* Lawmakers, scientists question FBI’s investigation, conclusion in 2001 anthrax attacks

The FBI has no case against this man … but meanwhile he is dead and the real perpetrators are still out there.

Published 14 August 2013 … read the entire article at … http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20130814-lawmakers-scientists-question-fbi-s-investigation-conclusion-in-2001-anthrax-attacks

Here are some excerpts from the article …

• Twelve years after the fall 2001 anthrax attacks, and six years after the 2007 FBI’s determination that Bruce Ivins, a top government anthrax researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was the perpetrator of the attacks (Ivins died in 2008 of apparent suicide), lawmakers and USAMRIID scientists insist that the FBI’s conclusions are not supported by scientific evidence – indeed, that some basic scientific facts make the Bureau’s conclusions untenable.

• After years of requests from lawmakers, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has opened an investigation into the scientific methods used by the FBI to determine that researcher Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator of a 2001 series of anthrax attacks that killed five and injured seventeen.

• According to the Frederick News-Post, U.S. Representative Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), whose district was the mailing point for the anthrax-laden letters, has been requesting the GAO to investigate the scientific methodology used by the FBI in concluding, since 2007, that Ivins was the perpetrator.

• Bolstering the efforts of Holt and other lawmakers is a 2011 report from a National Research Council (NRC) committee which determined that the conclusions reached by the FBI were not supported by science. At USAMRIID, three of Ivins’s coworkers raised issues that were never addressed by the FBI investigation.

• Patrick Eddington, a senior policy advisor to Holt, said, “There needs to be an exhaustive explanation of how the FBI handles cases like this.” Pointing to several other Bureau blunders, Eddington added that the FBI is “still out of their depth when it comes to dealing with cases with this kind of science.”

• For its part, the FBI has said that it relied on the totality of its investigation, not just on the science, that lead it to conclude Bruce Ivins’s culpability in the anthrax mailings.

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LMW COMMENT:

None of the above, nor anything else in the article, is actually new, and the GAO is way behind earlier estimates of when their report would be ready. However, it is refreshing to see some attention being given to what, in my opinion, is the failed FBI investigation of a truly significant matter of national security.

It wasn’t Ivins,

and whoever did it is still out there.

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* In the formal handwriting examination conducted in the Amerithrax investigation, it was concluded that “Bruce E. Ivins probably did not write the writings appearing on the ‘anthrax’ envelopes and letters.” The Assistant US Attorney did not disclose that fact in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary.

The FBI has no case against this man … but meanwhile he is dead and the real perpetrators are still out there.

Forensic Laboratory Examination Report … United States Postal inspection Service … Forensic Laboratory Services … March 08, 2007

USPlS\RJMuehlberger … Case No. – Lab File No. 9-957-002016

Type of Examination: Questioned Documents
Request Date(s) 1/2007

SA FBI Washington Field Office
7799 Leesburg Pike
Falls Church, VA 22043

PROBLEM:

ALL FBI
PEREII-I IS
DATE dlciil

Determine whether or not the questioned entries appearing in the printed digital images (also contained on CD) of three labels; one depicting the writing “Ames strain RMR from Dugway Bruce Ivins (1997) 2/27/02” and two depicting the writing “Dugway Ames spores – 1997” were written by Bruce E. Ivins, whose known writings are depicted in the photocopies of various course of business documents.

Determine whether or not the questioned entries appearing on the “anthrax” envelopes and letters (photographic copies retained in the laboratory) were written by Bruce E. lvins, whose known writings are depicted in the photocopies of various course of business documents.

FINDINGS:

Bruce E. Ivins probably wrote the original of the questioned entries appearing in the printed digital images of the three labels described above.

Bruce E. Ivins probably wrote the original of the questioned address entries appearing in the printed digital images of the two parcels.

Bruce E. Ivins probably did not write the writings appearing on the “anthrax” envelopes and letters.

REMARKS:

The qualified findings expressed above are due to the lack of original documents from which the examination and comparisons were conducted. The submission of the original questioned and known writings could provide for more definitive findings. In addition, the
submission of known exemplars reflecting the writings appearing on the “anthrax” envelopes and letters would need to be examined prior to fully eliminating Bruce E. Ivins as the writer of these questioned writings.

The request for examination was submitted by FBI Special Agent (name redacted) under their File Nos. 279A–WF-222936-LAB and 279A-WF-222936-SC 24. This examination is also in reference to U. 8. Inspection Service Case No. I.

EXHIBITS: The exhibits described in this report of examination, with the exception of the photographic copies of the letters, were hand carried to the laboratory by FBI Special Agent on January 11, 2007. All submitted exhibits are returned with this report.

Robert Muehlberger, Laborator Director

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