To summarise: in 2004, James Saiers was replaced as the GRL editor in charge of the McIntyre/McKitrick paper by Jay Famiglietti. Saiers says that his departure from GRL was nothing to do with any plot to oust him. Famiglietti won't talk about it on the record.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this doesn't quite stack up, so I emailed Ross McKitrick on the subject. Here's his reply.

Famiglietti said that GRL had received 4 comments on our paper, an unusually high number. He decided to take over handling of the file, and his first plan was to publish all the comments. I didn't check if Saiers was no longer an editor at that point. We were focused on making him follow the GRL procedures with respect to the Ritson and WA comments, which had already been rejected under Saiers' editing. The thing to check would be when Saiers stepped down as editor. By his description it was long after the excitement about our paper had passed, which suggests that he was still an editor when Famiglietti took over the file. If that is the case then he was not "ousted" as GRL editor, but he was obviously ousted from handling our file, which is just as bad. And the fact that he was allowed to serve out his editorship under quarantine does not diminish the seriousness of Wigley's proposed witch hunt.