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FBI Used Aggressive Tactics In Anthrax Investigation
New details about the FBI investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks have only reinforced a long-standing trend -- the more we hear about the probe, the more botched it sounds.
Today the Washington Post reports that FBI agents harassed Ivins's daughters and offered his son millions of dollars to help convict Ivins in the anthrax killings. That's according to a friend and former co-worker whom Ivins confided in last fall.
It was around the time that FBI agents showed Ivins' 24-year-old daughter pictures of the victims who had died in the 2001 anthrax attacks and told her, "Your father did this," the scientist said. The agents also offered her twin brother the $2.5 million reward for solving the anthrax case -- and the sports car of his choice.
Talking abrasively to potential witnesses might not be uncommon for criminal investigators. But offering money and a car?
Also according to the same scientist, FBI agents had approached Ivins and his family in public. The Post reports:
One day in March, when Ivins was at a Frederick mall with his wife and son, the agents confronted the researcher and said, "You killed a bunch of people." Then they turned to his wife and said, "Do you know he killed people?" according to the scientist.
The only person to say publicly that Ivins talked like a homicidal sociopath was Jean Duley, Ivins' therapist, who was cooperating with the FBI investigation.
In fact, it was an FBI agent who suggested that she contact authorities about a so-called "Peace Order" and make those allegations available in public documents.
Duley got involved with the investigation after Ivins launched into a homicidal tirade during one of their therapy sessions, she said. Ivins talked about the possibility of facing capital murder charges soon and his desire to kill people and "go out in a blaze of glory," Duley told Maryland court officials.
Fearing Ivins may hurt someone, Duley contacted the local police in Frederick, MD. That one call from Duley led local police to remove him from the military research facility in Ft. Detrick and take him to a local mental health facility. (Duley sought a restraining order because Ivins threatened her when he learned she had contacted the police, she said.)
The Frederick Police response offers a stark contrast to the FBI, which was apparently concerned enough about Ivins to put him under surveillance more than a year ago, but not to seek to revoke his security clearance at Fort Detrick, where he handled deadly biological agents like bubonic plague.
The flawed investigation has already forced federal taxpayers to pay out nearly $6 million to settle a lawsuit filed against the Department of Justice by Steven Hatfill, the other scientist the feds accused in the case who had nothing to do with it.
This afternoon, we're expecting more details of the investigation. The FBI says these newly unsealed documents will prove their case against Ivins. We'll see.
Anthrax has covered for the administration for seven years and running. Whenever the administration needed a diversion of public attention they threw up a cloud anthrax. It's a catchy story with all the intrigue to lead you in the other direction. Now, anthrax is dead (and Irvin as well) and all must be forgotten according to bush and his justice.
August 6, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Search warrants are up - link via DOJ homepage:
USDOJ: Amerithrax Court Documents
August 6, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
More on the DOJ docs:
They appear to be OCR'd, and so may be searchable
The search warrants include supporting affidavits and attachments, which seem to lay out the investigator's thinking (eg USPS Postal Inspector Thomas F. Dellafera's AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF SEARCH WARRANT (pdf)). These are probably a good place to start (though I don't understand the search warrant process enough to say anything definitive).
August 6, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's ironic that the FBI didn't take Ivins out of his incredibly deadly job until after he threatened to use a gun (how 20th century!) to kill someone. Nice way to protect the public from a deadly killer. However, this may have been a product of happenstance--my understanding is that the tests conclusively linking the anthrax to Ft. Detrick had just been completed...who knows?
In a larger context, if the case against Ivins is weaker than the FBI is currently saying and members of the research community continue to demand evidence to prove Ivins' guilt, it will be interesting to see how the FBI's exercise in what a previous poster called "reality creation" stands up against assault from a legion of smart, evidence-based, super-analytical, cranky researchers with a personal interest in academic freedom, and an axe to grind in defense of one of their own.
Call it "dime-store ideology vs. serious geek."
August 6, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone did a lousy job of blanking out license plate numbers and such. They musta been in a damn hurry to get this out the door.
August 6, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hand-written words on the bottom of page 20 in the document 07-524-M-01 attachment:
[note: writing unclear on word "further"]
August 6, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well ok, now we are getting somewhere. First thing that I looked at were the email identifiers: kingbadger, jimmyflathead et al. I noticed that one email identifier was blacked out.
There is a kingbadger on a site called "Glocktalk." I didn't look more closely, but Ivins did own a Glock.
Jimmyflathead is the identifier for Ivins' Reunion.com page and on the wikipedia page for the Kappa Kappa Gamma. He seems to have gotten into a donnybrook with other posters about posting some negative or secret information about the sorority (secret handshakes, etc.). Who knew there was such debate about whether to post sorority secret handshakes on the web?
There also is reference to some comments about the TV show The Mole, in which Ivins says what he'd like to see done to one of the characters. (Whether this indicates violent tendencies or serious naivete about what to put in writing remains to be seen. If we ascribed violent tendencies to every TPM poster who has described in colorful language their hopes for the fate of Dick Cheney, we would have a very long list of people to investigate.)
The big questions here are going to be whether this evidence definitely fingers Ivins as the attacker, or whether there is doubt. For example, Ivins may have knowingly or unknowingly shared samples of Anthrax with someone else. Samples were often prepared and sent to other labs. Could some knowledgeable person have intercepted a package, stolen a few spores for cultivation and re-sealed the package?
At least now there is information to look at rather than speculate about.
August 6, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it accurate to call Jean Duley a "therapist"?
Did she have any actual credentials? She may call herself a therapist, but I think "counsellor" might be more like it.
And how did Ivins come to know her? Is it possible she was sent in to get information??
-- ARG
August 6, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a non-story.
Let's see: a friend of Ivins reports that Ivins told him that the FBI used aggressive tactics and tried to bribe Ivins' son. No one else--like the family members allegedly subjected to these tactics--has come forward. no one who was in the shopping mall has come forward. We just have a second-story from an alleged murderer.
Could it be that someone who committed horrific acts and was about to be caught concocted stories about how he was being framed, and how there was a massive conspiracy against them? It is quite common for criminals to allege police misconduct.
When there is a shred of evidence supporting the allegations, there is a story.
August 6, 2008 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You make a valid point, Jeff.
It seems the Washington Post found the former co-worker credible. Maybe that's not saying much, but it is something.
I'm an engineer, not much different than a scientist. I have some odd-ball friends and co-workers. But do you suppose that the co-worker is also unbalanced? Or gullible?
Sciencey folks are sometimes a little strange, but they tend to be pretty smart, and they are actually trained to be skeptical and analytical.
So this hearsay account may not be accurate, but I don't find it so easy to dismiss.
-- ARG
August 6, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
And as for no one else coming forward, I think we should give it a little time.
Remember that these are allegedly some aggressive scary-ass FBI mofos. (If you'd seen something in the shopping mall months ago, would you probably be calling CNN today?)
-- ARG
August 6, 2008 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
See this link, ARG in Chicago and any others who doubt this whole mess is just another attempted perversion of justice in the making, for a nice rebuttal of most of the key premises of the DOJ's case from another top anthrax expert and colleague of Ivins.
Also, it has to be pointed out that the so-called "therapist," Duley (in contrast to Ivins, who had a spotless criminal and civil court record) has a long history of legal problems of her own that raise serious questions about her credibility, including a charge of battery against her former husband and multiple DUI offenses. In fact, roughly three months before she began closely-cooperating with the FBI investigation and filed the initial complaint against Ivins (which she actually did, as a Fredrick, MD, newspaper reports, only at the urging of an FBI investigator working on the case), Duley was again caught and charged with DUI, yet despite her previous criminal history, she received only a suspended sentence and modest civil penalty.
Also, as another TPM reader pointed out in another thread, there seem to be problems with the DOJ's timeline. Ivins began working the suspiciously late hours at the lab during which he allegedly concocted the weaponized anthrax almost a month before the 9/11 attacks even occurred. Did he have better threat assessment intelligence than the Bush administration? Or are we supposed to believe Ivins was just coincidentally planning to launch an unrelated anthrax attack vaguely around the same time as the 9/11 strikes, and 9/11 just happened to provide the perfect opportunity to put his plan into motion?
And seriously: He was allowed to come and go as he pleased from a high security biological weapons defense research lab--and was able to spend his spare time using the resources of the lab to produce weaponized anthrax--without any supervision or security restrictions even though he was purportedly known to authorities to have a long, history of psychological instability and a propensity toward violent behavior? Not only that, but in all that time, he was able to come and go from a US military installation carrying the high-grade weaponized anthrax he'd produced without ever once being stopped for a security check or in anyway arousing suspicion?
If you believe any of that, send $1,000 to my PayPal account and I'll see to it that the invisible magic fairies flying out of my ass will immediately grant you any three wishes you like (and you can even make one of them a wish for more wishes).
August 7, 2008 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
dang. should have read the post and comment thread a little more closely, i think. sorry if i got your take on this wrong, ARG. looking back, i think i misunderstood your comments and a couple of others. i missed the fact that some of the stuff i linked about duley is already discussed in the main post, too.
(still, go ahead and send me the $1,000.)
August 7, 2008 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with you on this, saul. Apology accepted (I also have trouble keeping up with all the posts without skimming through some of them).
I said elsewhere that I think this could be the Big One. I will elaborate more fully on my theory in one of the newer threads. But I think we're all thinking the same thing -- in some way, elements of our own government may have been directly responsible for these anthrax attacks, the point of which was to get us into a war with Iraq. (And that scenario could be completely separate from 9/11, or it could be related.)
-- ARG
August 7, 2008 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
One more bogus conclusion by our vaunted Govt.How clever of 'em.Al-queda & Iraq.Anthrax from Iraq,WMD in Iraq & Sadaam brought yellow cake to Iraq ,the lists is too long to mention but you get the drift,The lies to US,Americans continues from our Govt.agencies.
You think this is why the FISA bill just passed,Now they can come visit all of us non-conformers ?They know who we are folks ,remember Pelosi just give 'em the right to spy on US.
August 7, 2008 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
THIS is not the whole story.
WHAT THEY DID TO IVEY is part of an ongoing pattern and practise of "violating the rights of suspects" AND EVERYONE IS A SUSPECT UNTIL HE PROVES HIMSELF INNOCENT OF CHARGES THAT ARE NOT FILED, AND WITH EVIDENCE THAT CANNOT BE CONFRONTED BY THE SUSPECT.
IF you read my DOJOIG-FBI OPR complaint...you'll see what has already been categorized as THE FBI'S OPERATION SLAMMER aka NSA MIND CONTROL aka CONTRACT GROUP STALKING.
If YOU are serious, go find PAT KNOWLTON'S civil suit that details "how the FBI harasses, stalks, and tampers with witnesses" who WILL NOT BEND TO THE FBI'S WILL.
That lawsuit involves KNOWLTON AS A VINCE FOSTER MURDER WITNESS WHO SAW the unindicted coconspirators at FT Marcy park, where Vince's body was planted and staged.
August 7, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is something so hinky about this drug counselor's testimony. In an e-mail written by Ivins to a colleague he states that his counselor "wants to put me in jail" - what is strange about this is that it was written in 2000. If she thought that Ivins was such a menace to his co-workers and society at large, why didn't she report him to his employers at the time? If she did, why did they retain him as an employee?
August 7, 2008 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink