BELLESILES UPDATE: A new article over at History News Network says that the investigative committee was too circumspect in its report (actually, the article accuses the committee of “cowardice”):

Using such tactical maneuvers, the committee avoided its main goal, which could have easily been met. The report furnishes ample proof of fraud by almost any conceivable standard lower than conclusive proof. Even the most restrictive intent category found in the Model Penal Code (1962) would have been satisfied in some instances by the overwhelming case against Bellesiles. (That category-purpose-means that the actual result of the conduct is the actor’s conscious object, § 2.02(2)(a)(i).) The committee should have found that Bellesiles intentionally committed fraud of some kind, under both a preponderance of the evidence standard and under a reasonable doubt standard. This is not to say that Bellesiles actually did commit fraud. It is to say that, given the committee’s own findings, the committee should have drawn the conclusion most commensurate with its own evidence, in this case a conclusion of fraud of some kind. . . .

But this fact’s significance goes beyond Bellesiles; it implicates the forthrightness of the committee itself. Having found a subject on which Ulrich is much more familiar than Bellesiles, and with a cover-up story the report says could not possibly be true, it is amazing that it did not conclude that he had lied. The case for fraud is clear.

There’s much more.