National Science Foundation and State of Virginia looking into whether Michael Mann committed fraud

Fox News has this story.

A legal battle is heating up faster than the planet for embattled climatologist Michael Mann.

First word emerged that the inspector general for the National Science Foundation would look into the Penn State panel reviewing the climate scientist, who is currently director of the school's Earth System Science Center. Now the attorney general for his old employer the University of Virginia is planning an investigation, too.

According to a report in Charlottesville weekly The Hook, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has asked the University of Virginia to produce "a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research" conducted while Mann was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.

Should the AG uncover evidence of impropriety, the school could be commanded to return the funds, and pick up the cost of the AG's investigation.

The paper, tipped off by anonymous sources, has posted a PDF of Cuccinelli's formal request, a legal document called a civil investigative demand. In that letter, he demands production of information and documentary material relating to three papers Mann authored while at UVA, using a total of $484,875 of state grant money. . . .

Read the Attorney General's Letter

Read the Attorney General's Note to UVA Rector John Wynne