*The DOJ Civil Division Notes That It Is Not In Genuine Dispute That After 2001, A Short-lived Two Person Rule (Implemented Early 2002) Prevented The Same Pattern Of Hours That AUSA Rachel Lieber Mistakenly Relied Upon As Proof Of Ivins’ Guilt
Posted by DXer on November 28, 2011
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
I’ve focused on the entries made in the still wrongfully withheld Notebook 4282 on September 14, 15 and 18 at pages 65-70. But what about the entries on the immediately preceding pages from earlier in September and late August 2001?
Those hours were the predicate of US Attorney Taylor and FBI Agent Persichini’s “Ivins Theory.”
They are senior officials with many important responsibilities — and events were very rushed after Bruce Ivins’ suicide. They were depending on the information briefed to them by the AUSAs and investigators.
Do the DEA Controlled Substances Log Show Administration of Euthasol to animals when Dr. Ivins worked the long hours in B3 on 9/3/2001, 9/6/2001, 9/7/2001 and 9/10/2001 ? If so, pertaining to what animal protocol? What animal species?
Posted on December 12, 2011
Dr. Gerard Andrews, Chief of Bacteriology, testified at deposition that lots of scientists worked after hours during that September – October 2001; Dr. Andrews has even pulled all-nighters
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 15, 2013
FBI interview statement: If someone came in off hours it was to work on the animal experiments – this could take approximately two hours and was usually a one-person job.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 1, 2012
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?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 14, 2011
DXer said
The US DOJ has now produced the civil deposition of Larry Lynn in full and it is available to the GAO and the public.
Larry Lynn (formerly head of DARPA who headed a panel studying biosecurity after the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings) testified:
Q Now, under the bullets, your fourth bullet is, quote, “Discourage attempts to impose a two-person rule for security as being counterproductive in most situations,” end quote. In terms of being counterproductive, does that have any mission impact?
A Yes. It — well, for example, a two-person rule puts two people into a space designed for one, increases the cost by — the labor costs, obviously, by a factor of two, and discourages the experiment.
Q With a two-person rule, this is contemplating somebody who is also scientifically trained being there?
A Yes.
Q Instead of that person being in a separate room doing their own — doing another set of research in another lab.
[and continuing at page 96]
A Well, if you talk to anybody in the labs, that they feel that they have to increase the security and have to do it visibly, that the two-person rule is what people expect them to do. And you talk to
management people, and they think that the two-person rule solves the problem. It’s a carry-over — in my mind, now — it’s a carryover from the nuclear programs, where you have, for example, in a launch facility, you have
two-person rules that are effective. It a very different situation.
Q Now, for persons on your team who have worked with BSATs or — and operated laboratories concerning BSATs and were sensitive to the issue of handling BSATs, were they advocating the two-person rule?
A No, with general agreement on their video monitoring and the two-person rule.
Q Well, you also have Other Implications, and you make a particular statement concerning other implication, for the two-person rule. If you could read that what is?
A “Significant impact on scientific enterprise. Every lab and lab procedure will require redundant available staff up to four persons for each procedure and lab location to insure coverage. This will increase enrollments in BPRP, special immunization program, occupational health, et cetera.”
Q Were these findings and comments here those of the task force together, or yours personally?
A No, this was put together by the task force. Let me just clarify that.
Q Yes.
A Obviously put together by the task force. Somebody had to put it together, and I don’t remember who, but the task force agreed with all of these. I know of no objection to anything in the report by members of the task force. It has been coordinated with them all, so that should be a standing answer.
[page 98]
DXer said
“Dr. Ivins was never in the habit of working excessive late night hours in the lab, either prior to or after the mailings.”
It was a huge lapse for the author of this summary to not realize that the two person rule implemented in January 2002 prevented those hours from continuing. (The hours did in fact continue in November and December.
The hours analysis relates only to that Building and suite. Studies had shifted from 1412 to 1425 because he came to prefer parenteral challenges which unlike aerosol challenges did not need to be in Building 1412.
The DOJ did not provide hours for 1412 for other periods as a basis for comparison. Statistics are easily manipulated when data is selectively provided.
DXer said
Dr. Patricia Worsham testified on the issue:
Q “Okay. You mentioned that there wasn’t a buddy system in the biocontainment labs. Did somebody suggest that sometime and it just wasn’t pursued, or…”
A. “That was suggested after 2001, I believe by the DAIG, who was more acquainted with nuclear surety.”
Q. “Okay. And what was the culmination of that? What happened with that suggestion? It just wasn’t followed for one reason or another?”
A “It was extremely onerous. It was almost impossible to get any work done. The scheduling to get two people in the same place at the same time for the same hours was detrimental to our mission, and to morale, so eventually it went to a roaming observer force. These were enlisted people who went through the areas randomly and without notification to inspect what was going on, and then cameras.” (p. 55)
DXer said
The 2- person rule implemented in January 2002 at USAMRIID in fact was short-lived at USAMRIID. Ask FBI expert Pat Worsham who was USAMRIID’s colleague and worked in the same B3. Dr. Majidi’s book is so filled with misinformation that when compared to the August 8 press conference you can see the source of the FBI’s mistakes of fact at that press conference.
Anonymous said
“Why didn’t AUSA Lieber and Agent Alexander understand that the pattern could not have been continued after December 2001?”
I think that’s because they don’t want to understand it.
Rachel finds it “offensive” that people think the DOJ was trying to harm Dr Ivins mentally:
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/anthrax-files/rachel-lieber-the-case-against-dr-bruce-ivins/
“He was then admitted to a hospital. When we heard 10 days later that the medical professionals — who their degree is in psychology, and mine is not — made the determination that Dr. Ivins was not a danger to himself and others, we thought, based on investigative materials that we had, that that might not be correct. We called the hospital; we offered to provide that information to them. They released him anyway.
So this notion that, in any way, we were trying to put pressure on Dr. Ivins, that we were trying to harm him mentally, is, one, offensive, and two, completely undercut by the actual record. …”
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It’s a pity the interviwer didn’t ask Rachel why they found it necessary to match his DNA to semen stained ladies underwear they removed from his private residence. If that’s not offensive, what is?
oldatlantic said
Just more evidence the DOJ was ready to go to court when Ivins died.
DXer said
The pattern observed in the 5 year chart needs to be understood in light of the following facts:
1) There were no electronic key card records available for the first half of 1998, which is why it appears as zero the first half of that year.
2) There was a shift during the 5 year period from aerosol challenges in Building 1412 to Building 1425 (Suite B3) that was due to the fewer personnel and rooms that were needed. See numerous emails explaining the reason parenteral challenges came to be preferred.
3) There was a trend toward 3Xs checks daily. See protocols.
4) The 302 interview statements explain that it would take a principal investigator an average of a couple of hours to do the various things required (bacteremia study, euthanasia of moribund animals, autoclaving dead animals) and was a one person job. Running the autoclave, without more, took a couple of hours and would be done by the last person in for the day. It was Dr. Ivins who was doing the last check. No autoclave records support the prosecutor’s understanding.
5) The prosecutors and investigators never even mention the word rabbit. They literally have tried to stuff 52 rabbits from the formaldehyde study down the hat.
6) AUSA Lieber, who relies on the notebooks, has specifically refused (through DOJ spokesman) this blog’s request to produce them and the FBI took the only copy from USAMRIID.
7) The FBI has failed to provide under FOIA numerous emails written during the relevant September and October 2001 period, to include the September 17, 2001 email which USAMRIID says was not in fact written from Dr. Ivins work computer (based on a careful search they conducted).
AUSA Lieber is deluding herself if she thinks she could base her Ivins Theory on her 5 year chart that Agent Lawrence Alexander brought to her in 2007. She pointed to in her Frontline interview as a key part of the evidence supporting her Ivins Theory.
GAO: Why didn’t AUSA Lieber and Agent Alexander understand that the pattern could not have been continued after December 2001?