Cuccinelli vs. UVA

The University of Virginia has chosen to fight Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's demand for documents related to the research of controversial climate scientist Michael Mann. Cucinelli demanded extensive documentation about Mann's reserach under a statute governing fraudulent expenditure of state funds. UVA's attorneys drafted a letter demanding that Cucinelli justify his bizarre demand for Mann's papers and emails. Cuccinelli has responded, and the Union of Concerned Scientists got a look at his response. It seems that a lot of Cuccinelli's argument has to do with emails liberated from the climate research center at the University of East Anglia in England. The UCS writes:

Cuccinelli's response acknowledges the existence of investigations that have cleared Mann and other scientists of misconduct charges stemming from emails stolen from a British university last year, claiming those investigations "speak for themselves." But Cuccinelli's response repeats misleading claims to justify his subpoena, despite the fact that the investigations he referenced debunked the claims he is making. Furthermore, he gets basic facts wrong about the content of the emails.

Cuccinelli's response contains three misrepresentations of the stolen emails, two of which have been discredited by previous investigations.

This is not going to amount to anything but a big embarrassment for the State of Virginia. Even should Cucinnelli ever manage to bring Mann to trial for fraud, Hollywood eco-liberals will raise millions for his defense and he will have the kind of lawyers and Nobel Prize-winning defense experts who make Cucinnelli look like a complete idiot -- which, it seems, he is. Cuccinelli knows nothing about either science, scientists, true believers -- does he seriously think that harassment by a conservative government is going to dissuade believers in a coming climate catastrophe? -- or public relations.