* Ivins could not have been in Princeton when the FBI said he was
Posted by DXer on April 15, 2009
In response to criticisms that the FBI’s case contains no evidence placing Ivins in New Jersey, where the anthrax letters were sent, The Washington Post published an article — headlined “New Details Show Anthrax Suspect Away On Key Day” — which, based on leaks from “government sources briefed on the case,” purported to describe evidence about Bruce Ivins’ whereabouts on September 17 — the day the FBI says the first batch of anthrax letters were mailed from a Princeton, New Jersey mailbox. The Post reported:
A partial log of Ivins’s work hours shows that he worked late in the lab on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 16, signing out at 9:52 p.m. after two hours and 15 minutes. The next morning, the sources said, he showed up as usual but stayed only briefly before taking leave hours. Authorities assume that he drove to Princeton immediately after that, dropping the letters in a mailbox on a well-traveled street across from the university campus. Ivins would have had to have left quickly to return for an appointment in the early evening, about 4 or 5 p.m.
The fastest one can drive from Frederick, Maryland to Princeton, New Jersey is 3 hours, which would mean that Ivins would have had to have dropped the anthrax letters in the New Jersey mailbox on September 17 by 1 p.m. or — at the latest — 2 p.m. in order to be able to attend a 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. meeting back at Ft. Detrick. But had he dropped the letters in the mailbox before 5:00 p.m. on September 17, the letters would have borne a September 17 postmark, rather than the September 18 postmark they bore (letters picked up from that Princeton mailbox before 5 p.m. bear the postmark from that day; letters picked up after 5 p.m. bear the postmark of the next day). That’s why the Search Warrant Affidavit (.pdf) released by the FBI on Friday said this (page 8):
If the Post‘s reporting about Ivins’ September 17 activities is accurate — that he “return[ed to Fort Detrick] for an appointment in the early evening, about 4 or 5 p.m.” — then that would constitute an alibi, not, as the Post breathlessly described it, “a key clue into how he could have pulled off an elaborate crime,” since any letter he mailed that way would have a September 17 — not a September 18 — postmark. Just compare the FBI’s own definition of “window of opportunity” to its September 17 timeline for Ivins to see how glaring that contradiction is.
The FBI’s theory as to how and when Ivins traveled to New Jersey on September 17 and mailed the letters is simply impossible, given the statement in their own Probable Cause Affidavit as to “the window of opportunity” the anthrax attacker had to mail the letters in order to have them bear a September 18 postmark. Marcy Wheeler and Larisa Alexandrovna have now noted the same discrepancy. That is a pretty enormous contradiction in the FBI’s case.
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Bruce Ivins had a Visa card from Farmers and Mechanics Bank and a Visa card issued by TJX Bank.
“QUESTION: Is there evidence like a gas receipt that shows that he was there, I mean, that actually proves that he was in that area?
MR. TAYLOR: We don’t have that piece of direct evidence you mentioned.”
Someone could ask Joby of the Wash Po who spun this false narrative. Was it the same folks who struck the CSI pose for his article on the science?
“Meanwhile, bits of fresh information continued to come out. A partial log of Ivins’s work hours shows that he worked late in the lab on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 16, signing out at 9:52 p.m. after two hours and 15 minutes. The next morning, the sources said, he showed up as usual but stayed only briefly before taking leave hours. Authorities assume that he drove to Princeton immediately after that, dropping the letters in a mailbox on a well-traveled street across from the university campus. Ivins would have had to have left quickly to return for an appointment in the early evening, about 4 or 5 p.m.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080703443.html
We’ve already seen that the FBI withheld one critical email for four years.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/doj-for-4-years-withheld-this-email-message-0438-written-by-bruce-ivins-on-the-date-of-alleged-mailing-of-deadly-anthrax-gao-should-obtain-a-full-set-of-emails-from-doj-including-those-that-doj/
In emails with John P. at USMRMC, the FBI had culled it from the USAMRIID production and then produced it only when I identified it as having been wrongfully culled.
Moreover, the FBI had his usernames and passwords for numerous websites: including ASM, ABC, AOL, Amazon, Army Knowledge, Crossnet, ABC News, Real Player, MCRP, ASM Journals, USUHS Library, Washington Post, Anti-terrorism training, Baltimore Sun, Blue Cross, F&M, DIstance Learning, voicemail, MSN, Roxio, Yahoo, AIMS, Ebay, and Paypal.
Computer forensics had the greatest potential for excluding a person based on an alibi.
GAO, in terms of the computer forensics done, what did FBI do to determine whether Bruce Ivins used his computer the night of September 17, 2001?
In addition to email — many of which have been wrongfully withheld from production, including emails from his personal account — a person has phone records.
The record is bare as to what examination did of such forensic evidence relating to his whereabouts on 9/17/2001 — except we know that they hadn’t ascertained whether he had attended his group therapy session that evening.
We know that the FBI had Ivins credit card and phone records: “Upon review of BRUCE IVINS’ home telephone records and credit card purchases for 2001, it was noted that The College Board in Ewing, New Jersey (NJ) was called from his home telephone, and that IVINS also had a credit card charge to The College Board for October SAT registration.
The most potentially probative inquiry the FBI could have made was along the lines of creating a timeline of Ivins’ whereabouts based on the documentary evidence.
For example, what was the October date of the SAT? Who drove Dr. Ivins’ son or daughter to the SAT? People can’t remember what they did years later but they can remember something like that. For example, if he was driving his son or daughter to the SAT he couldn’t be driving to Princeton.
The 302s of the family bear directly on this issue of alibi for Dr. Ivins but were withheld under FOIA. (In contrast, they were released in the UNABOM case).
The FBI’s failure to disclose the contemporaneous documents relating to the purchases, telephone records, and emails from late September 2001 and early October 2001 remind me of the internet poster who stalks this blog and who for a decade has argued a First Grader wrote the anthrax letters — incredibly, basing his theory in part on the date of the first day of school.
Yet he hadn’t even checked the date! When it was pointed out that he got the date wrong, he didn’t bother correct the fact in his book published online because it would be inconvenient to correct his mistakes! Indeed.
In terms of the most powerful forensic tool, it was computer forensics that would help to establish Dr. Ivins’ whereabouts on any given day and hour. As I recall, we don’t even have his keycard access records for Building 1412 (as distinguished from Building 1425).
DXer said
In 2009, Lew first explained why the official timeline and “Ivins Theory” was totally botched.