Thread by @ClimateAudit

1/ curiously, USC 1512 (obstruction of justice) has been discussed at Climate Audit. The issues also connect to Mann v Steyn etc libel suit. Recall notorious email exchange in which Jones, Mann and others conspired to destroy documents asked in UK FOIA-cited as a WL greatest hit

2/ Mann forwarded Jones' destruction request to Eugene Wahl, who duly destroyed his surreptitious IPCC review correspondence with Keith Briffa (which both parties kept secret to evade IPCC review comments retention policy and publication)

3/ the destroyed documents pertained to the IPCC assessment of the controversy over our (McIntyre and McKitrick) critique of Mann's errors. Wahl (who had not qualified himself as IPCC reviewer) made changes to assessment AFTER formal review process completed, which Briffa used.

4/ changes had not been requested in IPCC review process. Climate Audit reader David Holland wondered what had happened and sent FOIA to U of East Anglia for "off balance sheet" IPCC review correspondence involving Briffa.

5/ when Phil Jones learned of FOI request, he immediately asked Briffa, Mann and others to destroy emails, in particular, asking Mann to get Wahl to destroy his copy of the emails.

6/ later U of East Anglia Vice Chancellor Acton lied to UK Parliamentary Committee by saying that nothing had in fact been deleted from U of East Anglia records. This was untrue. Attached documents to the emails - which contained Wahl changes - were fully destroyed (per FOIA)

7/ in post-Climategate controversy, Gavin Schmidt, Mann's most vocal ally, argued that Mann (and by extension Wahl) had not been FOIA'ed in the US, were not under UK jurisdiction and thus had unfettered right to delete emails.

8/ Mann additionally (and implausibly) argued that his forwarding of Jones' email to Wahl did not imply that he intended Wahl to delete his emails, but that he had forwarded merely to inform Wahl. (Exact language at contemporary CA posts.)

9/ in contemporary discussion at Climate Audit, a reader sent in the interesting case of US v Quattrone, in which Quattrone's reminder to staff of document retention policy was charged (by Comey!) as corrupt intent obstruction of justice
climateaudit.org/2011/03/10/wha…

10/ I noted that Quattrone was charged under pre-Sarbanes-Oxley USC1512.

Note that the clause used by Weissman is the Sarbanes-Oxley addition to USC1512, which has a very short interpretation history.

11/ here are further comments by CA reader on USC 1512 at time.
climateaudit.org/2011/03/08/wah…
climateaudit.org/2011/09/02/nsf…

I drafted a fairly lengthy commentary on USC 1512 in 2011, but didn't finish it. Below is CA search of posts using "sarbanes 1512".

12/ USC1512 obstruction came up later in a series of Climate Audit posts concerning Mann's libel claim against CEI, Steyn etc in which I discussed false claims by Mann relating to the various Climategate Inquiries - see below.
climateaudit.org/2014/02/27/man…

13/ I mentioned the Climategate email deletion incident in a Nov 4, 2016 Climate Audit post on destruction of HUMA ABEDIN pst file on Clinton server - an incident that has been almost entirely overlooked.
climateaudit.org/2016/11/04/the…

14/ Hillary's production of emails from Clinton server were limited to her own emails. Nothing from Huma pst produced. Huma produced almost nothing (~6K emails), taking position that emails on Clinton server not under her control. Needless to say, FBI/DOJ didn't watch the pea

15/ some other discussion
climateaudit.org/2017/07/11/com…
climateaudit.org/2017/09/02/ema…
climateaudit.org/2017/10/02/guc…

16/ here's an ironic take on Mann's libel suit vs CEI, @steynonline etc. There is far more evidence of corrupt intent (with no legitimate intent) in Climategate email deletion than there is in Trump obstruction (where cloud impaired US international relations).