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FBI Agrees To Release More Details From Anthrax Probe, Backpedals On Key Elements
Remember when the FBI told us that military microbiologist Bruce Ivins gave investigators a bogus sample of the anthrax from his lab in 2002 -- suggesting an effort to mislead and cover up his own connection to the 2001 anthrax attacks?
Well, that might not be true, according to the New York Times. Ivins did give investigators a sample of his own anthrax -- which allegedly matched the strain used in the attacks -- but the FBI botched the testing process.
But F.B.I. officials acknowledged at the closed-door briefing, according to people who were there, that the sample Dr. Ivins gave them in 2002 did in fact come from the same strain used in the attacks, but, because of limitations in the bureau's testing methods and Dr. Ivins's failure to provide the sample in the format requested, the F.B.I. did not realize that it was a correct match until three years later.
That closed-door briefing came as the FBI has agreed to begin providing more details about the science underpinning its case against Ivins.
The bureau is coming forward with more information at least partly in response to the experts who have publicly expressed skepticism about the FBI's case, which concluded that Ivins was the one and only person involved in the attacks.
Last week the Department of Justice gave a private briefing to Congress and this week the DOJ plans to make the new details public, the Times reports.
According to those who attended last week's briefing, the FBI appears to be backpeddling on some initial components of its case against Ivins.
In addition to the new version regarding the anthrax sample Ivins provided in 2002, investigators now say the envelopes used in the mail attacks were more widely available than initially suggested.
Investigators said two weeks ago that the envelopes were unique and easily traced back to the Maryland post office near Ivins' home. But reports from the close-door session say that is not the case.
Many scientists are looking forward to hearing details of the investigation, but do not expect the science to persuade all the skeptics.
"I expect people to be dazzled by the science. I am worried that people will confuse solid science (and I expect the science to be very good) with a solid case," Gigi Gonvall, a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, told TPMmuckraker this morning.
"The science will only take you so far."
Please!!! BACKPEDAL!
August 18, 2008 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe "backpeddling" is unintentionally appropriate. The story they were originally peddling (selling) had its weak points and they are now walking it back a bit.
August 18, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Investigators said two weeks ago that the envelopes were unique and easily traced back to the Maryland post office near Ivins' home. But reports from the close-door session say that is not the case.
The kindest thing you can say is that there was possibly new evidence - like the hair?
Does this mean that before this, before the hair - or whatever new evidence - that the trail was "easily traced"?
And now - because of this new evidence - the envelope trail is no longer "easily traced"?
A more likely scenario is that the original investigation was biased towards the lone-nut theory.
Trouble with the lone-nut theory is that if it falls apart - guaranteed there's a conspiracy trail that will be "easily traced".
August 18, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
And while we are at it: it's "closed-door sessions," not "close-door sessions." Normally it's the past (or present) participle form that is used as an adjective, though idioms like "open door policy" are the exception to the rule.
August 18, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
ped·ant \ˈpe-dənt\ n. MFrench, from Ital pedante 1588
1: one who makes a show of knowledge
2: one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge
August 18, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Investigating the investigators. What a noble cause.
Just who has the ability to challenge a system of botched criminal work such as we have in America today? Are the decks always stacked by the FBI? The justice department can surely make that proven claim. Who would trust them enough to summon them need the occasion arise?
August 18, 2008 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's sad, isn't it? When I was a kid, I used to think that the FBI was the ultimate in clean policework and their crime lab was the ultimate in forensic science, but then that was at the time that Robert Stack was playing Eliot Ness on television, and I'm wondering now if they didn't just have better PR back then.
August 18, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm keeping my tinfoil hat shiny!
August 18, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
So what they are saying in essence is that they lied to try to frame Hatfield who was quite able to defend himself and now they are lying to frame a dead man who can't defend themselves.
An independent prosecutor needs to be set up by Congress to get to the bottom of this.
The so-called "Protect America" act was passed in large part because of hysteria caused by these attacks.
As soon as it became known that this was our OWN GOVERNMENT'S strain of Anthrax, the FBI suddenly became quiet about their investigation.
They are obviously and furiously hiding something and someone. Could it be Chaney???
August 18, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I expect people to be dazzled by the science. I am worried that people will confuse solid science"
What science? They make false statements, then admit they made false statements in closed session.
Congress should be screaming about this. We pay these guys salaries!!
August 18, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tom Daschle, former Senator, current Obama advisor, co-target of the anthrax attacks on the legislative branch, and prize fool, professed himself 'very satisfied' with the results of the investigation after some FBI agents threw sand in his face about Ivins a few weeks ago.
Gullibility appears to be rampant among our past and present Democratic leadership. What do gullible members of Congress need an Independent Prosecutor for, when they believe so easily the lies that are fed to them?
I just hope Obama doesn't trust Daschle...
August 18, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey now, we don't know what kinds of threats Daschle is receiving. He's already gotten anthrax in the mail. What's next? Sarin?
If this was some over-the-top push to make sure Democrats stay in line (not sanctioned, of course, by the Administration, which was busy finding ways of allowing torture, should the need arise, and getting the telecoms to spy on its customers for them), maybe Daschle is more to be pitied than censured.
There's only one way that I can think of this Administration's being worse than it's been and is: If Bush et alii were Scientologists.
August 18, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly! Daschle probably got the horsehead in his bed courtesy Darth Cheney.
August 18, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Science? Who needs science? We've got compassion forums at Saddleback. Take a closer walk with the baby Jesus AND Faith Based Investigation.
August 18, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
HA! You just made my day.
August 18, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jeff Taylor, a Torquemada Gonzalez hiree, repeated the false claim more than once in the briefing he hosted. So, not only did they know Ivins did not try to deceive them, they LIED to the American public repeatedly about that fact.
August 18, 2008 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The incorrect claim that Dr. Bruce Ivins misled FBI investigators (by giving them false anthrax samples) made it into every major news story for days afterwards.
The other side of the story, as told by Ivins' attorney, Paul Kemp, in an interview with NPR on August 8, has received hardly any notice. [LINK]
In summary, it appears that the FBI lost a February sample (!!?) themselves, and then asked for another in April. They only provided verbal instructions and apparently Dr. Ivins sent them a pure culture instead of a smear sample like he did the first time. But everything he sent them came from the RMR-1029 stock.
August 18, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you to find that a Office od the Bush43 run DoJ could be lying their asses off about white powder that can be traced back to our military which was sent to the TWO Senators who could have stopped the first PATRIOT Act.
Saddam used chemical warfare against his people . . . Which world leader potentially used biological warfare against his people and the Constitution? What happen to Saddam and should it happen to the jack_holes that did this?
August 18, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Jeff Taylor, a Torquemada Gonzalez hiree, repeated the false claim more than once in the briefing he hosted"
That's pretty much the meat, isn't it? Think Mukasey will be showing up, talking about how Taylor's presser violated Dept rules?
Oh, wait, as long as someone, somewhere, figures out he was lying, that's the Mukasey definition of accountability.
August 18, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
wrong format and it took three more years to notice they matched?
WTF
something is fishy here. looks like a cover-up.
it is probably a right wing fanatical group behind the anthrax case. that would explain why only liberals and the media that favored dems got the stuff in the mail.
i wouldn't be surprised if Rove was involved.
August 18, 2008 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a typically lazy, Bush43 application of a time honored dodge that was perfected during the IranContra debacle by the Bush41 administration.
It's called "The Poindexter Strategy," and it goes like this:
The first guy that dies did it.
August 18, 2008 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
The grotesquely fascinating basis of the FBI deception campaign derives from the complete ignorance and insouciance of the American people. They KNOW that most people are unable to appreciate the obvious flaws in the case, and that those people are so distrustful (often justifiably) of scientists that they will never look deeper into the evidence of the case. We have a crisis of skepticism in this country, fueled by the ignorance of the body politic.
August 18, 2008 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The FBI is hopefully keeping in mind, if their very circumstantial case is wrong, that the real perpetrator(s) are still free and possibly still in possession of anthrax, or even possibly in position to get even more of it.
Their case is very circumstantial, and largely singles Ivins out - from among the multiple people who have had access to that specific strain of anthrax - on the basis of his "weirdness."
Most people have a "weird" side. And people who are hounded and threatened, in this case for years, tend to develop odd thoughts and a sense of paranoia. They often turn to alcohol and/or medications for help in relaxing. If anything that would tend to show that they are reacting "normally" in extraordinarily stressful threatening circumstances.
Remember the Atlanta bombing case? The FBI went after a man they painted as “odd” and wasted a tremendous amount of time and money hounding a nice harmless young man, and leaving the bomber totally uninvestigated.
I followed Ennealogic’s link to Ivins’ attorney’s interview. He does a good job of pointing out the lack of any substantial link between Ivins and the acts that had to have been performed by the true perpetrator.
August 18, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that Senators receiving letters with bio weapons enclosed in them deserves a more thorough explanation than what has been put forth, especially if it was sent from the military stockpiles.
This is something that happens in unstable countries, like regimes that are in constant overthrough like Pakistan, petty regimes in South America and Africa.
This speaks poorly of the worlds largest democracy.
August 19, 2008 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well... I'm like most jackass peasants out here in the reality-based community - playing in the dirt with painted chicken bones and hoping the chupacabras don't scarf up my ol' dog Cooter - but I think by now few people will be "dazzled" by anything the FBI presents in this monumentally screwed-up case. The bureau is bound and determined to close the books on Ivins; since he's dead and can't defend himself, he's the perfect perp, after all. The Bush Administration Justice Department has done everything to prove its absolute contempt for us short of publicly turning the Constitution into toilet paper, so we won't be surprised when they yell "solved" and walk away. We'll always wonder, though, if the guilty are still out there. It'll be incorporated in the sagas we sing around the winter campfires, when we draw the deerskins around us and pound our tom-toms to scare evil spirits away.
August 19, 2008 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why can't the FBI get Mulder & Scully on this? Looks like an X-file to me!
August 19, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The X-Files, of course! The FBI thought they were releasing their "evidence" to the XF audience, who they knew wouldn't care that the puzzle pieces didn't fit, or even that some were missing and some were from a different puzzle, because the XF'ers "want to believe."
Instead, their cleverly crafted crime story was rejected by the CSI fans, who can actually read and have learned to "follow the evidence."
Fortunately for the FBI, they are allowed an indefinite number of rewrites, so I predict this sad saga of sorry policework will drag on till the "Changing of the Guard" in January 2009.
August 20, 2008 1:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
or the next X-Files movie sequel - The Search for J.Edgar Hoover's Girdle.
August 21, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, the Famous But Incompetents couldn't get away with their first round of slime against Ivins. People highlighted their slipshod work and now the FBI is "backpedalling". I guess that is a euphemism for "oh my God, we've got nothing". In the last 20 years the Famous But Incompetents have become known for shoddy police work, a crime lab that fabricates evidence, and intimidating innocent people. The list is mind-boggling. Ruby Ridge. Waco. Richard Jewel. . . . and many, many, more. The agency does a great job of spying on Quaker peace groups. But as to catching real criminals . . . well, not so much. Time to clean house in the FBI, the White House, the DOJ and the rest of the corruption of Republicons and their cronies.
August 19, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
This circus of awful police work in addition to the Steve Kurtz sideshow makes me wish some documentary filmmaker would attempt a Federal-scale version of "Capturing the Friedmans" — or, hell, even "The Thin Blue Line."
August 19, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
'Cept... duh... it's not...
Here's what Francis Boyle, a professor of law at the University of Illinois who drafted the 1989 Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act signed by President George H.W. Bush, and who advised the FBI in its initial investigation of the anthrax letters has to say: “The Feds pursued the same strategy against Ivins as they did against Hatfill — persecute him until he broke, which Ivins did and Hatfill did not. Dead men tell no tales.”
Yeah. "X-Files. Brilliant! But you have a point - maybe it would just be best to accept every damn thing that doesn't add up and never, ever question...
August 19, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blackwater Paranoia
I'm generally not given to paranoid conspiracy theories, but the anthrax case is so peculiar that it has to give you pause to consider the alternatives. It occurred to me that someone like Cheney might have decided that the push to go to war with Iraq might have needed needed a little push to get off the ground. So why not stage your own WMD attack in America? Especially if you could send the anthrax to journalists and politicians you didn't like? Organizations like Blackwater who now sell their services as mercenaries, and who have deep ties to the CIA where many of them used to work, would be an ideal candidate to carry out such a task. Just an idle thought.
August 21, 2008 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink