You write, “Gleick’s NCSE was created to combat such efforts,” which I think might not be quite right. My understanding is that NCSE has been around for a number of years, during which time it has predominantly focused on countering attempts to smuggle the teaching of creationism (under various guises) into public school science curricula. The broadening of the organization’s scope to include countering climate change denialism in the classroom, and (I assume) Peter Gleick’s involvement with the organization, are much more recent. I believe that initiative was announced just within the last several months.

Thanks for the information on the legal situation faced by Gleick. As may be apparent in the original post above, I’m not concerning myself with actual laws in the mock “court case” I’m imagining, but am instead planning to look into the question of what the truth is about Gleick’s actions with respect to the phishing and (especially) the strategy memo, and to use the format of a fictional trial to recapitulate some of the arguments I’ve been reading from various sources.