dems attempt to misdirect away from their own IT incompetence. Meanwhile, not one of the exposed emails has been shown to be fake. That is, All the emails seen so far from the DNC and CRU were authentic and exposed their unethical behavior.

KenW
January 12, 2018 11:05 am

The russians hack.
The americans just use a FISA-702(17) Query

AndyG55
January 12, 2018 11:07 am

These are the culprits !!
comment image

jorgekafkazar
Reply to  AndyG55
January 12, 2018 12:49 pm

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Bryan A
Reply to  jorgekafkazar
January 12, 2018 8:16 pm

Thought that was from the last Russian Bride magazine

afonzarelli
Reply to  AndyG55
January 12, 2018 1:17 pm

BABUSHKA

Duane
January 12, 2018 11:24 am

Well, whoever did the ClimateGate hack, there is still a rather obvious Russian motive for discrediting the warmist movement – Russians are the world’s second largest exporter of oil, and the world’s largest exporter of natural gas. Any movement that results in a long term reduction in demand for hydrocarbons.wuuld obviously have huge impacts on Russia’s economy and ability to afford its worldwide geopolitical adventurism – and is a threat that the Russians cannot and would not ignore, or try to dampen with whatever tools it has. Russians have been masters of spycraft and developing “kompromat” and psyops ever since the days of the Bolshevik revolution a century ago.

Russians are already well known to have funded much of the anti-fracking movement in the USA and Canada – again, in order to depress the rapidly increasing supply of both oil and gas brought about by the fracking revolution. Depressing supply of competitive product has much the same effect as avoiding depressed demand for the same products.

The oldest saying in the world of investigations is, “follow the money”. He who benefits economically from any particular skulduggery is the most likely of potential perpetrators.

Pete
Reply to  Duane
January 12, 2018 11:45 am

faulty logic Duane. You state “follow the money”, but don’t do so yourself. Oil prices were rising due to climate change alarmism and policies being enacted by western governments. If Russia were responsible for the hack, why would they release the emails at a time when prices were beneficial to Russian profits? Why not ride out the high profits and wait for demand to slow before releasing the emails?

KenW
Reply to  Duane
January 12, 2018 12:40 pm

Has there ever been an american national election in which no foreign country has attempted to influence the outcome?

Did the British, French and Spanish never try to influence US elections in the 1800’s and eariier?
Or the Germans, Russians, Mexicans, Canadians, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Irish or Israelis more recently?
In fact, Is there any s___hole country that has never at least wanted to influence american public opinion during an election?

OTOH, Is there any s___hole in this world that the US hasn’t mucked around in lately?

(If you answered NO to any of the above, i’ve got a new cryptocurrency going online soon and i’d like to offer it to you for a very special price. Deal?)

RockyRoad
Reply to  KenW
January 12, 2018 2:26 pm

Funny you should mention “s___hole country” in your comment.

Turns out two Republicans in that meeting maintain they never heard that stated. One was Tom Cotton, so straight he’s being considered as the next CIA Director.

Would the Democrats be above discrediting the duly-elected president of the United States?

Or would they rather pay homage to a failed candidate that has mastered the art of political espionage?

…those sorry, brainwashed saps.

TA
Reply to  KenW
January 12, 2018 8:49 pm

“Has there ever been an american national election in which no foreign country has attempted to influence the outcome?”

No, there hasn’t, and there is no evidece that Russians had any effect on the American election.

I saw an interview with one of the Russian trolls who supposedly was trying to influence the election, and he said that he sat in a big building with lots of other paid trolls and they sent out texts every day to try to make some point or other, but he said most people didn’t pay attention to what they were writing.

The Russian trolling was aimed more at disrupting the process than in favoring any one candidate. If they could cause turmoil then they were happy, and thanks to the efforts of the American Leftwing media, they have caused lots of turmoil by planting lies in the Dirty Dossier. Once they did that, their work was done and the Democrats and the MSM took over from there, pushing the Trump/Russia narrative.

There is no Trump/Russia collusion, and it is getting more obvious every day. The focus is going to change to the Hillary/Russia collusion story in the future.

Justanelectrician
Reply to  Duane
January 12, 2018 3:49 pm

Duane, increasing American production of oil and gas poses a far greater threat to Russia than any green schemes do. The war on coal increases demand for natural gas, and it will be many years before electric vehicles put a dent in demand for oil.

Gus
January 12, 2018 11:24 am

Regardless of who did the hacks, our world is a better place for both.

Coeur de Lion
January 12, 2018 11:40 am

.climategate was clearly a sickened insider – end of story

Zigmaster
January 12, 2018 11:44 am

There is somethings the two examples have in common. The leaks expose information that is very damning relating to the authors of the emails such that they represent activities that amount to conspiracies to deceive the public and also whilst there have been complaints that the info was leaked there has been no denials that the info wasn’t true. To me they are both just examples of criminals being caught red handed.

Editor
January 12, 2018 11:57 am

There IS one marked similarity between climategate and the DNC-Podesta leak: both seem to have been leaks, not hacks, meaning neither had anything to do with Russia, which would make no sense in any case. Russia, whose main export is oil, has been severely hurt by both leaks, since both weakened the power of those who are trying to block fossil-fuel development in the West.

Obama’s official policy goal was “european gas prices” in the U.S., meaning about $8/gal. Trump’s is “energy dominance.” Under the eco-Democrats Russia gets rich. Under Trump Russia will sink beneath the waves.

We now know that it was Hillary who actually colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, using FusionGPS as a middleman to buy phony Russian dirt on Trump (the Steele dossier), and that Obama-Hillary weaponized our own intel agencies to participate in this illegal collusion with Russia to attack an opposition candidate.

The level of criminality is somewhat surprising, even to veteran Clinton watchers, but in terms of the motivations of the different players it all makes proper horse-sense. The othr way, not so much. Even a horse would shake its head at the idea of Russia trying to undermine the West’s anti-fracking eco-left.

The anti-fracking movement has been exposed as directly funded by Russia. We KNOW which side Russia is on. The only reason they aren’t funding Michael Mann is that Al Gore already gave him and the other consensoids $100b to play with.

Terry Harnden
January 12, 2018 12:04 pm

Thank God . Looks like the Russians are Americans best friends for exposing this massive deep state and pharma corruption.

RockyRoad
Reply to  Terry Harnden
January 12, 2018 2:31 pm

Sad when our main adversary is more reliable than the bureaucrats, of whom 95% are Democrats, that populate our Deep State.

Joel Snider
January 12, 2018 12:14 pm

This is why we’re at a disadvantage with the stupidest voters.
Is there any doubt this crap will be parroted by the rank and file progressive/warmists?

TA
Reply to  Joel Snider
January 12, 2018 8:52 pm

No doubt at all. The Leftwing hardcore will believe every bad thing said about Trump and the Republican Party. They are not objective about these things.

Michael 2
January 12, 2018 12:15 pm

“Mann himself has pointed to the incident’s “curious connections” to Russia and WikiLeaks”

Looks like a bit of conspiracy ideation!

Dems B. Dcvrs
Reply to  Michael 2
January 12, 2018 1:00 pm

Why Mann, (fraud by his own doing) is still employed by Penn State points to “curious connections”.

Caligula Jones
Reply to  Michael 2
January 12, 2018 1:01 pm

Then again, the guy thinks WUWT is a massively funded organization….

January 12, 2018 12:22 pm

And yet no one involved with Climategate or Podesta’s has ever claimed the emails themselves were fabricated.
And they have no problem with Peter Gleich fabricating a “Heartland” document.

January 12, 2018 12:28 pm

It is interesting that leftists now blame everything on “the Russians,” even when there’s not a speck of evidence. Joe McCarthy would love it.

A far-left climate activist on FB asserted with certainty the other day that the Russians were responsible for the Climategate “theft.” I asked him for evidence. He cited this ridiculous article:

https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/since-over-1000-confidential-e.html

The article reported:

“…according to the Independent’s Shaun Walker… a senior member of the IPCC has voiced suspicions that the hack job was not the handy work of a lone amateur but that of a ‘highly sophisticated, politically motivated operation.'”

That was apparently the basis for his certainty that “the Russian’s”[sic] did it.

Evidence is entirely optional to committed leftists.

Dems B. Dcvrs
Reply to  daveburton
January 12, 2018 12:57 pm

Factual according to Liberal standards…
“voiced suspicions”, possibly, maybe, potentially, chance, likely (aka SWAG)
“according to”, anonymous, unnamed, confidential source (aka gossip)
“member of IPPC”, Gore, Hansen, Mann (aka highly biased)
“not the handy work”, plot by big-oil, conspiracy (aka tin-foil hat)

Dems B. Dcvrs
January 12, 2018 12:44 pm

Hope Russia takes MotherJones to court for Slander.

SkepticGoneWild
January 12, 2018 12:52 pm

Everyone has missed the obvious Russian connection in this international drama:

Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.

This nefarious collusion has their fingerprints all over the place. Boris and Natasha are up to their old tricks again! (Mueller take note)

Reply to  SkepticGoneWild
January 12, 2018 1:47 pm
Dave Fair
Reply to  Gunga Din
January 12, 2018 2:27 pm

Same level of comedy from the MSM.

Macusn
Reply to  Gunga Din
January 12, 2018 4:29 pm

It would be really funny if someone dropped the names of one of my favorite cartoons to one of the 20 or 30 year old “msm reporters” out there and hint that they were the connection between Trump and Putin and see if it got anywhere.

Mac

Reply to  SkepticGoneWild
January 12, 2018 1:48 pm

Rocky Squirrel and Bullwinkle Moose are on it. And doing a better job than Mueller.

Dave Fair
Reply to  ristvan
January 12, 2018 2:30 pm

SQUIRREL! MSM.

wildeco2014
January 12, 2018 12:54 pm

It was Russian spies that whipped up US resistance within the American Colonies which led to the US Declaration of Independence.
The pesky Russians get everywhere.

London247
Reply to  wildeco2014
January 12, 2018 1:26 pm

Not only that. They have deep placement sleepers from the population left in Alaska when they sold it to you. Alaskan politicians always muttering about seizing the means of production and destroying the capitalist system.

January 12, 2018 12:58 pm

“RealClimate website was also hacked”

What is clear is that the article’s authors, motherjonesy, Podesta and his propaganda machines and manniacal utterly fail to comprehend what a “hack” is, entails or actually reveals.

To these characters, it is a racy techy word they can use for inspiring fear amongst the gullible.

A concept that brings back the thought regarding any sufficiently advanced science is viewed as magic by poorly educated shysters and fools.

graphicconception
Reply to  ATheoK
January 13, 2018 5:55 am

“To these characters, it is a racy techy word they can use for inspiring fear amongst the gullible.”

Exactly right!

What does it even mean to say “The Russians hacked the election”? No-one has ever claimed that they changed a single vote. They certainly did not hack the voting machines, the Soros operatives did that!

Caligula Jones
January 12, 2018 1:16 pm

When someone on the Left falls for a phishing scam, it because they are SO SMART that it can only be a highly sophisticated effort of a malevolent enemy, of course.

No other explanation is allowed that might give someone the wrong idea.

RWturner
January 12, 2018 1:26 pm

Cute imagination, but I want the sayloon.com writers to expand on this; how did ‘Russia’ know to hack EAU, and why did they think it necessary to essentially help their western E&P competition by doing so? I bet they can uncover a Russian plot to destroy the world in a Dr. Evil style.

John Robertson
January 12, 2018 1:27 pm

Friday Funny for sure.
The Mother Jones Stupid is strong on this one.
However good work by their “reporter” as this article is another own goal,slash load aim fire…
Congratulation you got both feet,your own.
Tying Climate Gate and the DNC emails together is brilliant.
What they do have in common, might be enough to irritate one or two of their readers.
We have persons holding positions of public trust, abusing the hell out of that trust,lying to and ripping off the public, the upshot being today, when a progressive person makes accusations of bad behaviour, you can bank on it.
That the behaviour they decry and accuse their opponents of ..Is exactly what they ,the accuser,are actively engaged in.

So go forth Mother Goose, may you expose all the evil in your world.
Just don’t look to hard at the facts, messengers are far easier to shoot.
Oh, I guess the progressive reporters might want to avoid mirrors.

eyesonu
Reply to  John Robertson
January 12, 2018 8:08 pm

” … We have persons holding positions of public trust, abusing the hell out of that trust,lying to and ripping off the public, the upshot being today, when a progressive person makes accusations of bad behaviour, you can bank on it. That the behaviour they decry and accuse their opponents of ..Is exactly what they ,the accuser,are actively engaged in.”

=============

That is called ‘projection’. They have been doing it for many, many years. Time for them to start eating their own ….

January 12, 2018 1:30 pm

One only needs to look at one solid fact regarding these climate science/data gate keepers, their emails and the IPCC.

They rewrote climate history to take out the Medieval Warm Period, 1,000 years ago in order to show that the Current Warming is unprecedented and caused by humans.

Over 100 scientific papers/studies that show the Medieval Warm Period was as warm as today….or warmer, many from different parts of the world but they decided to base all of climate history on some tree rings from Michael Mann.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/11/making-holocene-spaghetti-sauce-by-proxy/

http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/description.php

http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/qualitative.php

But then, an example of how one side brainwashes it’s loyal followers. We have the king of climate science MIS-information, John Cook at Skeptical Science with his bogus explanation for why this is actually a myth and the Medieval Warm Period really never was that warm and never disappeared the way we all know it did(those with a few critically thinking brain cells, not captured by the climate cult):

https://www.skepticalscience.com/IPCC-Medieval-Warm-Period.htm

Same sort of thing happening in many other realms…………like with Russia’s influence or labeling those that question the settled climate science as deniers trying to sabotage the efforts of those trying to “Save the Planet” or to claim that Exxon Mobile knew about climate change 40 years ago and like Big Tobacco obstructed the planet savers.

They just make up elaborate, convincing sounding but completely false stories to promote the narrative or belief system. In today’s world, we have people that often align with one side or another on most issues. Facts don’t get nearly as much weight as what side you are on and who is making the statement(what side they are on).
If you believe in catastrophic climate change for instance…………….you believe EVERYTHING that John Cook, Michael Mann and Al Gore say.
If you are a democrat in the United States, you believe EVERYTHING that CNN or B. Obama or Mother Jones states.

Fox news, republicans and WUWT articles do nothing but tell lies and cannot be believed.
Doesn’t matter what is being stated. Donald Trump is worse than Adolf Hitler and despite the evidence of his actions clearly demonstrating that he really is for making America Great and his first year as president was a massive success……….it does not register in their brains.

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-12-21/donald-trump-is-the-most-successful-first-year-president-of-all-time

TA
Reply to  Mike Maguire
January 12, 2018 9:06 pm

“Doesn’t matter what is being stated. Donald Trump is worse than Adolf Hitler and despite the evidence of his actions clearly demonstrating that he really is for making America Great and his first year as president was a massive success……….it does not register in their brains.”

That’s right. The radical Leftists believe what they want to believe and ignore anything that doesn’t fit the Leftist narrative. To them Trump and all Republcians are racist and worse. They really believe it. They must live in a very scary world in their minds. I wouldn’t want to feel like Hitler was running my country. That would be stressful. But that’s what they think.

The trick is to understand that the Leftists are not going to see the light anytime soon, they are going to continue down the character assasination path and we might as well get used to it and tune it out because for all their trying, they are not keeping Trump from carrying out his agenda. They are slowing him down, but not stopping him.

Meanwhile Trump’s support is getting stronger and will get stronger still as the American economy shifts into high gear.

Trump can use his bully pulpit to go promote lots of Republican Congressional candidates, and maybe he can put a huge dent in the Democrat’s numbers. That would be one way to hamper the Democrats slowwalking of Trump’s agenda.

January 12, 2018 1:52 pm

The left are racists. Pure Russophobic racists. They are resorting to the old trick – uniting their base against a foreign racial enemy, the untermenschen in the east. Since they are buying wholesale into Hit1er’s narrative about Slavs being sub-human, how long before an article appears in Mother Jones, the WSJ or Guardian rehabilitating Hit1er?

ralfellis
January 12, 2018 2:04 pm

Well it was a Russian who hacked the Climategate emails. But she did it for ideological reasons, not political reasons. I did track down the city they came from, but that is all water under the bridge now.

Ralph

Reply to  ralfellis
January 12, 2018 2:48 pm

But, of course, “Climate Change” has made it flood waters under the bridge.

kramer
January 12, 2018 2:07 pm

Does the motherjones article note that the person who chaired the 1987 report “Our Common Future” which apparently is where sustainable living came from is a VP in socialistinternational.org?

Does the motherjones article note that Russian leaders when in Russia when it was communist were pushing for socialism? Why not push for communism since it was a communist country? Or change from communism to socialism? Same with the current leader of China, he’s on record of supporting socialism. So why not change from communist to socialist?

Could it be the socialism is a gateway political avenue towards communism and that once the entire world is socialist, the communist clamps will come down and we’ll be electronically monitored and controlled 24/7/365?

Craig W
January 12, 2018 2:26 pm

They forgot to hang the “dossier” mash-up on the Russians.
Isn’t it a bit racist to blame Russians for everything the left cannot control?

MarkW
January 12, 2018 2:44 pm

Even if it was a hack, so freaking what.
They have never denied that the emails released in either ClimateGate or the Democrat server embroligio were accurate.
How the data got out is only an issue to criminal investigators. It’s the data itself that is so damning.

Rick
January 12, 2018 2:54 pm

There are many links that reprise the events that came to be known as Climategate.
I found this excellent summary here in the WUWT archives.
https://climateaudit.org/2010/01/12/the-mosher-timeline/

Rick
Reply to  Rick
January 12, 2018 3:32 pm

Interesting conjecture here:
“The last email exchange within the Climategate files is November 12, 2009. Within the tight circle of climate skeptics, the significance of this date is telling. It is coincidentally the day before a crucial piece of information was denied to the peer-to-peer reviewers.

On November 13, 2009, a letter was sent by the Director of Information Services at the University of East Anglia to Steve McIntyre refusing his request for temperature data under the UK’s version of the Freedom of Information Act. The timing of the denial, which was a day after the last email in the Climategate files, and the fact that the files were titled FOIA.zip and FOI2009.zip, which are both abbreviated references to this Act, provides a striking indication to the impetus of the leak. This denial may have been just enough to incite someone from within the guarded establishment to give others a peak behind the green curtain.”

Reply to  Rick
January 13, 2018 1:44 am

Rick, that is a very interesting insight! Thank you for sharing it. It does, indeed, seem like the most plausible explanation for the Climategate whistleblower’s choice to call himself or herself “FOIA.”

Jeff Wilson
January 12, 2018 4:22 pm

Don’t forget the climate scientist’s own emails and the hiding thereof as a culprit.

Ian H
January 12, 2018 5:25 pm

If the Russians did it, which I very much doubt, then THANK YOU Russia for SAVING the west from folly and falsehood and for revealing the truth!

Is Mother Jones really saying that coverups and lies are essential for the functioning of western civilisation. Somebody over there has their brain switched off; or maybe they all do. It is hard to find signs of intelligent life on Mother Jones.

clipe
January 12, 2018 5:55 pm

Those pesky Russians

Like an Aristophanes satire, like Hamlet, it opens with two slaves, spear-carriers, little people. Footsoldiers of history, two researchers in a corrupt and impoverished mid-90s Russia schlep through the tundra to take core samples from trees at the behest of the bigger fish in far-off East Anglia. Stepan and Rashit don’t even have their own e-mail address and like characters in some absurdist comedy must pass jointly under the name of Tatiana M. Dedkova. Conscientious and obliging, they strike a human note all through this drama. Their talk is of mundane material concerns, the smallness of funds, the expense of helicopters, the scramble for grants. They are the ones who get their hands dirty…

http://web.archive.org/web/20120108014900/http://michaelkelly.artofeurope.com/cru.htm

clipe
Reply to  clipe
January 12, 2018 7:36 pm

Not to mention being “bited” by mosquitoes.

eyesonu
January 12, 2018 6:21 pm

“Podesta, a leading advocate of climate action during the Obama years, describes Climategate as an early example of hackers conspiring “to take the fruits of illegal behavior, weaponize them, then use them in a political context.”

============

Well kiss my ass. I don’t give a damn how the illegal behavior was released. I was online when it occurred and grateful to whoever did it.

Thank you FOIA. I’ll have a beer in your honor. Only got 3 more to go ( https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/12/oh-gosh-this-is-going-to-cause-some-heads-to-explode/#comment-2715797 ).

eyesonu
Reply to  eyesonu
January 12, 2018 6:42 pm

And as for the Podesta and DNC emails, the crooks seem to be a-whining ’cause they got exposed!

A little time out for bad behavior would be in order … 20 years to life?

eyesonu
Reply to  eyesonu
January 13, 2018 8:01 am

By the way, I understand “to take the fruits of illegal behavior, …” to be the illegal behavior of the “team” who should have faced charges of fr@ud.

TA
January 12, 2018 9:13 pm

From the article: Seven years earlier, Trump was riffing on a very different set of hacked emails. The real estate mogul had called into Fox News after a blizzard to declare that climate change was a hoax. Trump claimed that “one of the leaders of global warming” had recently admitted in a private email that years of scientific research were nothing but “a con.”

It seems Trump has considered CAGW a con for a very long time. I wonder if he read the details of the Climategate emails. I’ll bet he did.

TA
January 12, 2018 9:16 pm

From the article: “Podesta, a leading advocate of climate action during the Obama years, describes Climategate as an early example of hackers conspiring “to take the fruits of illegal behavior, weaponize them, then use them in a political context.”

That sounds like what the Democrats did with the Trump “Dirty Dossier”.

TA
January 12, 2018 9:20 pm

From the article: “The DNC was hacked by two groups associated with Russian intelligence—one starting in 2015 and another in 2016”

How do we know this? The DNC refused to turn their servers over to the FBI. Instead, they had a private company look at them, so we will probably never know the truth about this.

TA
January 12, 2018 9:24 pm

From the article: “There is evidence Russia is concerned about Western obsession with Russian political interference. Putin recently accused Russia conspiracists of “Political Schizophrenia”.”

That’s a pretty good description of the way the Democrats and the Leftwing News Media are behaving over the Fake “Trump/Russians” story.

Amber
January 13, 2018 12:12 am

Well if Russia did it then congrats . Climategate exposed a little clique of climate promoters and their less than scientific tactics . Hide the decline . It makes no sense the Russians would be anti Clinton she was in their pocket . Uranium 1 , and massive Russian donations . Nah, Seth Rich died for leaking the Democrat
sleaze and the Russians had zero to do with it .

Roger Knights
January 13, 2018 9:54 am

Here’s an interesting possibility. First a fact: UEA hired a PR firm to guide them in the aftermath of Climategate. Folwg the, it was leaked to the press that Phil Jones was considering suicide because of the stress he was under. Public sympathy was acquired, because he played the victim card, perhaps at the behest of the PR firm.

What if the brass at UEA had a suspicion of the identity of the leaker, which they confidsed to the PR firm? I suspect (medium confidence) that its advice would have been to not expose him, which would have made him a victim for speaking truth to power and a whistleblower beleaguered by a black-hat big organization. The rational, sophisticated (and Machiavellian) position to take would have been to pose as having no idea who might have leaked the material, and to blame the release on outside hackers. That way UEA would get to play the victim card. As it did. (Medium confidence)

David Cage
January 13, 2018 11:41 am

Climategate was not a hack it was an administrative bungle but calling it a hack means that anyone releasing data has the worry of an expensive court case against a well funded lobby group. Clever if amoral.

Exile
January 14, 2018 7:56 pm

I remember when “a miracle has happened” happened. Glorious day, buried by the mainstream media.