Lie by Usual Suspects Traveling Around the World – Demand Retraction
”A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” — Mark Twain
Chris Horner of The Daily Caller, and the usual suspects Marc Morano, Anthony Watts, and Senator James “Global Warming is a Hoax” Inhofe (R-OK) are certainly living up to this quote. They are spreading a lie about Penn State climate researcher, Dr. Michael Mann. More disturbingly, somebody in Washington, DC is feeding information to various climate deniers in a transparent attempt to discredit Dr. Mann. Could it be Senator Inhofe or his staff?
Michael Mann NEVER deleted any emails nor did he ever ask anybody to delete emails.
The well-known truth:
It is has been known for more than a year that Phil Jones sent Dr. Mann an email asking him to ask Dr. Eugene Wahl to delete emails, and that Dr. Mann did no such thing. Dr. Mann forwarded Jones’ email directly to Dr. Wahl without comment, believing Wahl had the right to see that email. There is no evidence that Mann asked Wahl delete emails. Period.
Here is the official reply by Dr. Eugene Wahl released today:
The Daily Caller blog yesterday contained an inaccurate story regarding a correspondence that was part of the emails hacked from East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) in November 2009.
For the record, while I received the email from CRU as forwarded by Dr. Mann, the forwarded message came without any additional comment from Dr. Mann; there was no request from him to delete emails. At the time of the email in May 2008, I was employed by Alfred University, New York. I became a NOAA employee in August 2008.
The emails I deleted while a university employee are the correspondence I had with Dr. Briffa of CRU regarding the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of which have been in the public domain since the CRU hack in November 2009. This correspondence has been extensively examined and no misconduct found. As a NOAA employee, I follow agency record retention policies and associated guidance from information technology staff.
Dr. Eugene R. Wahl
March 9, 2011
The false statements, insinuations, and smears:
Chris Horner writes: ”Wahl says Mann did indeed ask Wahl to destroy records, and Wahl did.”
Flat-out untrue and Horner has shown no evidence to support that claim. In fact, Chris Horner himself in an earlier article states that Dr. Mann said he did not delete emails. So, Chris Horner, which is it? Are you lying or can you not read your own writing?
Chris Horner, in addition to writing for The Daily Caller, is an attorney who has represented the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). CEI is no friend of the truth.
Anthony Watts has this post written by Steven Mosher highlighted on his blog:
“Sources confirm that a federal inspector has questioned Eugene Wahl and Wahl has confirmed that Mann asked him to delete emails. Wahl has also informed the inspector that he did delete emails as the result of this request.”
Flat-out untrue and Mosher has shown no evidence to support that claim. Mosher, in that same blog post, shows the excerpt from the Penn State investigation that was also featured by Chris Horner. That excerpt reveals that Dr. Mann said he did not delete emails. So, Steven Mosher, which is it? Are you lying or can you not read your own writing?
Marc Morano’s top story today states:
“Climategate’s Michael Mann Caught!? Justice to be Served?! Climategate’s Eugene Wahl ‘has confirmed that Mann asked him to delete emails… Wahl did delete emails as the result of this request'”
Flat-out untrue and Morano has shown no evidence to support that claim.
Until spring of 2009, Morano served as communications director for the Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Morano commenced work with the committee under Senator James Inhofe.
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) has now posted links to the articles and blog posts by Chris Horner, Anthony Watts, and Steve McIntyre. On McIntyre’s blog he writes:
“From Capitol Hill come excerpted notes from the interview transcript between the NOAA Inspector General and Eugene Wahl.”
Summary:
Somebody in Washington DC has leaked false information to these climate deniers, all of whom are notorious for attacking Dr. Michael Mann and other scientists. The NOAA Inspector General was contacted by Senator Inhofe to investigate scientists who might have been involved with the stolen emails Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in late 2009. The NOAA Inspector General has exonerated its scientists which probbaly did not please Senator Inhofe. Today, lies are spread about Dr. Michael Mann on an Inhofe government web page.
What can you do? Contact all involved and demand a retraction:
The Daily Caller: info@dailycaller.com
Senator James Inhofe:
205 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 -3603
Main: (202) 224-4721
Fax: (202) 228-0380
Email form
United States Attorney General Eric Holder:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard – 202-514-2000
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line – 202-353-1555
Fax: 202-307-6777
Update (03/10): For those of you commenting here debating whether there was intent to delete emails or not let me remind you of two things:
1) Nature did not read those emails. Here is what has happened since the stolen emails over a year ago:
- CO2 is still increasing
- Climate is still warming
- 2010 tied for the warmest year in the instrumental record and likely the warmest in the past 2,000 years
- Ice is still melting and has reached all-time lows
- 2010 was the Year of the Flood
- No journal articles have been published overturning AGW but there have been many supporting AGW
- The accused scientists have been exonerated by many different investigations
2) You are being lied to by billionaires who wish to make a dollar today even though they are likely sacrificing your future, your children’s future, and your grandchildren’s future. The next industrial revolution is here and it is energy efficiency and renewables. It is simply un-American to stand by and watch others take the lead in this revolution. Business as usual with regard to fossil fuel means that we will be BUYING our technology from China instead of SELLING it to them.
How are those gas prices lately?
Global Warming: Man or Myth? 
Of the numerous times Watts has been caught with his pants down, I have never seen him print a retraction or apology. His MO is to ignore strong evidence that does not fit his agenda. At best he resorts to “I’m only reprinting what someone else said.”
In this case he is comfortably twice removed from the lie.
I’m not holding my breath that he will attempt to clarify the situation. He has clearly demonstrated that truth in what he publishes on his website is not a priority.
arch stanton
March 9, 2011 at 2:02 pm
as I understand the situation, mann did not ask wahl to delete any emails. rather mann forwarded an email from cru asking wahl to delete emails.
the investigation asking mann if he had directly or indirectly taken part in deleting emails. fowarding a request to delete emails would appear to be participation.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 2:25 pm
http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/08/wahl-transcript-excerpt/
Q. Did you ever receive a request by either Michael Mann or any others to delete any emails?
A. I did receive that email. That’s the last one on your list here. I did receive that.
Q. So, how did you actually come about receiving that? Did you actually just — he just forward the — Michael Mann — and it was Michael Mann I guess?
A. Yes
Q. — That you received the email from?
A. Correct …
A. To my knowledge, I just received a forward from him.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 2:29 pm
By forwarding the email without comment, wasn’t Mann effectively giving consent? Silence implies consent.
If the forward was meant to be informational only, should he not have added a note to the effect “I don’t agree with this, I won’t be deleting my emails”
Otherwise Wahl might get the impression that Mann was deleting his emails as well as requested.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 2:37 pm
ferd, read the post again. There never was a request that Dr Mann do any deleting of anything.
He was merely the person Jones wrote to asking that he forward the message to Wahl.
adelady
March 9, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Mann’s statement says this:
“This has been known for a year and a half that all I did was forward Phil’s e-mail to Eugene.”
Where has this been known? Up to now Mann has claimed he did not delete emails. No more, no less.
inquiring minds
March 9, 2011 at 3:12 pm
adelady,
Apparently you have not read the emails in question.
Jones specifically requests that Mann delete emails.
From Jones:
Mike,
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.We will be getting Caspar to do likewise. I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper
Mann responds that he will contact Wahl ASAP, which he does.
Hi Phil,
laughable that CA would claim to have discovered the problem. They would have run off to the Wall Street Journal for an exclusive were that to have been true. I’ll contact Gene about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
talk to you later,
mike
So Mann says to Jones that he will do what Jones asks, and passes along the email from Jones, and we are supposed to believe this was to warn Wahl and he never expected or intended to convey the message that Jones asked him to convey and that he agreed to convey.
inquiring minds
March 9, 2011 at 3:23 pm
I guess if you want to believe Mann, then he was lying to Jones at the time.
inquiring minds
March 9, 2011 at 3:25 pm
lying by ommission, to both hones and wahl, would be my read on this. giving the impression he was going to do something, then not doing it. or, deleting the original emails, but saving a copy on a memory stick or similar, just in case he needed to be able to deny it down the road.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 3:31 pm
It looks to my like wahl’s clarification is in the same category. he disconnects the delete from the forwarded email in his statement, while it was the forwarded email that asked for the delete.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 3:33 pm
And Michael Mann says…
I really hope that Michael Mann will take it to litigation this time. This is a Swift Boat smear campaign against him.
As for the twit-bots here, all you’ve got is handwaving and harsh gossip.
J Bowers
March 9, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Phil Jones wrote:
>
>> Mike,
> Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
> Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
>
> Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
> have his new email address.
>
> We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 3:50 pm
From: Michael Mann
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 08:12:02 -0400
Reply-to: mann@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Hi Phil,
laughable that CA would claim to have discovered the problem. They would
have run off to the Wall Street Journal for an exclusive were that to
have been true.
I’ll contact Gene about this ASAP. His new email is: generwahl@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
talk to you later,
mike
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 3:50 pm
http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/08/wahl-transcript-excerpt/
Q. Did you ever receive a request by either Michael Mann or any others to delete any emails?
A. I did receive that email. That’s the last one on your list here. I did receive that.
Q. So, how did you actually come about receiving that? Did you actually just — he just forward the — Michael Mann — and it was Michael Mann I guess?
A. Yes
Q. — That you received the email from?
A. Correct …
A. To my knowledge, I just received a forward from him.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Penn State’s inquiry of Mann:
Allegation 2: 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?
Finding 2. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data related to AR4, as suggested by Dr. Phil Jones. Dr. Mann has stated that he did not delete emails in response to Dr. Jones’ request. Further, Dr. Mann produced upon request a full archive of his emails in and around the time of the preparation of AR4. The archive contained e-mails related to AR4.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 7:42 pm
http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/08/wahl-transcript-excerpt/
Q. Did you ever receive a request by either Michael Mann or any others to delete any emails?
A. I did receive that email. That’s the last one on your list here. I did receive that.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Mann, reached on vacation in Hawaii, said the stories yesterday were “libelous” and false. “They’re spreading a lie about me,” he said of the Web sites. “This has been known for a year and a half that all I did was forward Phil’s e-mail to Eugene.”
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Phil Jones wrote:
>
>> Mike,
> Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
> Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
>
> Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
> have his new email address.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Penn State’s inquiry of Mann:
Finding 2. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data related to AR4, as suggested by Dr. Phil Jones.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Mann, reached on vacation in Hawaii, said …
“This has been known for a year and a half that all I did was forward Phil’s e-mail to Eugene.”
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 9:21 pm
“I really hope that Michael Mann will take it to litigation this time.”
I hope the same. don’t believe what anyone says, including me. everyone has an agenda.
Instead just looks to the evidence. read the emails, read the transcripts, decide for yourself.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 4:10 pm
“I hope the same…. Instead just looks to the evidence. read the emails, read the transcripts, decide for yourself.”
I’ve read plenty of them. Have you read the one that explains what a “trick” is in a scientific context? Not that you’ll find a post on it at Climate Audit. Like you say, don’t believe what anyone says, read the emails.
“Q. So, how did you actually come about receiving that? Did you actually just — he just forward the — Michael Mann — and it was Michael Mann I guess?”
Read that out loud. Does it makes any sense? Ever heard of quote mining?
J Bowers
March 9, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Ferd Berple is very, very confused, and his spamming is not convincing. I though it impossible that someone could be more confused than Watts, Morano, Inhofe and McIntyre are. But, hey, feel free to give these nefarious actions a free pass.
“A. To my knowledge, I just received a forward from him.”
He does not even understand that the allegations made against Mann have been fabricated, are an outright lie as evidenced by the email itself and Wahl’s email and Mann’s email.
What Jones wrote and requested is not relevant here, one has to be obtuse to not recognize that.
Obscurity
March 9, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Good forensic analysis Scott. Your excellent work is always appreciated.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation)
March 9, 2011 at 5:07 pm
[…] […]
The Climate Change Debate Thread - Page 590
March 9, 2011 at 5:19 pm
[…] […]
The politicisation of environmental science in academia - Page 4
March 9, 2011 at 5:28 pm
man was asked by his university enquiry if he had directly or indirectly been involved in deleting e-mails
Manns evasive reply I am afraid has damaged his reputation as he was in fact indirectly involved and he did not inform the enquiry of that fact
DT UK
March 9, 2011 at 6:08 pm
What do you think abaout the outright lie that Mann had asked Wahl to delete the emails? How does that reflect on Mosher, Horner and Morano?
Lars Karlsson
March 10, 2011 at 7:32 am
Trials resume at Guantanamo Bay:
q. Did your client forward an email instructing the defendant to carry out the attack?
a. Yes, but he didn’t add any comment to the email so he wasn’t responsible for the attack, directly or indirectly.
Innocent or Guilty? You decide.
ferd berple
March 9, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Innocent. Thanks for asking.
J Bowers
March 9, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Summary of the attack on global warming science:
Step 1) attack scientists’ work, and overstate their works flaws by employing dodging cherry picking: http://deepclimate.org/2010/11/16/replication-and-due-diligence-wegman-style/
Step 2) Instigate a political show trial to smear the scientists: http://deepclimate.org/2010/09/26/strange-scholarship-wegman-report/
Step 3) Harass scientist with continual claims of fruad and bombard them with coordinated harassment via FOI: http://climatesight.org/2010/03/07/freedom-of-information/
Step 4) Hack the emails of scientist, then quote mine out of context to fabricate evidence to support bogus claims of fraud: http://www.skepticalscience.com/fake-scandal-Climategate.html
Step 5) When bogus claim of fraud run out of puff, attack the scientists for their reaction to (the all the above) harassment: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-freedom-of-information.html
6) Repeat from step 2. Start with a political leak from Senate documents and use this to fabricate false allegations such as:
“Wahl says Mann did indeed ask Wahl to destroy records”
jakerman
March 10, 2011 at 1:37 am
Step 6b) Take scientist non-perfect response to all the harrassement above, and compare it the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
jakerman
March 10, 2011 at 1:46 am
http://climateaudit.org/2011/03/10/what-did-penn-state-know/
“As to the new claim that it’s been known “for a year and a half” that Mann forwarded Jones’ delete request to Wahl, I’m unaware of any such admission prior to the Wahl’s recent admission and, if there were such an admission to the Penn State Inquiry, serious questions are raised about their Finding #2.”
You obviously and for largely political tribal reasons are going to be against the story and the leaked methods but it’s a smoking gun. Probably to support the UVA efforts, Mann’s credibility has reached a new low. It’s brutal but we need third parties, skeptics, to be involved and all the emails and IPCC obfuscations to be reviewed. It’s insane to say the forwarding an email that requests emails be destroyed as not endorsement is pathetic, you would never accept this if the shoe was on the other political foot.
cwon1
March 10, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Anyone making the claim that Mann instructed or asked Wahl to delete emails is lying and libelling Mann…plain and simple. Time to call the lawyers…in his zeal McIntyre has overplayed his hand and revealed his true disingenuous, mean-spirited colours, and has officially tied himself to deniers and anti-science ideologues such as Inhofe. McIntyre is simply obsessed and stuck in the past, and would sell his soul if he could harm Mann. This is obviously not about science, it is pathological and personal for McIntyre, and now we find that he has ties with Inhofe.
CO2 right now is about 394 ppmv and going up……and the Republicans are intent on keeping it that way, and McIntyre is only too happy to help.
Obscurity
March 10, 2011 at 8:24 pm
And what would it mean if e-mails were deleted? It would mean ‘skeptics’ can cry and scream, while it doesn’t change the science one tiny bit. NOTHING in those mails were a smoking gun. If there is a smoking gun, it’s the way ‘skeptics’ like Steve McIntyre have been distorting and abusing those e-mails. Another good example of the fake outrage is the way those same ‘skeptics’ treated the many reports by McIntyre that his access to the Yamal data was being stonewalled by Briffa. The UEA e-mails showed Briffa would forward McIntyre’s request to the original data holders. McIntyre later admitted he indeed received that data. The ‘skeptics’ went into a hissy-fit about that blatant dishonesty…NOT!
I could go on and on with examples where McIntyre has been very uneven in his supposed auditing. This has not bothered the ‘skeptics’ at all, which should tell you everything you need to know.
Oh, and if a newspaper reports that person X believes A should happen, does that mean that newspaper endorses A?
Marco
March 11, 2011 at 2:00 am
“It’s brutal but we need third parties, skeptics, to be involved and all the emails and IPCC obfuscations to be reviewed.”
We don’t need skeptics to lie about the emails, which is exactly what happened here. We don’t know yet whether it was Horner, Mosher and Morano who deliberately constructed this lie or whether it was fed to them from the “source” (Inhofe’s office). However, I’m sure that signature “cwonl” is right on their track and will request all email correspondence between Inhofe’s office and the distributors of the lie.
Lars Karlsson
March 11, 2011 at 3:15 am
Just noticed this gem from cwon1 elsewhere:
“Climate fraud has peaked, the insane co2 as “pollution” has to go.
We should defund corrupt Ipcc shills and open the data and fake models to the general science community.”
Another idiot who does not know most data and models is freely available (and still the ‘skeptics’ can’t do anything useful with it).
Marco
March 11, 2011 at 8:26 am