Richard, do you even know the background of this story? I'll summarize for you. 

Bates designed an overly complicated set of procedures for climate data archiving.
He got upper management at NOAA to sign on because the charts looked pretty.
There were huge delays in implementation because of software problems and more.
The process was a huge time sink.
But it had the virtue of making Bates the Gatekeeper.
Others were not happy with this.
They had science they wanted to publish so they found a way around Gatekeeper Bates.
Gatekeeper Bates went crying to Lamar Smith.
Trump becomes president
Denialists need an issue and cast about.

In addition, John Bates was demoted by Tom Karl in 2012 for professional failings. So then you have David Rose come along and print his lies (Bates already walked back most of his claims), massive faux outrage from the denialist crowd ensues and what actually happened gets lost in the din. 

It really is amazing you keep falling for it again and again.