...manipulating the wording of the success criteria to match their best attempt at making the data work.
While not impossible, it is very tricky to do this before you actually have the data. I'm advocating that the wording of the test criteria, statistical tests to perform, etc, are all decided before the trial.
Bringing in a different statistician post-hoc is pointless, all he could do is run the exact predetermined statistical test. In fact, you can do even better: submit code to the journal before the study, and submit data after the study. The journal runs the code on the data and decides which conclusion to publish.
While not impossible, it is very tricky to do this before you actually have the data. I'm advocating that the wording of the test criteria, statistical tests to perform, etc, are all decided before the trial.
Bringing in a different statistician post-hoc is pointless, all he could do is run the exact predetermined statistical test. In fact, you can do even better: submit code to the journal before the study, and submit data after the study. The journal runs the code on the data and decides which conclusion to publish.