* The newly released lab notebook pages demonstrate Dr. Bruce Ivins was tending to dead animals on the nights it was alleged by the FBI he was preparing dry anthrax. In light of an Ivins theory being demolished by such astonishing evidence, GAO should ask why were investigators told Ivins’ time in the lab was “unjustified”? How will Dr. Pat Fellows, AUSA Rachel Lieber and AUSA Kenneth Kohl respond?

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* FBI Director Mueller gets two more years to do the right thing in the Amerithrax investigation. President Obama should direct Mueller to do what needs to be done.

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FBI Director Robert Mueller

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CNN reports …

It will take an act of Congress to keep Robert Mueller at the helm of the FBI, and all signs indicate that’s precisely what lawmakers will do. No sooner had President Barack Obama announced plans to extend Mueller’s statutorily limited 10-year term to 12 years than Democrats and Republicans alike began to smartly salute the decorated Marine and declare the move a grand idea.

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LMW COMMENT …

As far as the public can know with such a secretive organization, Robert Mueller has done an excellent job as FBI Director.

But, like the rest of us, he is not perfect. The Amerithrax investigation is one area where the FBI has fallen far short of an acceptable mark, and Mueller must take responsibility.

• The original structure of the investigation, with its changing teams and firewalls to prevent the flow of information, must have had Mueller’s approval, if indeed not his actual direction.
• The August 2008 announcement that Ivins was the sole perpetrator was a farce, especially when the FBI offered no evidence that Dr. Ivins was even involved.
• The FBI’s stonewalling response to Congress and others who have questioned the FBI’s conclusions must lay right at Mueller’s doorstep.

Director Mueller now has another two years

to do what should have been done long ago.

He has several choices …

• Cooperate fully with the GAO investigation initiated by Congressman Rush Holt 
• Provide the improperly withheld information to the NAS and ask them to do a proper review
• Re-open the FBI investigation with a fresh team and no restrictions (much like I did in my novel CASE CLOSED)

President Obama has much on his plate. But surely a resolution of who actually attacked the U.S. with the anthrax letters in 2001 must be somewhere among his important priorities. Because, as so many have pointed out, it is likely the perpetrators are still out there, planning to attack again. 

President Obama should direct FBI Director Mueller

to do the right thing. 

America deserves a better answer

than the FBI has so far provided.

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