One of the more egregious examples of the public relations spin on the East Anglia hacked email story involves a six-year-old research paper authored by Sallie Baliunas, an American astrophysicist affiliated with at least nine oil-industry-funded organizations.

In the stolen East Anglia emails, there is a conversation between scientists about and her paper, which argues that the current global warming trend is not unique and that an even more dramatic episode occurred centuries.

The conversation contained in the email is being made to appear like it was an attempt by climate scientists to “muzzle” the Baliunas research paper. Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), claimed last week that the exchange between academics amounts to a case of “scientific fascism.”

Sensenbrennner and others neglect to mention that the scientists who wanted to “get rid of the offending editor,” were not trying to muzzle anything other than a piece of poor research underwritten by the American Petroleum Institute–an oil lobbying group that spends more than $3 Million per year representing the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

The Baliunas paper so badly misrepresented the science that Climate Research editor Hans Von Storch resigned in frustration because his publisher refused to run an editorial refuting the article.

The editorial condemned the Baliunas paper’s for its “severe methodological flaws.” In the end 3 members of the editorial board at the journal resigned over the controversy.