SUPER SHORT SUMMARY

The FISA/Carter Page Application based on the Steele Dossier was correctly characterized by Carter Page, as “complete garbage.” None of the allegations pertaining to Carter Page (who was the legal target of the Application) was even close to being correct. For those interested in the details, I have written the following.

INTRODUCTION

Through deflection, stupidity and dishonesty, people opposed to Trump try to give the Steele Dossier a veneer of respectability and do not look at the underlying facts. An example of a spectacularly stupid analysis is this from an article in the Atlantic Magazine written by David Graham discussing Page:

“The former Trump aide’s appearance before the House Intelligence Committee suggests a man deeply connected in Russia—and in way over his head.

The old adage that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client has seldom been demonstrated quite so colorfully as in the transcript of Carter Page’s testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on November 2.”

www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/carter-page-international-man-of-mystery/545159/

The Steele Dossier, when viewed through the lens of the purpose for which it was used, to spy on Carter Page, through the mechanism of a FISA Application, was 100%, not 99%, but 100% wrong. The purpose of this post is to cut through superfluous issues and deflections and to show just how bad and indefensible the Dossier was and is. To show how the Application was a total failure, and a huge violation of civil liberties, it is necessary to discuss its background and the extremely clear factual misstatements that were contained in it.

The Dossier began as political opposition research against Trump funneled through a Democratic law firm, Perkins Coie that hired Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS. Simpson in turn, hired ex British spy, Christopher Steele who was virulently anti-Trump.. Steele claimed to have discovered improper Trump campaign contacts with Russia, and then pushed his findings through back channel intelligence operatives who were also anti-Trump. The anti-Trump intelligence operatives, Andrew McCabe (FBI Deputy Director), Lisa Page McCabe’s lawyer and Peter Strzok, high ranking FBI agent, worked to get an Application filed authorizing spying on Carter Page, an unpaid volunteer for the Trump campaign and graduate of the Naval Academy. Upon getting wind of the statements about him that Steele had made claiming that Page had improper Russian contacts, Page publicly called them “complete garbage” a month before the Application was filed, (See https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/carter-page-steps-down-from-campaign) and no one from the FBI bothered to interview him until about 5 months after the filing of the Oct. 21, 2016 Application.

The end of this blog post includes links (Sec. A) to the actual FISA Application, to Carter Page’s testimony before Congress and to the testimony of Bruce Ohr, who was the back channel FBI person that Steele approached on July 30, 2016 seeking to jump start an investigation. It also includes (Sec. B) factually wrong statements from the Dossier and (Sec. C) erroneous and stupid statements made by the media that shows how incompetent and biased these writers were. Additionally, in Sec. D there is a listing of the players involved along with a partial timeline.

II. Background on Fusion GPS (Glenn Simpson) and Christopher Steele (owned Orbis firm) and the Simpson/Steele contacts with the FBI.

After having finished opposition research for Republicans opposed to Trump, Simpson approached the law firm of Perkins Coie (which did work for Democrats) to see if it was interested in similar research for Democrats on Trump’s activities in Russia. [https://www.theepochtimes.com/spygate-the-inside-story-behind-the-alleged-plot-to-take-down-trump_2833074.html p. 8] Fusion was in fact hired by Perkins Coie to do that work and Fusion in turn, hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele to get non-open source information from Steele’s contacts with Russia around May/June of 2016 even though Steele had not been in Russia since 2009. (See Simpson Trans p. 77. Also, New Yorker Magazine article in Appendix) Also, it should be noted that Nellie Ohr, the wife of No. 4 DOJ lawyer, Bruce Ohr did Russia/Trump research for Fusion.

Steele started turning in alarming reports on Trump’s activities in Russia, and Simpson claimed that he felt a duty to inform the US Government. Instead of going through the regular channels, and passing the information to those people assigned to investigate Russia, Simpson and Steele passed their information to Bruce Ohr, who worked for the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force at the DOJ. Steele made the first personal contact with Ohr and his wife concerning the Trump campaign collusion issues on July 30, 2016. Ohr took the information to Andy McCabe (Deputy Director of FBI and virulently anti-Trump) and Lisa Page (FBI lawyer who was virulently anti-Trump) most probably in early August of 2016. (See Ohr transcript beginning on p. 25) After meeting with McCabe and Lisa Page, the information was also transmitted to FBI agent, Peter Strzok, who was also virulently anti-Trump and who headed the FBI’s Russia investigation. (Ohr transcript p. 25)

III. Steele Information on Carter Page, an Unpaid Informal Advisor to Trump Campaign

Over time Steele complied 17 separate informal reports that dealt with supposed Trump or Trump campaign contacts with Russia. (The 17th done after the original Fisa Application was filed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Russia_dossier. ) Collectively, they are known as the Steele Dossier. The point of this post is to focus on the Steele Dossier and its connection to Carter Page. It is very important to realize that all the Dossier is when the FISA application is excluded is the allegations/findings of an ex-British spy. Without the Dossier being linked to the Application, Steele is just one voice among many making claims about Trump/Russia connections.

The Dossier made three main allegations against Carter Page. 1. That he met with Igor Sechin (the president of the very large Rosneft oil co.) in July 2016 and among other things, Steele claimed that Page implied that sanctions would be lifted if Trump became President. 2. That Sechin offered Trump a brokerage fee on the sale of a 19% portion of Rosneft in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against Russia. 3. That Page had met with Igor Diveykin, a senior police official in Putin’s administration and Diveykin offered to supply dirt on Clinton to the Trump campaign. Additionally, it is significant that the Dossier made 14 statements about Michael Cohen, and according to Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis (a Clinton lawyer), they were all wrong. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/08/22/lanny_davis_so_called_dossier_false_cohen_never_prague.html#! )

As noted previously, on Sept. 26, 2016, Page called the allegations “complete garbage.” Nonetheless, a FISA application seeking the authority to spy on Page was filed on October 21, 2016. See “B” in Appendix for actual statements made in Steele Dossier.

IV. The Carter Page FISA Application

At the beginning of the Application, it states: “The target of this application is Carter W. Page, a U.S. person, and an agent of a foreign power, …” Steele (he was referred to as Source No. 1) provided the information regarding Page for the Application, and the FBI in the Application stated that although the hiring entity for Steele was likely seeking opposition campaign research (p. 16 FISA) that:

“Notwithstanding Source #l’s reason for conducting the research into Candidate #l’s ties to Russia, based on Source #l’s previous reporting historywith the FBI, whereby Source #1 provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Source #1’s reporting herein to be credible.”

.

The supposed meeting with Sechin was discussed on p. 17 of the initial application and the supposed meeting with Diveykin was discussed on p. 18. (See in appendix) The brokerage commission that Page had allegedly sought that was mentioned in the Dossier was not mentioned in the Application. James Comey, another Anti-Trumper and Sally Yates who also turned out to be a strong Anti-Trumper signed the Application that allowed 90 days of spying. The Application was renewed 3 additional times.

V. Carter Page Testimony and Context

Page unequivocally denied the Steele Dossier/Fisa Application in Congressional testimony as well as contacts with significant members of the Trump team; thus subjecting himself to criminal prosecution if he lied.

On page 25 of his congressional testimony Page stated:

“Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, and Mr. Diveykin, someone who I had never even heard of in my life. And each of these people, I’ve never met in my life.”

.

******** (From p. 138)

“MR. SCHIFF: And in July, did you discuss with him the potential sale of a significant percentage of Rosneft? ….
PAGE: There was never any discussion of any — my involvement in that deal in anyway, shape or form.”

.

******** P. 232

SCHIFF: Any contact with Michael Cohen ?
PAGE: No.
SCHIFF: Donald Trump Junior?
PAGE: No.

.

******* P. 240.

SCHIFF: Have you had any communication with Guccifer 2?
PAGE: No.
SCHIFF: Or DCIeaks?
PAGE: Never.
SCHIFF: Wikileaks or Julian Assange ?
PAGE: No.

.

VI. Why It Is Clear that Carter Page Is Completely Innocent and the FISA Application Was Totally Unjustified.

During the course of the Mueller investigation, it was clear that he would file perjury charges at the drop of a hat. Mueller had the benefit of about 250 days of spying on Page and of about 2,800 subpenas that were filed. Page completely and unambiguously denied the claims that he was colluding with Sechin and Divyekin stating before a Congressional Committee (without even a lawyer to represent him) stating that he had never even met either person. If Page was lying, it would have been easy to prove his dishonesty. Conversely, in this situation, the lack of any charges proves Page’s honesty and innocence.

The clarity of the charges against Page, and the complete refutation of them, illustrates another very important point; Steele’s Dossier was either extremely poorly vetted or an outright fraud. It would be understandable if Steele was partly correct and partly incorrect, but when he is 100% wrong, it shows either total incompetence or fraud. The fact that Steele was also wrong with respect to Michael Cohen is also indicative of, at best, the very low quality of the Dossier.

Therefore, the various signers of the Application, including Comey and Yates can’t claim that a good faith effort was made and that unavoidable or understandable mistakes occurred. The circumstances concerning the source of the Dossier (Democrat paid opposition research), the shopping of the Dossier by someone “desperate to stop Trump” (See Ohr Transcript p. 30)and the irregular back channels through which it passed, the very biased people who worked with the Dossier (such as McCabe, Lisa Page and Strzok) along with the complete failure of the factual allegations all point to the conclusion that the Application shouldn’t have been filed and that the great probability is that it was filed to improperly spy on the Trump campaign.

VII. Linking the Pieces Together

Rather than approaching Page directly and checking whether the reports about him were accurate, notwithstanding Page calling the Dossier’s statement about him “garbage” on 9/26/16, Comey and Yates went ahead with the FISA Application and filed it on October 21, 2016. As bad as that was, renewing it 3 more times (including one time when Trump was President) is truly disgraceful. After 20 or 30 days, it had to be apparent, at the very least, how weak the evidence was. If Comey and the DOJ were truly concerned about Page (instead of continuing a fishing expedition), they would have approached him directly. Instead, no one from the FBI contacted him until March of 2017, when he was questioned 4 times without a lawyer. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/26/fbi-interviewed-ex-trump-adviser-carter-page-russia-investigation/430484001/ Essentially, it was hear no evil and see no evil until March which makes no sense if you are truly interested in finding out the facts pertaining to Page.

Thus, in essence, there was extensive spying on the Trump campaign predicated on the actions of an unpaid volunteer who was accused of collusion with high level Russian officials – an implausible claim at the outset. This is greatly compounded by the strong animosity of Steele, and of course, by the strong bias of intelligence officials in the Obama administration who were running the Russia investigation.

Notwithstanding the very strong indications of bias and incompetence that were part of the Fisa Application, many on the Left deflect and claim that because there was some evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election that the Steele Dossier was a reasonably accurate source of general intelligence on Russia. See for instance, https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/none-disproven-msnbcs-nicolle-wallace-fact-checks-trump-attacks-salacious-steele-dossier/ This is a faulty mode of analysis because the specific allegations as they pertained to Carter Page were completely false. Additionally, the 14 allegations concerning Michael Cohen, particularly including the claim that he visited Prague to engage in collusion, were also false.

VIII. Benefit of Hindsight

It is commonly said that, it is easy to be correct with hindsight. In this instance, hindsight is particularly instructive. In the beginning, it would be possible for an outsider looking at the facts to believe that there might have been some legitimate justification for the Page/Fisa Application. However, the actual fact that Page had none of the contacts with the Russians that were alleged in the Application means that there is no serious argument that can be made that the Application has even a scintilla of validity. Between the completely wrong facts, and the manner in which the application was shepherded through the FISA Court by Trump’s political enemies, there is a very simple explanation for how the Application was incorrect; Obama operatives were very receptive to information that would be harmful to Trump and either didn’t care whether it was accurate, or knowingly filed a false Application.

CONCLUSION

To prevent the abuses that occurred with the filing of four Carter Page/FISA Applications based on the Steele Dossier, there needs to be real disincentives to prevent improper spying on Americans. The Carter Page episode shows that for moderately slick officials, there are practically no restrictions on unauthorized spying. Michael Flynn has suffered greatly for a comparatively minor transgression. So far, no one responsible for the Page FISA Application has paid any price for their role in it.

I realize that spying is an inherently sketchy business that is not for altar boys. On the other hand, officials who are permitted to spy on anyone with impunity are a risk to democracy, much more than foreign influence. With Mueller’s report having been filed, hopefully there will now be a searching examination of those associated with the filing of the FISA Application and they will be subjected to the same justice that was rendered to Flynn.

JD Ohio

[For those interested in my background, I am a lawyer who has had 150 jury trials. Also, because Lucia’s Blackboard is not being indexed by search engines, I will probably post this at another blog shortly. Quite often the comments here are good, and I would like to start here.]

APPENDIX

A. Links

FISA Application: https://heavy.com/news/2018/07/carter-page-fisa-warrant-application-read-the-documents/

Steele Dossier: https://www.scribd.com/document/369319684/The-Steele-Dossier

Summary of Dossier: https://www.bing.com/search?q=steele+dossier+allegations+and+sources+summary&pc=MOZI&form=MOZLBRhttps://www.bing.com/search?q=steele+dossier+allegations+and+sources+summary&pc=MOZI&form=MOZLBR (Second hit is pdf)

Carter Page Testimony: The Hill.com

Glenn Simpson Testimony at Scribd.

B. Actual Statements from Steele Dossier.

(From P. 7) — Speaking in confidence to a compatriot in late July 2016, Source E, an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP, admitted that there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership. This was managed on the TRUMP side by the Republican candidates campaign manager, Paul MANAFORT, who was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries.

****** (From P. 9)

TRUMP advisor Carter PAGE holds secret meetings in Moscow with SECHIN and senior Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN

SECHIN raises issues of future bilateral US-Russia energy co-operationand associated lifting of western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. PAGE non-committal in response

DIVEYKIN discusses release of Russian dossier of ‘kompromat’ onTRUMP’s opponent, Hillary CLINTON, but also hints at Kremlin possession of such material on TRUMP

C. Wrong Statements made by the Media

********** New Yorker Magazine https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier/amp

“Winer recalls Steele saying that he “was more certain of it than about any information he’d gotten before in his life.” (Emphasis added) Winer told me.

Key elements of Steele’s memos on Carter Page have held up, too, including the claim that Page had secret meetings in Moscow with Rosneft and Kremlin officials. (Emphasis added) Steele may have named the wrong oil-company official, but, according to recent congressional disclosures, he was correct that a top Rosneft executive talked to Page about a payoff.

Regardless of what others might think, it’s clear that Steele believed that his dossier was filled with important intelligence. Otherwise, he would never have subjected it, his firm, and his reputation to the harsh scrutiny of the F.B.I. “I’m impressed that he was willing to share it with the F.B.I.,” Sipher said. “That gives him real credibility to me, the notion that he’d give it to the best intelligence professionals in the world.”

The dossier may or may not have erred in its naming of specific officials, but it was clearly prescient in its revelation that during the Presidential campaign a covert relationship had been established between Page and powerful Russians who wanted U.S. sanctions lifted. Trump and his advisers have repeatedly denied having colluded with Russians.

Obama stayed silent. All through the campaign, he and others in his Administration had insisted on playing by the rules, and not interfering unduly in the election, to the point that, after Trump’s victory, some critics accused them of political negligence. The Democrats, far from being engaged in a political conspiracy with Steele, had been politically paralyzed by their high-mindedness.

The most serious accusation these critics make is that the F.B.I. tricked the fisa Court into granting a warrant to spy on Trump associates on the basis of false and politically motivated opposition research. If true, this would be a major abuse of power. But the Bureau didn’t trick the court—it openly disclosed that Steele’s funding was political.

****** Lawfare Blog https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-dossier-retrospective

“In it, Ranking Member Schiff describes the FBI’s wholly independent basis for investigating Page’s long-established connections to Russia, aside from the Steele dossier, and emphasizes that the Justice Department possessed information “obtained through multiple independent sources that corroborated Steele’s reporting” with respect to Page.

As a raw intelligence document, the Steele dossier, we believe, holds up well so far.”

******* MSNBC https://www.rawstory.com/2018/12/none-disproven-msnbcs-nicolle-wallace-fact-checks-trump-attacks-salacious-steele-dossier/

“’None of it has been disproven’”: MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace fact-checks Trump attacks on salacious Steele dossier”

D. Players and Basic Timeline

1. Carter Page: Unpaid volunteer member of informal group advising Trump Campaign. Naval Academy graduate and academic, with interests in Russia. Attended academic event dealing with Russia in Great Britain in July of 2016.

2. Christopher Steele: Former British spy with Russian experience. Was desperate to defeat Trump. Wrote 17 short informal notes dealing with supposed Russian collusion by Trump campaign that have been referred to as Steele Dossier during 2016. Was hired by Simpson in May or June 2016.

3. Glenn Simpson: A principal of Fusion GPS, which was hired by Perkins Coie, a law firm working for the Hillary Clinton campaign, to perform opposition research on Trump in April of 2016. Previous contract to do opposition research for Republican opponents of Trump had expired.

4. Bruce Ohr: Fourth ranked DOJ lawyer worked in drug enforcement, not counter-intelligence. Nonetheless, Christopher Steele shepherded his Dossier through Ohr, an irregular channel, in late July 2016 in an attempt to get the FBI to investigate. Ohr took the information to:

5. Andy McCabe (Deputy Director of FBI and virulently anti-Trump) and Lisa Page (FBI lawyer who is virulently anti-Trump)

6. Peter Strzok (virulently anti-Trump FBI agent and lover of Page) who was the head of the Russia Counterintelligence operation that began in late July of 2016. McCabe and Page passed on Ohr’s information to Strzok.

Note of format: The wordpress editor changed in the past few weeks, it is overriding some editing options JD and I would prefer. I’m going to try to figure out how to enforce what I want…. eventually. If an editing choice seems weird, it may well be because the WordPress was not permitting the conventional one. — Lucia

Analysis of Court of Appeals’ Defamation Opinion Holding That
Climategate Inquiries Exonerated Michael Mann

Foreword

I have followed climate matters for a long time and have been aware of the inquiries that followed Climategate. So, instinctively, when Michael Mann claimed that Climategate inquiries exonerated him, I believed the claim was incorrect. There were four inquiries that the appellate Court focused on (See p. 96 of court opinion which referred to “four separate investigations”) which accepted Mann’s argument that he had been exonerated. See link to opinion: https://cei.org/litigation/michael-e-mann-v-national-review-and-cei-et-al The Court’s identification of the inquiries was confusing, but I will focus on the main reports that seem to be the basis for the Court’s conclusion. Having reviewed the inquiries closely, my opinion is still that the investigations did not exonerate Mann.

Some of the emails are misleading, and the various reports and graphs that are important to the resolution of this case are very hard to keep track of. If one attempts to dive in the middle of this dispute without having a clear idea of the background, it is easy to get sucked down a rathole of confusing and overlapping studies, graphs, emails and inquiries. The point of this blog post is to create an accurate reference work that is comparatively easy to follow. So, although it is somewhat tedious, I have gone into a good amount of detail on what would otherwise be minor details.

Concise Summary of Findings

Although the Court was not always clear as to what four studies it was looking at (See *** at end of this post), here is a brief description of my findings pertaining to the studies most relevant to the Court opinion.

1. Muir Russell Report (also called called the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review (ICCER): This report was commissioned by the University of East Anglia (UEA) to look at issues that arose concerning the UEA following the release of 1073 UEA emails. Although Mann was mentioned in some of the emails, the real focus was on the academic integrity of the UEA. It could not exonerate Mann. The House of Commons reviewed Muir Russell, and the Court subsumed Muir Russell under the United Kingdom House of Commons Report.

2. Oxburgh Report (formally known as the “Science Appraisal Panel of Climatic Research Unit of University of East Anglia): This report was reviewed by the House of Commons report. It didn’t even mention Mann or any of his publications.

3. Penn State Two Stage Inquiry: These reports did not closely examine scientific criticism of Mann’s work, and Penn State totally flubbed the investigation into whether, at the very least, Mann indirectly took part in an email deletion scheme when he forwarded an email from Phil Jones to Gene Wahl asking for the deletion of emails pertaining to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC.

4. National Science Foundation (NSF) Close-Out Memo regarding Penn State investigation of Michael Mann. This Memo is completely unsubstantiated; it is not clear who wrote the memo or did the underlying work. Also, although it is widely believed that it is referring to Penn State and Mann, it never explicitly names either.

5. EPA Reconsideration of Endangerment Finding: On p. 83 of the opinion, the Court referred to the EPA as having found that the science underlying the Hockey Stick was valid. When the EPA did look at Mann specifically, it downplayed his contributions, and he was only mentioned once in the Reconsideration Report. (See p. 85 of report) Since the EPA’s consideration of Mann was so skimpy, and was only briefly mentioned by the Court, I will not discuss it further.

Overview of Important Science and Email Issues
Useful to Understanding the Legal Dispute

I. Problems with Tree Proxies (Divergence)

Around 1960, tree proxies which seemed to be accurate indicators of rising and falling temperatures began showing declines (less growth and density), when the instrumental records were showing rising temperatures. There seems to be no doubt that a number of tree proxies were simply inaccurate after 1960. See https://climateaudit.org/2008/11/30/criag-loehle-on-the-divergence-problem/ Thus, to the extent that tree proxies were known to be inaccurate it is sometimes reasonable, with full DISCLOSURE, to splice together old tree proxies from, say 500 years ago up to 1960 with instrumental records. If you continued with tree proxies known to be defective, it would obviously be wrong.

The problem with tree proxies raises a huge issue. If they aren’t accurate now, how do we know that they were accurate four or eight hundred years ago? The answer is that we don’t know. However, for some reason, a lot of skeptics place the vast majority of their focus on the instrumental temperatures and not the fairly easy question dealing with the apparent unreliability of proxies. It seems to me that the only way anyone can say that today’s global average temperatures (for example) are, let’s say 2.5 degrees C higher than those in the 10th century is to preface that statement with the qualifier, my best guess is….

II. The Misleading “Hide the Decline” Email

From Phil Jones: “I’ve just completed Mike’s [Mann’s] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

From: Phil Jones [November 1999]
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx

Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim’s got a diagram here we’ll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray.

Cheers
Phil

Prof. Phil Jones
Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) xxxxx
School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) xxxx
University of East Anglia
Norwich Email p.jones@xxxx.xxx
See https://climateaudit.org/2009/11/20/mike%e2%80%99s-nature-trick/

(See also Climate Audit: “The Jones rick has been explained in previous CA posts … and consists of replacing the tree ring data with temperature data after 1960 – thereby hiding the decline – and then showing the smoothed graph as a proxy reconstruction.) https://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/

When you first hear the phrase “hide the decline,” it is easy to believe that the speaker is talking about hiding a real decline in instrumental temperatures. Instead what Jones is talking about is hiding the decline evident in tree proxies after approximately 1960. However, if you are going to attempt to have 1,000 year or 1,400 year temperature reconstructions, just a little bit of thought will make it clear that the tree ring proxies have to be dropped after 1960. On the other hand, there is a large question as to whether it is worthwhile to do 1000 year reconstructions when the proxies used are known to be unreliable in today’s world; how is it really possible to know that proxies were reliable 1000 years ago?

It is true that before the 1998 Hockey Stick introduced by Mann, the divergence problem was openly discussed in the literature. What Jones was doing when he spoke of “hide[ing] the decline” was attempting to gloss over the divergence problem and the decline in temperatures that would be shown by continuing to use tree proxies when extrapolating temperatures as shown in a paper written by Keith Briffa of University of East Anglia [UEA] who was part of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

III. Mike’s Nature Trick

Understanding this requires a knowledge of statistics, and the ability to compare Mann’s work in his Nature paper with what Jones was doing for the WMO.  In light of my limited knowledge of statistics, I am punting on this.  See, for instance, https://climateaudit.org/2011/03/29/keiths-science-trick-mikes-nature-trick-and-phils-combo/

Analysis of “Exoneration” Part of Court of Appeals Decision

The Court of Appeals issued a lengthy, 111 page opinion, holding that Michael Mann had a valid defamation case to present against Rand Simberg, Rich Lowry, the National Review , the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and inferentially, Mark Steyn. (Who did not appeal, but whose case would rise and fall on the case of the others). The portion of the opinion that I am focusing on is that portion, from p. 82 to p. 97 in which the Court heavily relied on four investigations to reach the conclusion that the defendants could have acted with actual malice in criticizing Mann for the research he did.

My basic conclusion is that the four “investigations/endeavors” did not thoroughly investigate Mann and that the Court made a clear mistake when it incorrectly relied on the investigations to allow Mann’s lawsuit to proceed.

A. Some Publications, Resources and Facts That Are Important to the Case.

1. The Court of Appeals Decision
(See https://cei.org/litigation/michael-e-mann-v-national-review-and-cei-et-al )
2. The alleged defamatory columns attached to the end of the decision.
3. The Defendants are not claiming that Mann acted in a criminally fraudulent manner in the sense that he could have made up numbers. The defendants were using the term “fraud” in a polemical sense. In common polemical usage, “fraudulent” doesn’t mean honest-to-goodness criminal fraud. It means intellectually bogus and wrong.” (See p. 110 of the opinion)
4. MBH 98 (first Hockey Stick paper), MBH 99 (Second Hockey Stick Paper, going
1000 years further) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_E._Mann See also, S. McIntyre collection of Hockey Stick publications.

Hockey Stick Studies

5. WMO Diagram and explanation of Hide the Decline email. Also, IPCC Third Assessment Graph
https://climateaudit.org/2009/12/10/ipcc-and-the-trick/ For more context, see http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/02/climategates_phil_jones_confes.html
6. Hide the Decline email:
I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e., from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. See:
https://www.justfacts.com/globalwarming.hidethedecline.asp
7. Phil Jones deletion email request sent to Mann for him to forward to Eugene Wahl, which Mann did.
“Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene [Wahl] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise.
Cheers, Phil

**** Mann reply:

“Hi Phil,
… I’ll contact Gene [Wahl] about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxx talk to you later, mike

For context, see: https://climateaudit.org/2011/02/23/new-light-on-delete-any- emails/ and https://climateaudit.org/2011/09/02/nsf-on-jones- email-destruction-enterprise/

B. Conceptual Errors Made by the Court of Appeals

The Court makes three fundamental errors. First, it assumes that those who label themselves as investigators really do investigate. Second, it assumes that a general investigation (assuming arguendo that a real investigation occurred) into a scientific field of study that finds there was no fraud in the field exonerates all of those in that field even if any individual’s work was only tangentially involved, if at all. Third, it assumes that those with advanced degrees, by virtue of their possession of advanced degrees, are competent and fair commentators and investigators in an area of much controversy. (See p. 85 of opinion)

Although the Court refers to “eight separate inquiries” (p. 82), in reality it only focused on four. The Court concluded on p. 96 that:

“We come to the same conclusion as in Nader. In the case before us now, not
one but four separate investigations were undertaken by different bodies following
accusations, based on the CRU emails, that Dr. Mann had engaged in deceptive
practices and scientific and academic misconduct. Each investigation unanimously
concluded that there was no misconduct.”

For a more detailed explanation of the four reports, one may go to McKitrick. See https://www.bing.com/search?q=ross+mckitrick+summary+of+climategate+investigations&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=ross+mckitrick+summary+of+climategate+investigations&sc=0-52&sk=&cvid=DCB9DE01989A4284AA5A0D887E2E1254 I will discuss the the two UEA sponsored endeavors first, then the House of Commons report which evaluated them, and then discuss the NSF report.

1. The House of Commons Report

On January 25, 2011, the House of Commons issued its report regarding the investigations of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Essentially what it did was to evaluate the Oxburgh and Muir Russell Reports. Inferentially, it also independently, in a small way, evaluated climate science as practiced by the CRU.

With respect to Michael Mann, his name is found three times in the report. See https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmsctech/444/44410.htm His name was mentioned twice in connection with two papers he co-authored, and once in regards to an email that Phil Jones sent him asking Mann to keep matters dealing with multi-proxy studies secret as between two other climate research colleagues. (See para. 71 of Report) Although the ethics of Mr. Jones were being examined, there was no focus on ethics of Michael Mann.

There are numerous scientific and practical issues raised by the report. However, although Mann was mentioned tangentially, there was no focus whatsoever on the individual quality of his work or of Mann’s personal ethics.

The report, in a small way, validates climate science by finding that those working at the UEA were not fraudulently manipulating data and were not unethically manipulating peer review. However, it in no way focused on Mann. Thus, there is no way that it exonerated Mann.

2.. Oxburgh Endeavor (claimed investigation)

The House of Commons Report devoted virtually all of its attention to examining the validity of two investigatory (claimed) reports commissioned by the UEA. The first undertaking was the Science Appraisal Panel of Climatic Research Unit of University of East Anglia report that was issued April 14, 2010. It is Commonly known as Oxburgh [Ronald ]Inquiry. See ftn. 62 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Science_Assessment_Panel

It is clear beyond any doubt that the did not clear Michael Mann because it did not look at his work. Here are excerpts from the actual report:

“The Panel was set up …to assess the integrity of the research published by the [East Anglia] Climatic Research Unit [Emphasis added] in the light of various external assertions
… The essence of the criticism that the Panel was asked to address was that climatic data had been dishonestly selected, manipulated and/or presented to arrive at pre-determined conclusions that were not compatible with a fair interpretation of the original data….”

2. The Panel was not concerned with the question of whether the conclusions of the published research were correct. Rather it was asked to come to a view on
the integrity of the Unit’s research and whether as far as could be determined
the conclusions represented an honest and scientifically justified interpretation
of the data. The Panel worked by examining representative publications by
members of the Unit and subsequently by making two visits to the University
and interviewing and questioning members of the Unit…. ”

3. The eleven representative publications that the Panel considered in detail are
listed in Appendix B. The papers cover a period of more than twenty years and
were selected on the advice of the Royal Society. All had been published in
international scientific journals and had been through a process of peer review.
CRU agreed that they were a fair sample of the work of the Unit. [Emphasis added]…

Conclusions [of report]

…. We cannot help remarking that it is very surprising that research in an area that
depends so heavily on statistical methods has not been carried out in close
collaboration with professional statisticians….”

It is absolutely clear that this report had nothing to do with Mann and could not possibly have “exonerated” him. In fact, he was not mentioned in the report, and the 11 publications that were reviewed did not include any in which Mann was listed as a contributor. It is astonishing that Mann and his Attorney would make this argument. See p. 12 of Mann brief of Sept. 3, 2014 and https://cei.org/litigation/michael-e-mann-v-national-review-and-cei-et-al

3. Muir Russell Report

The Muir Russell report, officially, in Great Britain, called the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review (ICCER) commissioned by the UEA was extensively reviewed by the House of Commons. See https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmsctech/444/44410.htm It was a real, although not completely competent investigation, which issued a report that was 96 pages long. (As opposed to the Oxburg report, which was 5 pages) On page 10 in para. no. 6, it stated in its conclusions that:

“The [Climategate] allegations relate to aspects of the behaviour  [Emphasis in original] of the CRU (UEA) scientists, such as their handling and release of data, their approach to peer review, and their role in the public presentation of results….”

****
18. On the allegation of withholding station identifiers we find that CRU shouldhave made available an unambiguous list of the stations used in each of the
versions of the Climatic Research Unit Land Temperature Record (CRUTEM) at the time of publication.We find that CRU’s responses to reasonable requests for information were unhelpful and defensive.

19. The overall implication of the allegations was to cast doubt on the extent to which CRU’s work in this area could be trusted and should be relied upon and we find no evidence to support that implication.

****

22. On the allegation that the phenomenon of “divergence” may not have been properly taken into account when expressing the uncertainty associated
with [proxy] reconstructions, we are satisfied that it is not hidden and that the
subject is openly and extensively discussed in the literature, including CRU
papers.

23. On the allegation that the references in a specific e-mail to a ‘trick’ and to ‘hide the decline* in respect of a 1999 W M O report figure show evidence of
intent to paint a misleading picture, we find that, given its subsequent iconic significance (not least the use of a similar figure in the IPCC Third Assessment Report), the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading. We do not find that it is misleading to curtail reconstructions at some point per se, or to splice data, but we believe that both of these procedures should have been made plain – ideally in the figure but certainly clearly described in either the caption or the text.

As, the above quotations make clear, Michael Mann’s work was not the focus of the investigation, and, although his actions were of moderate importance to some of the actions of the CRU scientists, his work, in and of itself was only tangentially scrutinized. For instance on p. 81, the Muir Russell report stated that Keith Briffa had explained:

“WA2007 had then shown that the results of MBH98 could be replicated very
closely using their implementation of the M B H 9 8 methods and using the same
data.”

However, that statement was diminished in importance by the statement that:

“Briffa and his colleague Osborn commented that in any case the MBH98 was
only one of 12 such reconstructions in figure 6.10 in Chapter 6, and does not
therefore dominate the picture.” (p. 81 Muir Russell Report)

It is worth noting that although skeptics were allowed to make submissions, Muir Russell relied on Keith Briffa (of the CRU and the lead author) and John Mitchell (a review editor for Chapter 6) to evaluate the validity of paleoclimate work in AR4 and that since it was their ultimate product that was being evaluated, they are not neutral, objective observers.

Thus, any claim that Muir Russell exonerated Mann is clearly false. In one, very important, aspect, the Report, even considering its limited scope, was very deficient; it failed to ask Phil Jones whether he deleted emails after Jones received a FOIA request. See https://climateaudit.org/2012/02/06/acton-tricks-the-ico/ (The particular email that raised this issue is discussed in the next section)

4. Penn State Endeavor — Alleged Research Investigation

Because the Penn State endeavor was superficial and did not interview critics of Mann, it does not deserve to be called an “investigation.” Instead, I am calling it an endeavor. In the Sixth Edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, the word “investigate” is defined as:

“To trace or track; to search into with care and accuracy; to find out by careful inquisition; examination; …”

Under Black’s definition, and general usage, what Penn State did was not an investigation. It did not interview people who had problems with Mann’s work. It is as if there was an accusation of theft, and the police went only to the accused thief and asked him if stole anything, and the accused said no. For there to be a true investigation, people from both sides of the controversy have to be questioned and interviewed. There was an initial report published on Feb. 3, 2010 (See https://www.bing.com/search?q=ross+mckitrick+summary+of+climategate+investigations&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=ross+mckitrick+summary+of+climategate+investigations&sc=0-52&sk=&cvid=DCB9DE01989A4284AA5A0D887E2E1254) and a later report filed on June 4, 2010. (See https://www.bing.com/search?q=ross+mckitrick+summary+of+climategate+investigations&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=ross+mckitrick+summary+of+climategate+investigations&sc=0-52&sk=&cvid=DCB9DE01989A4284AA5A0D887E2E1254) About 85% of the Feb. 3, 2010 report was subsumed into the June 4, 2010 report, so this commentary will be focused on the June report.  See this link to final report.  http://www.psu.edu/ur/2014/fromlive/Final_Investigation_Report.pdf

For example, Steven McIntyre, a skilled mathematician**** and author of peer reviewed articles (See Muir Russell Report p. 57) has stated that “Falsification concerns about Mann’s research included:

“Mann’s undisclosed use in a 1998 paper (“MBH98”)4 of an algorithm which mined data for hockey-stick shaped series. The algorithm was so powerful that it could produce hockey-stick shaped “reconstructions” from auto-correlated
red noise. Mann’s failure to disclose the algorithm continued even in a 2004
corrigendum.”
Mann’s misleading claims about the “robustness” of his reconstruction to the presence/absence of tree ring chronologies, including failing to fully disclose
calculations excluding questionable data from strip bark bristlecone pine trees.”
….
Mann’s deletion of the late 20th century portion of the Briffa temperature
reconstruction in Figure 2.21 in the IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001) to
conceal its sharp decline, in apparent response to concerns that showing the
data would “dilute the message” and give “fodder to the skeptics.”

Mann’s insistence in 2004 that “no researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, ‘grafted the thermometer record onto'” any reconstruction. But it
was later revealed that in one figure for the cover of the 1999 World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) annual report, the temperature record
had not only been grafted onto the various reconstructions-and in the case of
the Briffa reconstruction, had been substituted for the actual proxy data.”

(See pp 3 & 4 from McIntyre’s amicus brief https://cei.org/litigation/michael-e-mann-v-national-review-and-cei-et-al)

For the present purposes, putting aside whose version of the matters alluded to by McIntyre is correct, at the very least Penn State should have questioned both Mann and McIntyre closely about the matters discussed above. It failed to do so. Thus, Clive Crook’s criticism is spot on:

“The Penn State inquiry exonerating Michael Mann — the paleoclimatologist who came up with “the hockey stick” — would be difficult to parody. Three of four allegations are dismissed out of hand at the outset: the inquiry announces that, for “lack of credible evidence”, it will not even investigate them. … Moving on, the report then says, in effect, that Mann is a distinguished scholar, a successful raiser of research funding, a man admired by his peers — so any allegation of academic impropriety must be false.” See https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/climategate-and-the-big-green-lie/59709/

One very important issue that was to be determined by the PSU endeavor was:

“Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?” (See https://climateaudit.org/2011/02/23/new-light-on-delete-any-emails/)

This issue was described in detail and put in context, by Stephen McIntyre at Climate Audit. What happened on May 29, 2008 was:

“[Phil] Jones then notoriously asked Mann to delete his emails, asking Mann to forward the request to [Gene] Wahl, saying that Briffa and Ammann would do likewise:

‘Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith [Briffa] re AR4? Keith will do likewise… Can you also email Gene [Wahl] and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar [Ammann] to do likewise.
Cheers, Phil’

Mann replied the same day as follows:

‘ Hi Phil,
… I’ll contact Gene [Wahl] about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxx
talk to you later,
mike’

That Mann lived up to his promise to Jones to contact Wahl about deleting the emails seems certain. In early 2011, from the report of the NOAA OIG, we learned that Wahl (by this time, a NOAA employee), told the NOAA IG that “he believes that he deleted the referenced emails at the time.” See https://climateaudit.org/2011/09/02/nsf-on-jones-email-destruction-enterprise/

It is clear that, at the very least, being charitable to Mann, he indirectly engaged in : “actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones” Yet the alleged PSU investigation totally botched this simple, very important issue.

5. National Science Foundation Closeout Memorandum

On page 90 of its opinion, the Court of Appeals referred a National Science Foundation (NSF) report which did investigate Mann and in which its investigators talked to Stephen McIntyre, but did not reference his comments or the questions that were asked. The report was barely over four pages long and was unsigned and not dated. See bottom of page here: https://www.desmogblog.com/national-science-foundation-vindicates-michael-mann There was no indication whatsoever as to who wrote the memo or who performed the tasks that were identified in the memo. Moreover, neither Penn State nor Michael Mann were specifically named in the report. In over 30 years of practicing law, I have never seen such a weird document.

The memo was dense and filled with “bureaucratic speak” which tends to distract attention from those matters that are pertinent to the opinion of the Court of Appeals. It is difficult to improve on Steve McIntyre’s summary of the report from his Amicus brief (See https://cei.org/litigation/michael-e-mann-v-national-review-and-cei-et-al), so I will borrow heavily from him. The relevant portions of his summary were that:

“The National Science Foundation (“NSF”) spoke to some of Mann’s critics
(including … [Stephen] Mclntyre), but the report did not name them or discuss any
of the falsification concerns.

* N o r was the NSF investigation “broadened” to the extent portrayed by the
division. Its investigation was limited to misconduct as defined in the NSF
Research Misconduct Policy, which concerns only “fabrication, falsification,
and plagiarism . . . in research funded by NSF,” It stated that Mann “did not
directly receive NSF research funding as a Principal Investigator until late
2001 or 2002.” Because the MBH98 and Figure 2.21 falsification allegations pre-dated 2001, the NSF had no jurisdiction over these allegations.

* There is no evidence that the NSF “broadened” its investigation to consider claims regarding Mann’s unprofessional conduct under Policy AD47 (over which it had no jurisdiction).

* Finally, the NSF (like Penn State) never investigated Mann’s role in getting Wahl to delete the most sensitive email correspondence. ” (See p.10 of brief.)

There are three basic points to be made about the NSF memo. First, the memo does not investigate much of Mann’s work, and so it could not exonerate him from charges concerning the validity of the whole body of his work. Second, it did not investigate whether Mann assisted, or encouraged Eugene Wahl to delete emails, which is an extremely important issue touching on his professionalism and compliance with the law. Third, the memo is completely unsubstantiated; it is not clear who wrote the memo or did the underlying work. Without being familiar with the genesis and the manner in which the memo was written, there is no way to assess its credibility or the accuracy of its findings.

6. Climategate Emails

On p. 84 of its opinion, the Court referred to 1075 CRU emails and claimed that investigations of these emails contributed to the exoneration of Mann. (The Muir Russell Report on p. 26 referred to 1073 emails)

This reliance on investigations of the emails is misplaced for a number of reasons. First the emails examined were less than .3% of the CRU’s emails. (See p. 26 of Muir Russell Report) From 1998 on, there would be many more emails written by Mann at the institutions where he worked that were not sent to the UEA, and none of these were included in the 1075 emails discussed by the Court. Second, the Muir Russell Report report found that out of the 1073 emails only 140 involved Mann. (Muir Russell Report p. 26). Third, the one report that explained its procedures in detail and did appear to take a substantial look at the emails, the Muir Russell Report, was only examining the emails to determine how they reflected on the CRU; there was no attempt to focus specifically on Mann’s culpability or innocence.

7. Legal Sleights of Hand

Since this post is focused mostly on whether, as a factual matter, Mann was exonerated by the investigations identified by the Court, it is designed to mostly avoid legal issues and standards. However, there are several instances of legal misdirections that are closely tied to the exoneration issue. I would like to highlight them.

First, the Court stated: “Dr. Mann also submitted extensive documentation from eight separate inquiries that either found no evidence supporting allegations that he engaged in fraud or misconduct or concluded that the methodology used to generate the data that resulted in the hockey stick graph is valid and that the data were not fabricated or wrongly manipulated.” (See p. 82)  The phrase beginning with “or concluded” has the effect of shifting the focus from the actions of Mann to climate science in general. This shift is improper in this case because it is the actions of Michael Mann that are at issue in the defamation case, not the validity or invalidity of “mainstream” climate science. For instance, mainstream climate science could be valid, but Mann, as an individual, could be misapplying it.

Second, the Court stated: “We set aside the reports and articles that deal with the validity of the hockey stick graph representation of global warming and its underlying scientific methodology. The University of East Anglia, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Department of Commerce issued reports that concluded that the CRU emails did not compromise the validity of the science underlying the hockey stick graph.” (See p. 83). This makes no sense at all because one of the main criticisms of Mann was that he, in some circumstances, was complicit in the publication of graphs that hid the splicing of tree ring proxies with instrumental temperatures. As previously noted p. 13 of the Muir Russell Report stated:

“On the allegation that the references in a specific e-mail to a ‘trick’ and to ‘hide the decline* in respect of a 1999 WMO report figure show evidence of intent to paint a misleading picture, we find that, given its subsequent iconic significance (not least the use of a similar figure in the IPCC Third Assessment Report), the figure supplied for the WMO Report was misleading.”

Third, on p. 83 of its opinion, the Court stated that the alleged false statements that formed a legitimate basis for Mann’s defamation suit were: “that Dr. Mann engaged in “dishonesty,” “fraud,” and “misconduct.” The undisclosed splicing of two different data sets can certainly be criticized as being “dishonest” or as evidence of “misconduct.” By putting aside evidence that Mann was involved in undisclosed splicing, the Court is unfairly penalizing the defendants, for potentially, pointing out, at the very least, objectionable behavior by Mann.

Fourth, on p. 84, the Court stated four institutions: “conducted investigations and issued reports that concluded that the scientists’ correspondence in the 1,075 CRU emails that were reviewed did not reveal research or scientific misconduct. Appellants do not counter any of these reports with other investigations into the CRU emails that reach a contrary conclusion about Dr. Mann’s integrity.” As this post makes clear, there is no evidence that any of the four investigations thoroughly examined Mann. Thus, the Court should not rely on those investigations. Additionally, even if there were thorough investigations, they do not have to be rebutted by other institutional investigations. For instance, if McIntyre’s criticisms, set forth in Sec. 4 of this post are true, it does not matter what the reports referenced by the Court stated.

Conclusion

A true exoneration of someone accused of misconduct would involve transparent, thorough exchanges between the supporters and opponents of the accused. Then, at the conclusion of that process, there would be clear, verifiable proof that the charges were incorrect. That did not occur with respect to Mr. Mann.

The recent mistakes made in the investigation of Larry Nassar, a Michigan State and USA Gymnastics physician, illustrate the problems in relying on one-sided and superficial reports. Michigan State began receiving reports of sexual abuse in 1997, and it was not until 2016 that the reports were finally given credence. Patrick Fitzgerald, a nationally known Federal Prosecutor was hired to investigate the claims of sexual abuse in 2014. Later, in 2017, he was asked about his work and Fitzgerald stated:

“his law firm and another were retained by MSU, in part, “to review the underlying facts and disclose any evidence that others knowingly assisted or concealed” Nassar’s criminal conduct.

“Had we found such conduct, we would have reported such evidence to law enforcement promptly. And much as there is no ‘investigative report,’ there is no document that constitutes ‘Fitzgerald findings.’ ”
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/12/08/msu-larry-nassar-investigation/108437686/

In light of the numerous cases of sexual abuse that came to light, it is clear that Fitzgerald, notwithstanding, his, to that point, sterling national reputation, had done a poor job in his work for Michigan State. In much the same way, even though there are a number of reports that purport to exonerate Mann, a reasonably close look at the reports reveals that they are superficial and couldn’t possibly exonerate Mann from charges of misconduct. Further, some of the investigations that Mann claimed exonerated him did not even focus on his work.

JD Ohio

END OF POST

Explanatory Notes

1. Popehat also criticized the exoneration portion of the Court’s opinion. See https://www.popehat.com/2017/01/04/dc-appellate-court-hands-michael-mann-a-partial-victory-on-climate-change-libel-case/

2. I actually have the PSU reports, but I can’t find a working link. If someone has a link to their reports, it will help. In the post, I linked to McKitrick’s article on the Climategate investigations, which gives a good summary.

3. I am busy now, so I may be slow in responding to comments.

***As to the reports actually relied upon by the Court, it is confusing. There is one reference to an EPA report in passing, but it is never discussed in detail. There are detailed discussions of the House of Commons Report (roughly 85% of it discussed the Muir Russell Report and the Oxburgh Report) Even more confusing, is that the Court never specifically discussed the Oxburgh Report. In any event, for my purposes, I will consider the the four reports referenced by the Court requiring some substantive discussion to be, the Muir Russell Report, the Oxburg Report, the Penn State Reports (two different reports were made to Penn State)

***** McIntyre was number 1 in Canada’s High School Math Competition in 1965.  While in college, in 3 out of 4 years, he was No. 2 in his class in mathematics.