In 2004, John Finn challenged Michael Mann, the 'Mike' in the email: 'Whatever the reason for the divergence, it would seem to suggest that the practice of grafting the thermometer record onto a proxy temperature record - as I believe was done in the case of the 'hockey stick' - is dubious to say the least.'
He replied: 'No researchers in this field have ever, to our knowledge, "grafted the thermometer record onto" any reconstrution.'
And yet in 1999, Phil Jones wrote (to Michael Mann and Keith Briffa) ''I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline.'
And now here's real[sic]climate change saying that far from being an outrageous allegation, this is all perfectly normal. So why did Mann deny he had done it when he was asked?