The trial of Michael Mann versus Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg is nearing its conclusion in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

The last two days, Monday and Tuesday, have seen the presentation of the guts of the defense case. These were the main witnesses:

Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, authors of a series of papers in the early 2000s that dissected Mann’s work and discovered several serious flaws;

two members of the Penn State “Inquiry” Committee, that investigated Mann after the release of the ClimateGate emails in late 2009, and made no adverse finding against Mann (Mann has claimed that he was “exonerated”);

and Eugene Wahl, a climate scientist and collaborator of Mann who had deleted certain emails that were subject to FOIA requests after Mann forwarded him a request to do so.

Readers seem to be enjoying my posts on the Mann v. Steyn trial, so I’m going to continue with one more today.

Meanwhile, the court does not hold trials on Fridays, so the proceeding has recessed for the weekend, to resume Monday morning.

It’s likely that the trial will get very interesting next week, as the defendants present the heart of their case and as things wrap up. In the interim, I’ll provide some comments on the events yesterday, which was the 11th day of the trial.

The Mann v. Steyn trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is now in the middle of its third week. For more background on the case, see my post from a few days ago here.

I have been watching some substantial chunks of the trial on the court’s livestream, although unfortunately several other matters have prevented me from watching the entirety. Today at the lunch break, the plaintiff Michael Mann concluded the presentation of his case. The technical term is that the plaintiff “rested.” So I thought a short update would be timely.

Because I haven’t seen the whole thing, I’ll just cover some aspects that I find interesting.

Way back in October 2012, climate alarmist and activist Michael Mann brought a libel suit against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg for allegedly defamatory blog posts that the two had written a few months previously.

The case has gone through an incredible history of procedural twists and turns since then, a few of which I have covered in prior blog posts, for example here on March 20, 2014, and here on March 26, 2021. The trial finally started on January 16.

Probably most readers here are familiar with the case to at least some degree, and many may even be following the trial. (The court has a live feed available to the public. Follow this link at WattsUpWithThat if you want to tune in during the coming week.). I have watched some substantial chunks of the trial during its first two weeks.

So what have they been talking about all that time without ever getting to the Hockey Stick?