* Ed Lake does not distinguish assertions from evidence … he does not understand the grand jury process … nor does he believe that every person is innocent until PROVEN guilty

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The FBI’s case against Dr. Ivins is bogus: no evidence, no witnesses, an impossible timeline, science that proves innocence instead of guilt. So what really happened? And why? The “fictional” scenario in my novel CASE CLOSED has been judged by many readers, including a highly respected official in the U.S. Intelligence Community, as “quite plausible.”

* buy CASE CLOSED at amazon *

******

Ed Lake

does not distinguish assertions from evidence

… he does not understand the grand jury process

… nor does he believe that every person is innocent

until PROVEN guilty

******

ED LAKE says … But that was NOT the case with Ivins.  With Ivins it was ALL ABOUT FACTS. As the Amerithrax investigation proceeded, the facts just kept accumulating and pointing to Ivins.  Any “theory,” if there was a theory, was a theory that Ivins didn’t do it alone.  The conspiracy theorists held that theory.  However, <b>he FACTS showed that theory to be untrue.  No one could find ANY facts which showed that Ivins had a partner in the crime.  All the known facts said Ivins did it by himself. The grand jury had enough facts to indict Ivins.  Ivins had no defense.  He was given a chance to ask for a deal, but he didn’t ask.  So, he was facing the death penalty.

Perhaps, Ed, you could make a list of what these facts are that you keep referring to.

• What evidence shows that only Ivins had access to the RMR1029 access?
• Where is the evidence that eliminates the many others who had access?
• What evidence shows that Ivins could have produced the anthrax powder, or that he could have done so without attracting attention? Did anyone see him do it?
• What evidence says he went to Princeton to mail the letters, or that his absence was noted by a single human being?

Regarding your statements about a grand jury, do you have any idea how unlikely it would be for any grand jury to refuse to indict on a case of this magnitude, regardless of the weakness of the evidence? Do you understand that no defense case is ever presented to a grand jury? That no defense lawyer ever gets to review and question the assertions made by the prosecution to a grand jury?

Did you ever serve on a grand jury? I did, and I can tell you that prosecutors get close to 100% indictments, many on paper-thin cases. On my grand jury, with me taking the lead, that percentage was reduced to about 35% indictments, and the prosecutors were still talking about it 25 years later.

Do you have evidence that a plea bargain was offered to Ivins? If so, what were the terms? Regardless of the terms, any attorney who suggested that Ivins take a plea bargain in the face of the FBI’s pathetic case should be disbarred for incompetence. There was no case.

The FBI got very lucky when Ivins allegedly committed suicide (have you ever seen an autopsy report?) because now they had a suspect who could never defend himself in court, a very convenient outcome for the FBI/DOJ/Bush administration.

Ed, just saying that Ivins was guilty, as you and the FBI (and no one else that I know) assert, is not evidence.

It is frightening to me that any intelligent person does not understand the difference between assertions and evidence, or so blithely ignores the fundamental proposition that any person is innocent until PROVEN guilty.

* Glenn Greenwald … the American people deserve a full investigation of the FBI’s pathetic case against Dr. Bruce Ivins, and President Obama should not stand in the way.

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The FBI’s case against Dr. Ivins is bogus: no evidence, no witnesses, an impossible timeline, science that proves innocence instead of guilt. So what really happened? And why? The “fictional” scenario in my novel CASE CLOSED has been judged by many readers, including a highly respected official in the U.S. Intelligence Community, as “quite plausible.”

* buy CASE CLOSED at amazon *

.

Obama, Benedict, Scalia ... what do they have in common?

Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon (4/21/10) …

• the Obama administration is actively and aggressively blocking any efforts to investigate the FBI’s case against Ivins through an Obama veto threat, based on the Orwellian, backward claim that such an investigation “would undermine public confidence” in the FBI’s case “and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions.”
• opposing an independent examination of any aspect of the investigation will only fuel the public’s belief that the FBI’s case could not hold up in court, and that in fact the real killer may still be at large.
• Obama’s rationale for threatening to veto an anthrax investigation (investigations would undermine the State’s credibility and thus dilute its authority) is very similar to the Catholic Church’s explanation for why it concealed reports of so many abusive priests (disclosure would undermine the Church’s credibility and thus dilute its authority).
• See, for instance, here, as well as here (Cardinal Christoph Schönborn:  “the appearance of an infallible church was more important than anything else”).
• That was also the same rationale invoked by Justice Scalia when enjoining the Florida recount during the 2000 election (Scalia:  a recount would “irreparably harm” Bush “by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election”).

“Common to all of these suppression-justifying claims

is the notion that preventing the truth

from being examined and known

is necessary to preserve

institutional credibility and power.”

Read the entire column at … http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/21/hatfill/

LMW COMMENT …

I am a fervent supporter of President Obama. I believe he is both brilliant and a decent man. I support almost all of his decisions and initiatives.

On the other hand, I utterly detest the behavior of Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) in the church’s sexual abuse scandals, and that of Justice Scalia and his 4 colleagues who appointed George W. Bush president and gave us the invasion of Iraq.

• But I think Obama’s opposition to a full investigation of the FBI’s pathetic case against Dr. Bruce Ivins is not in America’s best interests.
• As Pope Benedict’s refusal to face sexual abuse by by its priests is not in the best interests of the Catholic Church.
• As suppressing the Florida recount was to America’s best interests.

It is clear to most observers that the FBI has no case against Ivins. The more documents which are finally extracted under FOIA requests, the more clear this lack of a case is.

Which leaves the questions:

• Did the FBI really fail to solve the case?
• If the FBI did solve the case (and it’s not Ivins) who or what are they covering up for?

These are serious matters, for the future as well as the past; the American people deserve an unambiguous answer to both questions; President Obama should not stand in the way.

Catholic Church pedophiles and their enablers …

… for more about the Catholic Church’s adamant refusal to honestly come to grips with its pedophile priests and the bishops who protect them, see  this and other posts at my political blog … http://lewandpatpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/pope-benedict-accepts-no-blame-for-his-own-horrific-failures-to-prevent-sexual-abuse-and-punish-the-many-catholic-priests-who-abused-children-or-covered-up-the-abuses-of-others-hes-a-disgrace-to/

* Glenn Greenwald … the Government claims it knows that Ivins is the anthrax killer; the American media largely affirms that claim; and, for so many people, that’s the end of the story, no matter how many times that exact process has so woefully misled them and no matter how many credible and even mainstream sources question it.

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The FBI’s case against Dr. Ivins is bogus: no evidence, no witnesses, an impossible timeline, science that proves innocence instead of guilt. So what really happened? And why? The “fictional” scenario in my novel CASE CLOSED has been judged by many readers, including a highly respected official in the U.S. Intelligence Community, as “quite plausible.”

* buy CASE CLOSED at amazon *

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Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon (4/21/10) …

• It requires an extreme level of irrationality to read what happened to Hatfill and simultaneously to have faith that the “real anthrax attacker” has now been identified as a result of the FBI’s wholly untested and uninvestigated case against Bruce Ivins.
• the FBI’s case against Ivins is riddled with scientific and evidentiary holes.
• Much of the public case against Ivins, as was true for Hatfill, was made by subservient establishment reporters mindlessly passing on dubious claims leaked by their anonymous government sources.
• So unconvincing is the case against Ivins that even the most establishment, government-trusting voices — including key members of Congress, leading scientific journals and biological weapons experts, and the editorial pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall St. Journal — have all expressed serious doubts over the FBI’s case and have called for further, independent investigations.
• Yet just as was true for years with the Hatfill accusations, no independent investigations are taking place.
• the FBI drove Ivins to suicide, thus creating an unwarranted public assumption of guilt and ensuring the FBI’s case would never be subjected to the critical scrutiny of a trial
• the American media — with some notable exceptions — continued to do to Ivins what it did to Hatfill and what it does in general:  uncritically disseminate government claims rather than questioning or investigating them for accuracy.
• the Government claims it knows that Ivins is the anthrax killer; the American media largely affirms that claim; and, for so many people, that’s the end of the story, no matter how many times that exact process has so woefully misled them and no matter how many credible and even mainstream sources question it.

Read the entire column at … http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/21/hatfill/

* UPI Outside View (from a colleague at USAMRIID) … was Bruce Ivins the sole perpetrator of the anthrax mailings as the FBI claims or did his suicide result from the pressure of the investigation and the possible revelation of damaging personal information as occurred in the Hatfill case?

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The FBI’s case against Dr. Ivins is bogus: no evidence, no witnesses, an impossible timeline, science that proves innocence instead of guilt. So what really happened? And why? The “fictional” scenario in my novel CASE CLOSED has been judged by many readers, including a highly respected official in the U.S. Intelligence Community, as “quite plausible.”

* buy CASE CLOSED at amazon *

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Dr. Bruce Ivins

Lawrence Sellin writes for UPI Outside View (4/22/10) …

• I knew Bruce Ivins, although not well.
  • During my time at Fort Detrick I worked with botulinum toxin, while Ivins worked with anthrax. So, our paths didn’t cross in the laboratories.
  • As others have described him, I found Ivins eccentric, geeky and a bit socially inept.He didn’t strike me as being dangerous and I was, therefore, both surprised and shocked that the FBI concluded that he was the anthrax mailer.
  • It has been reported that Ivins underwent a similar degree of harassment and subjected to an equivalent amount of leaking of confidential information as Hatfill.
  • The FBI allegedly told Ivins’ children that he was a murderer, showed them photos of the victims and offered his son cash and a sports car if he turned against his father.
• the FBI case against Ivins may not be rock solid as they seem to indicate.
  • Jeff Adamovicz, chief of bacteriology at Fort Detrick and Ivins’ supervisor stated that more than two samples taken from laboratories and tested by the FBI, Fort Detrick being one of them, possessed the anthrax strain linked to the mailings. What about the other samples?
  • Is it reasonable to presume that in the days and weeks after 9/11 that Ivins had the time and expertise to carry out the attacks alone and without any witnesses?
  • Furthermore, a number of anthrax experts claim that at the time Fort Detrick didn’t have the equipment necessary to produce anthrax of the type found in the anthrax letters.
• Was Bruce Ivins the sole perpetrator of the anthrax mailings as the FBI claims or did his suicide result from the pressure of the investigation and the possible revelation of damaging personal information as occurred in the Hatfill case?
• Did Ivins, like Hatfill before him, simply fit the profile?
• In the opinion of many, the Amerithrax investigation still appears far from conclusive.

Read the entire article at … http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/2010/04/22/Outside-View-Anthrax-letters-Was-Bruce-Ivins-hounded-to-death/UPI-33341271930820/