In April 2010 , Cuccinelli served a civil investigative demand on the University of Virginia seeking a broad range of documents related to Michael E. Mann , a climate researcher now at Penn State who was an assistant professor at UVA from 1999 to 2005 . Cuccinelli based his demand on the 2002 Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act , although no evidence of wrongdoing was given to explain the invocation of the law . Following the Climatic Research Unit email controversy numerous accusations about Mann 's work on climate reconstructions had been sent to the university , and investigations of these allegations by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Penn State subsequently cleared Mann of any wrongdoing . The '' Washington Post '' quotes Rachel Levinson , senior counsel with the American Association of University Professors ( AAUP ) as saying Cuccinelli 's request had " echoes of McCarthyism . " A. Barton Hinkle of the '' Richmond Times-Dispatch '' criticized Cuccinelli for " employing a very expansive reading of Virginia 's Fraud Against Taxpayers Act . " Among the groups urging the University of Virginia to resist producing the data were : a letter published in '' Science '' signed by 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences , the American Civil Liberties Union and the AAUP . Also in May 2010 , the University of Virginia Faculty Senate Executive Council wrote a letter strongly rebuking Cuccinelli for his civil investigative demand of the Mann records , stating that " Cuccinelli 's action and the potential threat of legal prosecution of scientific endeavor that has satisfied peer-review standards send a chilling message to scientists engaged in basic research involving Earth 's climate and indeed to scholars in any discipline . " In 2011 in response to the escalating attacks from the Virginia AG 's office , the Union of Concerned Scientists published a defense of scientific integrity titled " Timeline : Legal Harassment of Climate Scientist Michael Mann "
Climatic Research Unit email controversy
Climatic Research Unit email controversy
Ken Cuccinelli