With respect to my comment, it leaves them in a completely different position from the one I referred to, as they were before Harper&#x27;s term.<p>I was clarifying that the OP did not appear to be defending the sale of &quot;credentialed&quot; opinions on political issues. The intent behind the &quot;muzzling&quot; matters. There are situations where a contracting party has a legitimate interest in enlisting a scientist to investigate a truth while maintaining confidentiality. Harper&#x27;s suppression of scientific evidence was not one of these, but my comment addressed the notion that there are no such circumstances.