E-mail attachments are part of the exact same message, and thus the same file, as what the UEA calls “emails.” It makes no sense to split an e-mail into two parts, call one part the e-mail, and then argue the other part isn’t actually part of the e-mail.

But that’s what UEA is doing.

It is right to say that, in 2008, Professor Briffa transferred certain information from his work PC onto a memory stick. However, the information which was transferred was limited to emails and did not include any email attachments,

They also say Professor Acton’s testimony was true. This means UEA is actually advancing the position e-mail attachments are not part of e-mails. Of course, the reality is what they call “emails” are not actually emails, but parts of emails.

UEA could have said Acton misspoke. I think pretty much everybody would forgive him for saying the e-mails hadn’t been deleted because he didn’t consider the distinction between e-mails and the “bodies” of e-mails. That’s an easy mistake to make. It would probably call into question the quality and value of his testimony, but it wouldn’t require any accusation of dishonesty.

Instead, UEA is advancing an absurd position, and in the process, making untrue statements. When they say the memory stick “contains only emails,” they are flat-out misrepresenting what e-mails are. I suppose they might argue if something is attached to something else, it can’t be part of that something else, but that’s just silly. No matter what word may be used for files included in e-mails, those files are encapsulated in the exact same message as the text, and that total message is the e-mail.

but that he really has other motives, like a personal affront, loss of job (or the threat thereof), utter disgust at intellectual corruption in climate science, or all of the above.

…or having your research funding dry up because your research isn’t suitably aligned with the narrative of the Team. One of the things we saw is that the Team, with a sideways look and a small gesture of the hand, had the power or destroy the careers of “wayward” scientists — even if those scientists specialization was only peripheral to climate science.

A few years back there was a comment over at RC (I can’t find it now) by someone proportion to be the daughter of a scientists who the Team ruined. She wrote a very passionate comment denouncing the Team. Gavin let the comment through (surprisingly) and dismissed it in his usual charming way. My guess is that there are many scientists out there who are displeased with the antics of the Team and who have suffered because of it.

I also found the CGII cover letter a bit contrived. It was strangely dispassionate given the cause the author claimed to support. I would have expected something like: “I can no longer sit by and watch children dying of poverty while we spend lavishly on climate conferences. How can we proposed to spend $37 Trillion on energy technology yet ignore the true suffering that exists in many parts of the world”. Instead, we got some antiseptic list of quotes: very academic, very detached.

And finally, there is no evidence to suggest that the CG1 leaker was the same individual as the CGII leaker. I think they were different people.