Hey Tea Partiers! Want to cut out fraud, waste and abuse in Virginia's government? Then ask Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to drop his politically motivated civil investigative demand against his own client, the University of Virginia, for documents related to research done by climate scientist Michael Mann.U.Va. has already spent $400,000 SUCCESSFULLY fighting the AG's lawsuit, and only the Cooch knows how much his office has also spent on it. And now he's back for more!
Here's what's happened so far: using a law designed to catch people who commit fraud against the state, the Cooch, within weeks of taking office, issued a subpoena to U.Va. for all records related to research funded by a series of grants Mann had while teaching there (he's now at Penn State). Cooch claimed that Mann defrauded the Commonwealth while performing research that underlies claims of man-made global warming.
A state court then THREW OUT the lawsuit. It ruled that the Cooch could only go after research projects funded by the state of Virginia, which was only one of the five grants that the subpoena was aimed at. As to that one state grant, it said that Cooch's subpoena failed to allege just how it was that Mann had committed fraud.
Now, having wasted a lot of taxpayer money with his legal malpractice the first time around (it would not have taken a legal genius to realize that the state of Virginia has no basis to sue over federal grant funds), the Cooch is back with a new subpoena aimed at the one state grant. The only problem? The state grant has nothing to do with climate research!!
Furthermore, the supposedly beefed up allegations of fraud in the new subpoena shouldn't pass muster either. The Cooch claims that Mann's papers (albeit not the papers that were the subject of his state grant) "demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect."
Huh? That's fraud? If "lack of rigor" regarding statistical analyses is now a crime, there are thousands of scientists--including quite a few on Cooch's side of the climate "debate"--who are headed to jail. All the Cooch is really saying is that he disagrees with Mann's interpretation of his data. This is a valid area for scientific debate, but not a valid use of state funds for LITIGATION.
On top of all this, the Cooch is also appealing parts of the initial court ruling against him. That's great for U.Va's lawyers, but not for us taxpayers.
Surely the Cooch can find some legitimate targets for claims of fraud against the Commonwealth. He might start by looking in a mirror.
