In papers sent to UVA April 23, [Virginia Attorney General ] Cuccinelli’s office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann— now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State— was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.
If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.
[…]
Among the documents Cuccinelli demands are any and all emailed or written correspondence between or relating to Mann and more than 40 climate scientists, documents supporting any of five applications for the $484,875 in grants, and evidence of any documents that no longer exist along with proof of why, when, and how they were destroyed or disappeared.
Love it. Full and complete disclosure.
When you think of it though, it’s a pity this is being done post-application?
This is like a lawyer whose client is serving his sentence finding out that the Crown Attorney withheld evidence.
It should be a requirement of the grant application process that full disclosure of “all” the relevant facts accompany any application. This would include scientific evidence that exculpates the AGW theory.
go get him . . . wonder if this will affect his career?
Go after him with ‘lawfare’ until he wishes he’d become funeral director. We need to hang one of them in the town square as a deterent to other climate fraud artists.
If you spend government money, you can fall under government scrutiny. If you don’t lie or cover up, you’ll have nothing to worry about.
Cuccinelli could take a tip from Mantracker and “know your prey”.
The rats will be running for their holes!
Let’s see what the obama administration says about this – i bet they go on about how this action threatens scientific freedom.
I want to see a lot of people broken and broke. I want to see humiliation. I want researchers to look at the bunch of them as a horrible example of what happens when you get caught. Tenure pfft, pick it up on the way out.
It is remarkable that Cuccinelli has not yet been labled a racist—-he already is labled a homo-phobe.
The hysterical reaction by the lefties is just further proof of fraud. They do not address the science but engage in ad hominum attacks.
These review etc so far are just white-washes by the perpetrators. We don’t allow the Police to investigate Police. Why allow the rent seekers to investigate the rent seekers?
Over at PZ Meyer’s blog “Pharyngula”, the “scientists and their minions who are nothing but pointy-headed “brights”, are having kittens over this.
Every reason posted here for the investigation, they are crying and whimpering and wringing their hands like this is the greatest disservice which has been perpetuated on the scientific community since Galileo. Bwaaaahhhhaaaaahhhhhaaaa!
They are even making the Galileo comparison.
Scientific fraud is a very scary thing to the hucksters of “scientific data manipulators”. Cut off their funding and let them work with their hands to raise the funds so they can not waste any time on frivolities.
According to one of the posters over there, the money from grants, like the one being investigated, are for the summer research season(3 months of no pay down there), for the use of labs, computers, super-computers, travel to conferences to talk about ideas and research, and of course, summer salary!!
I should have stayed in school…what a con-job!
I have zero time for Mann’s conclusions, but I can’t understand all the fuss. $450,000 over six years? That’s an average of $75,000 a year, and there are TTC drivers who make more than that. I doubt that Mann did all the work himself; he probably hired some grad students to assist. That, and other costs, would eat up the money quickly.
And it’s not like Mann got a personal cheque; the money would be paid to the university, and they have a lot of overhead that needs to be paid for.
When I worked at U of T, it became pretty obvious that research goes on all year, not just the summer – at least in the engineering faculty. One of the profs even told me that he did not enjoy having to teach undergrads; he was much more interested in his research. The lectures were a “necessary evil” to him. I don’t doubt the pace of research picks up in the summer, but it certainly goes on all year.
And really – all this fuss for $75,000 a year? In a state like Virginia, that’s an accounting error. And Cuccinneli is probably going to spend that and more in his pursuit. Someone is going to have to read all those emails!
This just seems to be an attention getting device for a guy running for re-election.
What really got me was the statement Cuccinelli wants “evidence of any documents that no longer exist along with proof of why, when, and how they were destroyed or disappeared.” Er, who keeps emails for five years, let alone ten? And how would he know what documents “no longer exist”? If Mann did have any damning evidence, you can bet the paper shredder and trash button are getting a workout, and how would Cuccinelli ever know?
Ah yes, Attorney General for Virginia. “Bobby” Lee
was from Virginia, wasn’t he?
A great man; pity he was on the wrong side – or was he?
Lest this be thought racist I note that Lee personally opposed slavery.
KevinB – we must not forget that the whole carbon trading cap and trading economy of nothing was supported by the AGW hypothesis “proved” by the “research” of this man and his co-conspirators. If we get into that trading in a big way as is planned, the economic meltdown that will inevitably follow when we start rewarding companies for not producing and the artificial reward for not producing exceeds the real reward for producing will make the finacial crisis we just went through seem like small beer.
The investigation and prosecution needs to occur to stop the lunacy.
Mann is only one researcher, as we heard in the recent climate series on Steve Pakins Agenda Programme,There are 15 to 20 research teams world wide. each team has 15 or so members all getting around $75-100 thou a year.This adds up to over 16 million a year, all pushing out projections based on false data .Apparently this gravy train has been going on for over a decade. the amount of money involved is staggering.It makes the Lib’s Adscam look like couch change.
Sceptics are accused of being in the thrall of “Big Oil”, what about the reliance on predetermined outcome research grants?
// Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has only been in office since January, but he’s already demonstrated that Virginians accidentally elected a crazy person.
[…]
In an overlooked recording from the campaign trail, candidate Cuccinelli told a crowd that he was considering not registering his son for a Social Security number because “it is being used to track you.” //
A lot of official Virginia insignias show a woman “Virtue” standing over a fallen figure representing royalty. Probably in compensation for the fact that Virginia was established by supporters of Charles I.
Anyway, virtue has one uncovered tit & Puccinelli wants to get her to cover up. He knows what’s important.
This search being FOIsted on the university is supposed to be in defense of taxpayer’s money. The university should send him a detailed invoice & demand payment in advance.
ditzzy
when one holds out their hand, one must be able to be held accountable
and as far as the “cost” to the university, they could just shun any and all gov’t grants, and thusly be held to legal standards, rather then “economic” standards
ACCOUNTABILITY, THE MORAL PILLAR OF THE RIGHT
“I want to see a lot of people broken and broke. I want to see humiliation.”
I concur wholeheartedly. Broken, broke and humiliated, Let’s add incarcerated to that list of adjectives.
I would thoroughly enjoy the thought of Gore and Suzuki sharing a cell or, barring that, fighting tooth and nail over a carboard box to sleep in or a dumpster from which to dine.
GYN // when one holds out their hand, one must be able to be held accountable //
Except that
only one of the grants, was funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Mann was not the PI on it. All the others are from federal sources and the Virginia statute cited does not give the AG the authority to investigate those. Definitely a fishing expedition/harassment.
// ACCOUNTABILITY, THE MORAL PILLAR OF THE RIGHT //
Don’t shout. You might embarrass Stephen.