I read the full emails. The statements weren't out of context. I don't think it quite rose to the level of 'conspiring to manipulate public opinion' but they were absolutely conspiring to manipulate the data and the conclusions of the "science".
They also lied repeatedly about it, including to Parliament, and generally engaged in all kinds of BS behaviour that would be fatal to people in the private sector - regulators and lawsuits would take down any company that tried those things - but because it's academia and climatology they just ignored the entire scandal and told the world to go fuck itself. And because the media have a massive blind spot for academics, everyone just sort of forgot about it and pretending it never happened.
In other words they were attacked for entirely justifiable reasons, by people who aren't even in politics to begin with.
There's a long retrospective on the Climategate emails here that goes into a lot of background and context, as well as the subsequent fallout. Suffice it to say, when even the Guardian admits the behaviour of these people was bad, it must be really, really bad.
https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/climat...
