Cuccinelli fights UVa request to end fraud case

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is fighting back against the University of Virginia’s request that a judge “set aside” the attorney general’s subpoena for documents related to the research activities of a former climate scientist.

In a court filing last month, UVa’s lawyers argued that Cuccinelli’s demand for documents and correspondence related to global warming researcher Michael Mann is unprecedented, overly broad, oversteps the attorney general’s authority and threatens the “bedrock principles” of academic freedom and the First Amendment.

Cuccinelli’s office responded this week in court filings of its own, saying that the attorney general’s inquiry is solely focused on rooting out possible fraud. Scientists and professors, the filing says, are not exempt from Virginia’s anti-fraud statute.

“Respondent avers that neither academic freedom nor the First Amendment have ever been held to immunize a person, whether academic or not, from civil or criminal actions for fraud, let along immunized them from an otherwise authorized investigation,” wrote Deputy Attorney General Wesley G. Russell Jr. in the response filed in Albemarle County Circuit Court.

Cuccinelli’s office is investigating the possibility that Mann violated Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act when he sought and received four federal grants and one university grant totaling $466,000 to research climate change.

Mann — a widely cited expert on climate change who is now at Penn State — was an assistant professor in UVa’s Department of Environmental Science from 1999 to 2005.

The court filing from Cuccinelli’s office notes that e-mails and data related to, written by and referencing Mann and his work were included in the so-called Climategate scandal, in which e-mails between researchers surfaced in November from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Critics say the e-mails suggest that climate change researchers — such as Mann — exaggerated the evidence of human-influenced global warming.

“According to various reviews of the materials, various statements or methods have been attributed to Dr. Mann including the fact that he developed a ‘trick’ in order to ‘hide the decline’ and that he indicated to a research colleague in England that ‘[a]s we all know, this isn’t about the truth at all, it’s about plausibly deniable accusations,’” Russell wrote. “Respondent admits that, much like the FATA investigation at issue here, governmental bodies in England felt the revelations warranted a governmental investigation.”

An investigation by Penn State has cleared Mann of wrongdoing in three of four allegations against his research. The inquiry suggested that a separate panel investigate a fourth allegation.

Cuccinelli’s targeting of Mann has prompted outrage on the part of many members of UVa’s faculty and elsewhere in higher education. The investigation, they say, can have a chilling effect on any scientists who conduct research on controversial subjects.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a letter signed by 900 Virginia scientists and academics asking Cuccinelli to stop his investigation of Mann.

In UVa’s court filing, the university’s lawyers — who are not being paid with taxpayer money — argued strongly that Cuccinelli’s probe is sending a “chill through the Common-wealth’s colleges and universities.”

“Unfettered debate and the expression of conflicting ideas without fear of reprisal are the cornerstones of academic freedom; they consequently are carefully guarded First Amendment concerns,” it states. “Investigating the merits of a university’s researcher’s methodology, results, and conclusions (on climate change or any topic) goes far beyond the Attorney General’s limited statutory power.”