Ken Cuccinelli’s effort to bully climate scientists into submission will be judged in court over the next two weeks.
Retired Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. has promised to come up with a ruling in the court battle between Cooch and the University of Virginia within the next 10 days. In today’s hearing, UVA attorney Chuck Rosenberg argued that Cooch’s “civil investigative demands” looking for evidence of fraud in Professor Michael Mann’s climate research are nothing more than a big fishing expedition with zero legal justification.
To which VA Deputy Attorney General Wesley Russell replied: “You can’t have a finding until you look.” A nice justification for a police state in which everyone the Attorney General’s office doesn’t agree with is subject to unlawful search and seizure.
The good news is that the judge seemed rightly skeptical of such BS, pressing Russell for a better answer than that. So hopefully, Judge Peatross will rule in favor of academic freedom and against the arbitrary use of state force to decide scientific questions with political answers.
For the best coverage of today’s hearing, see the AP story at WTOP and Anita Kumar’s story at the WaPo.
Good luck, UVA!
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