FAKEGATE UPDATE: FBI called in over climate change mole. “The Chicago-based free market Heartland Institute has called in the FBI and threatened other legal action against a global warming proponent who has admitted stealing emails from the institute in a bid to embarrass and discredit the group’s questioning of climate change.” How’s that workin’ out for ya, Peter?

UPDATE: Related: Environmentalists in the pay of the gas industry:

To put the $26.1 million in context, compare the funding for the Heartland Institute, about which one critic stated, “That the Heartland Institute is effectively acting as a front group for big oil and energy, raising money from companies which are threatened by climate policies, so that it can essentially do their dirty work in undermining legislation that threatens their corporate bottom line.” Heartland received a grand total of $676,500 from Exxon between 1998-2006 and $200,000 from the Koch Foundation in 2011. If that amount makes Heartland a “front group for big oil and energy,” what does $26 million it make the Sierra Club for natural gas?

That’s different. We know their hearts are pure, no matter what our lying eyes say.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails: “I know you were just publishing a quote from another source but it was misleading in that Koch only gave Heartland a donation in the $20-25k range in 2011. The $200k comes from the disputed memo that was likely forged and contradicts the other documents whose provenance has not been questioned.”