University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann will have to pay National Review more than $500,000 for legal expenses nearly 13 years after their legal battle began.
Mann first sued National Review in 2012, after Canadian conservative commentator Mark Steyn criticized Mann in a post to National Review’s website. National Review editor Rich Lowry subsequently wrote a follow-up post defending Steyn’s criticisms, and Mann opted to sue the outlet for defamation. This week, a Washington, D.C., judge ruled that Mann must pay the outlet nearly $531,000 to cover a portion of the outlet’s legal fees within 30 days, National Review’s editors announced Friday.
During the discovery process in the case, a 2012 email from Mann surfaced in which he said he hoped the litigation would “ruin” National Review, a publication he believed to be a “threat to our children” and servile to “greedy fat cat corporate masters.”