UVA has not a legal leg to stand on. It was only too happy to turn over emails of a global warming skeptic to Greenpeace when a Democratic governor requested it do so. Its own past conduct negates any 1st Amendment argument. The state government should keep an estimate of its costs in litigating UVA’s obstructionist lawsuit and subtract that amount from UVA’s operating budget.
If the documents requested by Cuccinelli are turned over, I do not expect that there will be revelations that result in a successful prosecution of Michael Mann for fraud. None of the grant funds would have come to him directly. At most UVA might be required to refund the grant to the state. Absent an email in which Mann acknowledges that the prior climate research he relied upon in grant applications was fraudulent, Mann has a viable defense in the claim that he believed his own research results and those of other climate scientists. He just made a mistake. On the other hand, the documents may provide further evidence of cherry-picking of data and collusion to compromise the peer-review process.
