http://cryptome.org/ivins/ivins-docs.htm

Did Bruce Ivins do a “redo” of this page to conceal an unregistered transfer of 100 ml to a trusted researcher (under regulations effective in mid-1997) — which would make him an unwitting accessory-before-the-fact?

Anthrax and Al Qaeda: Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1092873

Buy 3 softcover copies at cost and get free overnight shipping (up to $15) with guaranteed delivery by December 24.

Huh? HE refers to Dr. Keim not Ivins and therefore he recieved AND retained the samples. The case was still open, of course Dr. Keim kept sample 1 AND sample 2. You don’t throw away evidence until the case is closed (in court) and even then you keep it in case of appeal. Actually the destruction of sample 1 by the FBI is a CRIME, because its evidence, wrong tube or not.

You should check the chronology of the FBIs statement. Yes in the beginning they believed it was not RMR-1029 and could not detect the mutations. But in the end their suspicion was found invalid when they went to Dr. Keim, who had duplicates from the first and second samples, analyzed them using the new test methods AND confirmed both contained culture from RMR-1029.

My beliefes and opinion (in contrast to your “facts”) are that your “facts” are based on two assumption the WHERE (Inside USAMRIID), which forensic tells us is improbable and the WHEN, which lab experience tells us is improbable too. All of your points are conclusions based on circumstancial evidence (no alibi, unsupervised work etc) based on assumptions (the where and when).
STRONG circumstancial evidence: X was seen at the place of crime
WEAK circumstancial evidence: X cannot proofe he was not at the place of crime.
In my mail I was merely pointing out
A) Your evidence is weak (that does not make it wrong per se)
B) Mentioning the same evidence multiple time does not increase its strength.
C) Its unfair to stamp someone guilty before he is found guilty (See Hatfill), especially on such weak evidence
D) Its a courts responsability to decide whether someone is guilty or not

Something I did not explicitly state but could add here:
E) You condem the witchhunt against Hatfill (Even defend the FBI that it was due to public pressure, poor FBI), yet you do the same to Ivins.

Looking through the transcript of the roundtable discussion, I find that they talk again and again about how the second sample did NOT appear to come from RMR-1029. Example:

QUESTION: The second sample that Dr. Ivins submitted; am I correct, it wasn’t RMR-1029?

DR. MAJIDI: It did not have the four genetic markings.

QUESTION: Did you have a designation for that sample, and were you able to trace it to a different flask in a different part of the laboratory?

DR. MAJIDI: Basically, yeah. You know, the best I can tell you is that it didn’t match RMR-1029.

QUESTION: But you don’t know where it came from, is what I’m asking.

DR. MAJIDI: You know, I don’t – unfortunately. It came from USAMRIID. That’s all I can tell you.

Ed

I should have written:

You appear to be assuming that Keim kept his copies of the first sample and the second sample from long afterward while the FBI didn’t keep their copy of either one.

Ed

There IS something “new” in this, so I’ll respond. Here is what was actually said:

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: In the subpoena process, you have to remember that slants were sent to two different places. One, to Paul Keim and one for the FBI repository submission.

It was the FBI repository submission that was rejected and disposed of. Dr. Keim saved his sample of that first submission that was rejected. Dr. Ivins then submitted correct samples under compliance of the subpoena, and those went into the repository process and also went to Dr. Keim’s lab for typing.

Remember, the duplicates were always sent to Dr. Keim to insure that it was Ames and not some other anthrax facility. And then, by 2004, we had brought two assays online. Two of the genetic assays online to begin screening the repository. The repository was not complete at that time, but we had two assays that had been validated and we started to screen the repository.

In the early screening of the repository, it started to become evident that the two genetic markers that we had in our repertoire at the time were pointing towards USAMRIID. At that point, the focus was put on the samples that were testing positive at USAMRIID, and the FBI went back in, seized additional samples, including 1029, showed that 1029 tested positive.

And since the repository — second repository sample submitted by Dr. Ivins did not, but was allegedly 1029, that raised some suspicion. At that time, the FBI went back, contacted Dr. Keim, several years later, and found out that he had retained the two original submissions. We seized those, brought them back, and they tested positive for both of those assays.

That’s very convoluted phrasing. But, this part is clear: “second repository sample submitted by Dr. Ivins did not, but was allegedly 1029, that raised some suspicion.

We don’t know exactly what is meant by “the FBI went back, contacted Dr. Keim, several years later, and found out that he had retained the two original submissions. How can he retain his “the two original submissions” AND submit them to Keim and the repository?

What are “the two original submissions? We know the FBI went to Dr. Keim and found Keim’s copy of the original/first submission with the wrong “slant” (that the FBI had thrown away). Were TWO samples with the wrong “slant” submitted to Keim? Did “Background Official” mean that Keim had retained his copy of “the two original submissions”?

You appear to be assuming that Keim kept his copies of the first sample and the second sample from long afterward. That makes no sense. As you say, there’s no reason for the FBI to throw away their copy of the second sample. They say it didn’t appear to be material from RMR-1029. But that would be evidence of obstruction of justice. So, why would they throw it away?

We need the FBI or DOJ to explain exactly what they were talking about. (And I think they will very soon.) They are clear that the second sample Ivins’ submitted was NOT from RMR-1029. They just aren’t clear about the rest of what they did.

Beat also wrote: “I wrote you to find flaws in my logic but the last email by you you actually resorted to insults,

Evidently you think that anyone who disagrees with you is insulting you. Here’s everything I wrote in my last email to you:

[Me quoting you] The prerequisite for your conclusion to be true is Ivins guilt, so it can not be used as argument to prove his guilt.

Beat,

You’re just distorting things again. The fact that Ivins committed suicide isn’t proof of guilt. It’s just one item in a list of items which when viewed in their entirety show that Ivins was almost certainly the anthrax mailer. There may be exceptions, but, generally speaking when it comes to people accused of a crime:

People commit suicide to escape justice. People who are unfairly accused sue their tormenters.

Arguing about single items in the list is a waste of time. Lots of people had motives to send the letters. Dr. Hatfill probably used the same post office. It’s not any single item on the list that proves Dr. Ivins’ guilt. It’s the entire list. While you can endlessly argue over individual items on the list, the point is: The entire list says that Ivins did it. Juries are instructed to view ALL the evidence before making a decision. Making a decision because there’s another explanation for some single item of evidence is wrong.

Ed

Where is the insult? The fact that I didn’t agree with you?

Ed

Just like with motive, answering such a question requires getting inside his head. There’s no way to do that. My guess would be that he either (1) didn’t think they’d be able to tell the difference between samples or (2) he figured that a false sample might or might not tell the FBI something, but a valid sample would definitely tell them something.

I agree that Ivins’ probably figured he was too smart to be caught. The detection of silicon in the spores a few days after the letters were received might have alarmed him, but when nothing came of it for months and months and then years, he probably figured he’d gotten away with it. I don’t have any reason to believe that he knew anything about the mutations in the attack anthrax and what it could mean to the case – at least not until near the very end.

Ed

The Anthrax Scientific Press Briefing disagrees:
BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: And since the repository — second repository sample submitted by Dr. Ivins did not, but was allegedly 1029, that raised some suspicion. At that time, the FBI went back, contacted Dr. Keim, several years later, and found out that he had retained the two original submissions. We seized those, brought them back, and they tested POSITIVE for BOTH of those assays.

The FBI’s test obviously failed at the beginning but new tests confirmed the identity of sample 2 to be RMR-1029.
Using the wrong kind of tubes for the first sample hardly is malicious misleading, but could be a honest mistake (maybe he failed to see that the tube had changed). In addition we only know that he bleached areas in the lab because Ivins told us so, agian not misleading but honesty.

I wrote you to find flaws in my logic but the last email by you you actually resorted to insults, and could not add anything to my case anymore. Nevertheless you claim to be open to new opinions, yet even though I wrote you exactly the same as above you still claim that sample two was not RMR-1029, when even the Backtground Official confirms that later testing showed it was RMR-1029.

Beat

“One of the drawbacks of almost always being the smartest kid in the room is that one then often regards others with contempt”.

That, at the very least, contributed to Ivin’s downfall.

Some time ago, I recall that some comments were made regarding this incident, I believe by Ivin’s attorney (not sure, however, my account of this is a bit hazy). The explanation put forth was that for the second submittal, Ivins took material from RMR-1029, streaked it out, isolated from this a single colony, grew it up on a separate plate, and submitted it. In otherwords, a CLONE from RMR-1029 was submitted, instead of a sample representative of all the morphs present.

Why would he do this? Maybe to see what kind of response he would get, tweak the FBI’s nose, so to speak. It would have been one way to at least get a response from them, and therefore, more information about what direction the investigation was taking.

Remember, people like Ivins tend not to be overly respectful of authority. If he was innocent, he would probably have concluded by now that the FBI were a bunch of idiots. If I was in his position (and by this I mean here assuming he was innocent)getting fed up and frustrated by the situation, and wanting to know what was really going on I would have done exactly the same thing!