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From an article posted on Drudge;

“The revelations did not alter the huge body of evidence from a variety of scientific fields that supports the conclusion that modern climate change is caused largely by human activity, Ward said. The emails refer largely to work on so-called paleoclimate data - reconstructing past climate scenarios using data such as ice cores and tree rings. “Climate change is based on several lines of evidence, not just paleoclimate data,” he said. “At the heart of this is basic physics.”

Ward pointed out that the individuals named in the alleged emails had numerous publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. “It would be very surprising if after all this time, suddenly they were found out doing something as wrong as that.”

“Prof Bob Watson, the chief scientific advisor at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said, “Evidence for climate change is irrefutable. The world’s leading scientists overwhelmingly agree what we’re experiencing is not down to natural variation.”

“With this overwhelming scientific body of evidence failing to take action to tackle climate change would be the wrong thing to do – the impacts here in Britain and across the world will worsen and the economic consequences will be catastrophic.”

For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published.

Are they denouncing the publications or retracting them? Are they saying they are publishing junk? Seeing how there were multiple bad articles over multiple years, that raises the question what exactly are people getting for the price of their subscription?

I believe one of the emails stated that hopefully no one will do a FOIA on them. Perhaps one should.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

If it's "settled science" as we are told by the media and Gore-bots, then what's to discuss but how to spin it to the sheep so they swallow the GE/Pelosi/Gore green investments and carbon cap and tax.

Someone should tell those people that the standards have been ratcheted up, in some areas, regarding f-r-a-u-d.

From Business Week Online, July 29th, 2002:

Commentary: No Excuses for Enron's Board
On Feb. 7, 1999, the audit committee of Enron Corp.'s board of directors gathered in London to hear some rather startling news. The company's auditors described Enron's accounting practices as "high-risk." David B. Duncan, who headed up the Arthur Andersen LLP team at the company, informed the committee that Enron's accounting was "pushing limits" and was "at the edge" of acceptable practice.
None of the directors, including Robert K. Jaedicke, a one-time Stanford University accounting professor who had been chairman of the audit committee for more than 10 years, objected to the procedures described by the auditors, requested a second opinion, or demanded a more prudent approach, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations after a six-month probe of the Enron board's oversight duties.
In fact, the subcommittee found that similar briefings by Andersen officials occurred once or twice each year from 1999 through 2001 with the same result: The auditors told board members that Enron was following high-risk accounting and no one drilled deep enough to learn the details or object. And despite his long tenure as chairman of the audit committee, Jaedicke rarely if ever had any contact with Andersen outside of official committee or board meetings, as governance experts recommend.
Even worse, Enron's board members knew about and could have prevented many of the risky accounting practices, conflicts of interest, and hiding of debt that led to the company's implosion simply by asking some obvious questions....
[Excerpt; the rest here].

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Some may think I'm now going mealy-mouthed, but accusations of fraud are serious. There's a valid analogy between peer review and board-of-directors oversight, particularly if the directors are fellow CEOs. [An all-CEO board is, clearly, CEO peer review.] However, it's only an analogy. Legally, at least as of now, peer reviewers do not have any fiduciary duties attached to their role. They can't be hauled into court, in the same way a director can, if they're delinquent with regard to a duty of independence. The law won't reach on this point.

From what little I know of the law, and from the damning E-mails posted, there's no smoking gun in the legal sense. There is, however, enough indirect evidence to merit an outside audit.

Starting with the asking of some obvious questions...