I guess that you need to be a professor (or a Democrat) to lie with a straight face. The so-called "trick" referred to in the email has been convincingly shown to have been intentional fraud, and not the innocuous little "trick of the trade" that Mann falsely claims.
I didn't read the article beyond the excerpt - does he go on to claim that "hide the decline" is just scientist-speak for "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"?
His explanation is that it is shorthand for omitting facts which were not reliable. Doesn't say why they didn't want to explain why they were not reliable. Doesn't say why the email didn't use words like "I don't want to mislead anyone with unreliable data" or at the very least "hide the bad data".
For me the word "hide" in any context regarding scientific reporting raises the impression that something is not quite right.
Michael Mann has been so discredited that I am amazed he is still on the faculty at Penn State. A University such as Penn State has much to lose by this scandal and once it totally breaks they will be scarred forever.
It is sad to see once respected institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia and now Penn State be so discredited that their Alum become suspect.
Will we ever elect another President from another institution that so disdains the “common man”?