* FOX NEWS interview with RICHARD LAMBERT … Former agent claims FBI concealing evidence in anthrax case
Posted by DXer on April 22, 2015
Former FBI Agent Richard Lambert
The FBI has never made its case. We have demonstrated this failure on our CASE CLOSED blog and I have written a novel of the same name presenting an alternate scenario. Now, it turns out that Richard Lambert, the FBI agent who ran the case, agrees.
Watch the video of his interview on FOX NEWS … http://video.foxnews.com/v/4184909385001/former-agent-claims-fbi-concealing-evidence-in-anthrax-case/?#sp=show-clips
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Trump came into office as a “disruptor” and should have expected the volume of requests for internal documents that he’s been receiving, Walton said.
“Otherwise, they’re just totally thumbing their nose at the objective of FOIA,” [District Court Judge Walton] said. “The American public is going to become totally disillusioned.”
Walton said he hoped to issue a ruling on another transparency request aimed at Mueller’s office — for the release of an un[red]acted version of the report — by next month, when another status hearing in the cases is scheduled.
Justice Department told to produce 500 pages of interview memos from Mueller investigation
By David Shortell, CNN
Updated 3:07 PM ET, Tue October 1, 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/01/politics/mueller-fbi-witnesses/index.html
DXer said
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/noted-conservative-lawyer-on-trump-this-man-terrifies-me-71034437970
DXer said
If I were a federal district court judge, and I learned that the FBI’s search capability did not include reaching into an index of materials in 1A attached envelopes — where the evidentiary materials could have been expected to be located — I would direct the FBI to provide the copies of all material spanning the September 2001 and October 2001. That time period was the focus of Dillon’s FOIA request.
I would have the FBI make special note of identified material named in these Ivins interviews, to name just a few:
BEI#1 Ivins interview 23Jan2002
BEI#1 Ivins interview 31Jan2002
BEI#1 Ivins interview 12Feb2003
BEI#1 Ivins interview 7May2004
USAMRIID#19 PDFpg 7,8: Ivins interview 8Sep2004
BEI#1: Ivins interview 13Jan2005
BEI#2 Ivins interview 31Mar2005
BEI#2 Ivins interview 31Mar2005
BEI#2 Ivins interview 31March2005
BEI#2 PDF pgs 29-32: 1Apr2005
To the same effect, if the FBI were to produce the materials requested by Dillon still being withheld by the FBI, it might head off the need for an investigation by a Congressional Committee or the Department of Justice Inspector General.
Robert Mueller did not fail to provide the documents requested by FOIA requestor Dillon — Mueller did not falsely claim that they had already been uploaded the FBI’s Vault or provided to Dillon. FBI’s David Hardy did.
DXer said
Click to access 847443.pdf
For example, what about the missing emails from September and October 2001 relating to Bioport?
They are contained in the envelope attached to the 302 involving the Ivins interview on 12/03/2004.
“IVINS conducted a quick search ‘of his email account at USAMRIID and printed out any e-mails relating to Bioport. Enclosed are copies of these e-mails. The original copies were placed into a 1-A envelope.”
If the FBI cannot find evidence contained within its own files, should we really expect it to solve difficult crimes involving evidence that is intentionally concealed by a perpetrator?
DXer said
And what about the computer records that the FBI failed to provide FOIA requestor Dillon? They are in the 1A envelope of Ivins January 25, 2005 interview.
Why did FBI’s Dave Hardy refuse to provide them over the course of years? Hardy should understand that Ivins’ work on his computer during September 2001 and October 2001 is critical to understanding his activities and whereabouts.
If the records had been provided, the FBI’s claim that he had no reason to be in the B3 would have been demolished when it was first subject of the rushed press conferences upon Ivins’ suicide (which followed the discovery again of the stained panties in his garbage.
Click to access 847443.pdf
It was agreed by the consenting individuals that all original floppy disks and other non-imaged media would be returned to the owners as soon as imaging can be completed by WFO CART. ~ ____ ~A copy of the FD-26 Consent to Search forms, FD-597s signed byl I IVINS, and I I and photographic images of material imaged from loffice space will be maintained in the 1A section of the file.
DXer said
With respect to Dave Hardy’s refusal to provide FOIA Requestor Dillon the CART records (relating to the computer records in Ivins office from September 2001, note that they are attached to his interview dated February 2, 2005. The records relate to an Apple Computer and an Apple laptop.— and two Dell computers.
“Agent (SA) ________Computer Analysis Response Team (CART), Washington Field Office (WFO) ____ participated in a consensual search at the offices ofl land Bruce Ivins, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), 1425 Porter Street, Fort Detrick, Maryland. CART was tasked with the imaging of computers and digital storage media found at the above offices relevant to the below listed investigation. As such, the following describes work performed by CART: One AnnIe comnuter I I One Apple laptop computer”
“Also numerous types of portable storage media was provided to CART for imaging: 3.5” floppy disks! zip disks 2 GB jaz disks, and CD-Rs. (note: SAl I obtained the types of media for seizure and imaging. Digital photos of portable media were taken – see 1A.)”
Two Dell computers were also imaged. One was labeled “Ivins_WS1_1.” Another was labeled “Ivins_LabB5_1”
“Also, numerous types of portable storage media was provided to CART for imaging: 3.5” floppy disks and zip disks. (note: SAl I obtained the types of media for seizure and imaging. Digital photos of portable media were taken see 1A.) All the above items were appropriately imaged, collected, and/or provided to the SAl I FBI, Amerithrax-1, for transport and inventory purposes to the FBI-WFO Evidence Control. All digital forensic worksheets, notes, and CD containing photos will be serialized and maintained within the above CART subfile. “
Now, when FOIA requestor Dillon requested Ivins computer records from September 2001 and October 2001 and the FBI’s Dave Hardy falsely claimed that they had been uploaded to the FBI’s Vault. The FBI knew that the requested imaged computer files could be found, if the FBI were interested in being responsive and complying with FOIA, in the CART files. Right?
So when Dillon asked for the computer files relating to reconstructing Ivins activities and whereabouts in September 2001 and October 2001, the FBI’s failure to provide them was intentional — not merely a matter of incompetent record-keeping.
Moving forward, and giving the FBI the benefit of the doubt given their pressing workload, the FBI should produce the computer records now.
Dillon demonstrated his good faith by narrowing the request to the September-October 2001 period.
DXer said
FBI’s Dave Hardy offers no explanation for the withholding of the 102 pages now being produced beyond that they had been “overlooked” by the FBI. Okay. Once it has compensated the FOIA requestor for his many thousands in attorneys fees, we can let that one go as to the wrongfully withheld 102 pages of emails. Dave supervises something like 60 people and can hardly conduct searches himself. And WFO (FBI Field Office) staff understandably are very busy keeping our country safe. By all means, hug an FBI agent today as DOJ and FBI seek to enforce the rule of law in very perilous times.
But Dave Hardy is making the judgment call to withhold an additional 241 pages that he claims are duplicative. I submit that Mr. Hardy should release them also. The FBI may again be overlooking something. In his affidavit, he nowhere specifically identifies what they specifically duplicate. Given his track record on this issue, his bald unsupported claim does not deserve to be credited.
DXer said
Judge Contreras, in an opinion today, ruled on Dillon’s FOIA’s claim. He writes:
“But the report is also 2,000 pages long, and the FBI has asserted that the entire thing is deliberative. This contention immediately draws some skepticism, because “the deliberative process privilege does not protect documents in their entirety; if the government can segregate and disclose non-privileged factual information within a document, it must.” Loving, 550 F.3d at 38. FOIA requires the same. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (“Any reasonably segregable portion of a record shall be provided to any person requesting such record after deletion of the portions which are exempt.”). As noted above, then, for the factual information in the IMCS to fall within the ambit of the privilege here, the information must “reflect[] an ‘exercise of discretion and judgment calls.’” Ancient Coin Collectors, 641 F.3d at 513 (quoting Mapother, 3 F.3d at 1539). In other words, the drafters of the report must have “‘cull[ed] the relevant documents, extract[ed] the pertinent facts, organize[d] them to suit a specific purpose,’ and ‘identif[ied] the significant issues.’” Nat’l Sec. Archive v. CIA, 752 F.3d 460, 465 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (quoting Mapother, 3 F.3d at 1538).
In this case, the easiest way for the Court to determine whether the IMCS is the product of such a process is to look at the requested excerpts. Indeed, “[w]here the agency fails to meet [its] burden, a not uncommon event,” FOIA provides courts “a host of procedures” to determine whether the claimed exemption is proper, including discovery, further agency affidavits, and in camera review of the records in question. Allen v. CIA, 636 F.2d 1287, 1298 (D.C. Cir. 1980), abrogated on other grounds by Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C., Inc. v. Smith, 721 F.2d 828, 830–31 (D.C. Cir. 1983). Here, the Court thinks that the last of these options is the appropriate one. The documents at issue are relatively short in length—just thirty-eight pages—and the parties’ “dispute . . . centers on the actual contents of the document[s].” Id.; see also Juarez v. Dep’t of Justice, 518 F.3d 54, 60 (D.C. Cir. 2008). The FBI also has not expressed much, if any, opposition to the Court performing such a review. See, e.g., Second Hardy Decl. ¶ 16 (“If the Court deems it necessary, the FBI will provide copies of the processed records to the Court for in camera inspection.”); cf. Allen, 636 F.2d at 1299 (“[L]ittle basis for . . . concern [over judicial intrusion] exists when the agency itself proposes that the court conduct an in camera inspection of the document.”).
The Court thus exercises its “broad discretion” to order production of the requested IMCS excerpts within thirty days. Id. at 1297. DOJ should, if necessary, produce classified and unclassified versions of the pages.”
DXer said
We could rely on the internal documents required by law to be produced under FOIA, or we could rely on the self-serving for-profit spin of the folks who have withheld the documents.
Death in the Air: Revisiting the 2001 Anthrax Mailings and the Amerithrax Investigation
Glenn Cross
January 16, 2019
Book Reviews
https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/death-in-the-air-revisiting-the-2001-anthrax-mailings-and-the-amerithrax-investigation/
Dr. Glenn Cross currently works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is a former deputy national intelligence officer for weapons of mass destruction, specializing in biological weapons.
DXer said
Scott Decker, Recounting the Anthrax Attacks: Terror, the Amerithrax Task Force, and the Evolution of Forensics in the FBI (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
Time may have diminished the memory of the 2001 anthrax attacks and the sense of urgency surrounding the efforts to identify the attacker. The attacks, which involved mailings of five anthrax-laced letters to prominent senators and media outlets, killed five individuals and made 17 others ill. The anthrax mailings played a profound role in raising concerns over possible terrorist use of biological agents in attacks against the homeland. As a result of the anthrax scare, Americans’ perceptions of terrorism came to include an existential fear of biological terrorism (aka “bio-doom”). Though this sense of dread has since diminished in the absence of another biological attack, it persists today because of the recent revolution in biotechnology: a revolution capable of resulting in enormous benefit for humanity as well as catastrophic dangers.
These concerns have fueled enormous growth in federal government spending on biodefense measures, and a cottage industry has arisen to lobby for further resources to combat the bioterror threat. Investments in biodefense have ranged from exponential spending increases and the expansion in the numbers of Bio-Safety Level 3 and 4 laboratories nationwide to the passage of the Bioshield Act in 2004 and the creation of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and Federal Select Agent and Biowatch programs. However, as time passed without a biological attack, concerns about bioterror have diminished and biodefense has arguably become passé, its advocates shifting their attention to health security and pandemic preparedness.
The FBI’s investigation into the 2001 mailings, labeled Amerithrax, remains a salient fixture on the post-9/11 landscape. Amerithrax was one of the largest and most complex in American history. It involved more than 10,000 witness interviews worldwide, 80 separate searches, and the recovery of more than 6,000 items of potential evidence, including 5,730 environmental samples from 60 site locations. The lessons of the investigation are crucial to understanding not only the U.S. government’s response to the first deadly bioterror attack on American soil, but also the role scientific evidence does — and does not — play in efforts to attribute bioterror attacks to an individual or group. Today, notwithstanding significant advances in bioforensics, the debates that continue to surround the Amerithrax investigation findings, the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons attacks, or the Russian involvement in the Skripal poisonings are all examples of the doubts confronting even the most earnest attribution efforts.
Hurdles Facing Bioterrorism Attribution
The investigation ran from late 2001 through to its eventual closing in February 2010, nearly two years after its principal subject, Dr. Bruce Ivins, committed suicide. The investigation found that Ivins was responsible for mailing the anthrax-laced letters in 2001 based on a combination of factors, including motive, opportunity, history of mental health struggles, access to the anthrax spore source, proximity of the source to the envelopes used to mail the spores, and a consciousness of guilt.
One key lesson of Amerithrax was that the United States lacked the means for accurate attribution of bioterror attacks. Attribution of a biological attack is the result of a process that combines the results of traditional forensics (fingerprints, tool marks, fiber, trace element analysis, etc.), bioforensics (genomic signatures and analytical chemistry), and investigative techniques (interviews, polygraphs, surveillances, telephone taps, etc.), which are particularly relevant in cases involving foreign actors, intelligence methods (human intelligence and signal intelligence collection and analysis).
Bioforensics, as a component of attribution, was born out of the Amerithrax investigation. But bioforensics, also commonly referred to as microbial forensics, is only one element of attribution. Because of the “CSI effect” (i.e., a perception resulting from popular television crime shows that laboratory tests can decisively determine guilt), laboratory tests almost certainly have eclipsed other forms of evidence in their influence over juries. In reality, scientific results take a long time to bear fruit and often are not as unambiguous as portrayed in television fiction.
As the Amerithrax investigation began, microbial forensics was in its infancy, and the capabilities were rudimentary compared to current tools. As Dr. Vahid Majidi, former Assistant Director of the FBI’s WMD Directorate, pointed out in his self-published book on Amerithrax, the goal of the investigation was to meet the legal standards, not necessarily the higher standard of scientific proof. Scientific certainty would have been too time-consuming and expensive. The scientific goal of Amerithrax, to paraphrase Majidi, was the good-enough. Dr. Randy Murch, who was involved in establishing the FBI’s microbial forensics efforts in 1996, stated that science will never get all the way to providing attribution, and that’s the way it will always be. Microbial forensics can exclude some possible perpetrators and include a few.
Thus, for all the progress made in the life sciences since 1996, attribution efforts still have a long way to go. No one size fits all the possible universes of possible threat scenarios. Methods remain largely untested in terms of validation and legal acceptance in federal courts. Having not been tested it the courts, questions remain as to whether the methods would meet the Daubert standard, the rule of evidence governing the admissibility of expert witnesses‘ testimony in federal courts. Given that microbial forensics alone is unable to answer the attribution question, attribution must incorporate all the available tools. Majidi stressed that to assign attribution, it was prudent to look at the information from each element independently and, once all the information had been gathered, to bring together the most diagnostic information to arrive at a conclusion. In the end, any attribution effort will be complex, and the results almost certainly will be controversial.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
https://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Rudy Giuliani Renews Calls for Justice Department to Investigate Russia Probe
Trump’s personal attorney also addressed the question of presidential pardons. ‘The president is not going to issue pardons in this investigation,’ he said
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rudy-giulianirenews-calls-for-justice-department-to-investigate-russia-probe-1529247643
Comment: Let’s back up a little. Rudy Giuliani: The DOJ and FBI claim to have lost — claim not to be able to find — any of the emails that it quoted and relied upon in closing the Amerithrax Investigation.
They quoted them in this report. The former lead investigator says they are selectively presenting evidence in a misleading way and withholding a staggering amount of exculpatory information.
AMERITHRAX INVESTIGATIVE SUMMARY
Released Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act
Click to access amx-investigative-summary.pdf
Former intelligence analyst Ken Dillon has sought under FOIA copies of the emails quoted and relied upon in the FBI’s report. They were culled from the production of thousands of emails made by the Army.
Then after the criminal investigation was officially closed, they were not produced. Now the DOJ and FBI claims not to be able to find them.
The DOJ IG should probe how the FBI came to have mislaid all of the emails cited in its report closing the investigation.
We can address whether Independent Counsel Mueller botched Amerithrax when the documents are produced and we can get people “on the same page.”
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Why is a former FBI Agent — in the book that has been in some libraries for months now — allowed to discuss the laboratory pages in exchange for compensationFN — while the FBI and Army fail to produce the notebooks under FOIA so that the public can justify his use of the material in fashioning his spin?
And where does Scott Decker even discuss the issue of Dugway sending virulent Ames all over the world?! Ivins had sent Dugway his seed stock for Ames in 1985. (Recounting the Anthrax Attacks, p. 108)
Scott discusses “short experiments to determine the minimum time and dose of radiation necessary to inactivate the spores lying within the fiber lattice of our three envelopes and letters.” (p. 67)
But Dr. Ezzell has told me that the science relating to such irradiation had never been validated (as of the time we spoke after Bruce Ivins’ suicide) — years after the anthrax mailings. So how could the FBI’s process-of-elimination analysis be based on this central issue — given that it was all unvalidated science?
It was as reckless as the use of the supposedly anthrax smelling bloodhounds, wasn’t it? For public consumption, though, it seemed a neat and tidy investigative technique, didn’t it?
What is more dramatic — for PR purposes — than being able to “eliminate all other hundreds of suspects with access” or reveal that some friendly dog eagerly wagged his tail at a suspect.
Scott Decker’s analysis in Amerithrax rested on the unvalidated scientific assumption that all samples that had been inactivated were in fact dead and no longer virulent. Where does he acknowledge this central fact in his new book spinning Ivins’ guilt?
More bad irradiation news” – USAMRIID’s Bruce Ivins found that sometimes samples that had tested negative then upon retesting came up “hot”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 19, 2015
The FBI’s genetic analysis in Amerithrax rested on the UNVALIDATED scientific assumption that all samples that had been inactivated were in fact dead and that such samples thus could not have been the source of the virulent anthrax mailed shortly after 9/11.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 15, 2015
Why is a former FBI Agent allowed to discuss the laboratory pages in exchange for profit — while the FBI and Army fail to produce the notebooks under FOIA so that the public can justify his use of the material in fashioning his spin?
While the FBI withholds most of Notebook 4010, Decker writes: “He [Ivins] could also provide pages — almost twenty from his laboratory notebooks — that would show how carefully the preparations had been made following a single colony pick” The pages detailed the density gradient that Ivins used to purify the spores.” (p. 138)
DXer said
Who does Richard Lambert think was responsible for the December 2001 cyanide mailing? What does he think was the motive?
Former DSS Agent Starnes — who discusses the mailing of cyanide in December 2001 in a new book — has had an adventurous life.
Cyanide Threat Details Against Tiger Woods in New Zealand in 2001 Revealed
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/cyanide-threat-details-against-tiger-woods-in-nz-in-2001-revealed/ar-AAvgLN1
The letter claimed suicide attacks could be expected against Tiger Woods and New Zealand citizens via fire bombings, train derailments, and poisoning the tournament’s spectators,” he said.
“If you don’t believe what I’m saying, go ahead and put the contents of this sugar packet in your coffee,” the author said.
Cyanide was concealed inside the sugar packet.
The author claimed to be an “enemy of America, the Great Satan as well as the Israeli regime and claimed allegiance to Islamic Jihad,” Mr Starnes told Stuff.
The threat lead to police forking out $500,000 to ramp up security at the open. …
Comment:
If it weren’t for his undisclosed (until now) fear of spiders, I would recruit him to look for Dutch Schultz’s missing millions in the corners of some basement. Two days ago I learned that Dutch’s hideout was on Maple Ave in Troy, NY and with three others raced to pick up the loot.
http://www.treasuretracer.com/dutch-shultz/ongoing-search-for-dutch-schultzs-missing-millions/
DXer said
Families of 9/11 victims suing Saudi Arabia for role in attacks
13newsnow.com-6 minutes ago
… until we establish that Saudi Arabia is accountable,” said lawyer Jim Kreindler. … Sarasota, Fla., Washington, D.C., and Virginia in the 18 months leading up to the … Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) — which enables the suit to go forward.
http://www.13newsnow.com/ext/news/nation-now/families-of-9-11-victims-suing-saudi-arabia-for-role-in-attacks/291/nationnow/34ide95SaAAmkqqGuI4qQW
DXer said
Justice Dept. to Do ‘Stress Test’ of FBI Forensic Sciences
• By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Feb 24, 2016
The Justice Department is reviewing forensic sciences practiced by the FBI to ensure that experts are not overstating their findings against criminal defendants, Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates said Wednesday.
The review will look at whether other scientific disciplines have been tainted by flawed testimony, a problem that surfaced last year when the Justice Department revealed that experts had overstated the strength of their evidence in many older cases dating back decades involving microscopic hair analysis.
***
The review will focus on disciplines that involve a large degree of human interpretation and are therefore susceptible to different opinions, and will be presented at the March meeting of the National Commission of Forensic Science. The FBI, meanwhile, is in the process of finalizing standards for testimony and reporting.
***
Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised the Justice Department for “taking responsibility and launching a full review so that the public can learn exactly what went wrong and how we can prevent this from ever happening again. Americans need and deserve a criminal justice system worthy of its name.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/justice-dept-stress-test-fbi-forensic-sciences-37175025
DXer said
Fresh eyes at USAMRIID have now found additional documents relating to the pending FOIA request about the 340 ml. of virulent Ames shipped to USAMRIID on June 27, 2001 — the shipment that you previously have never heard about. Let’s see what now is allowed out by the FOIA Officer and her superior.
The seedstock for Flask 1029 was Flask 1030 — with four vials sent from USAMRIID to Dugway in 1997.
Guess what the seed stock for the 340 ml was sent on June 27, 2001 was?
DXer said
The FBI’s lead investigator claims in national publicity that the FBI is withholding a massive amount of evidence evidence that is exculpatory of Bruce Ivins. And yet the FBI now has denied a fee waiver request by Ken Dillon for the single summary document. The FBI relies uponthe totally false. boilerplate grounds.
Checking boxes on a form is no excuse for being so wrong. I don’t care how busy the FBI is.
The FBI argues that the information has already been produced and there is a lack of public interest. Wrong and wrong.
I am extremely understanding of a denial of a fee waiver request in many situations . But that typically would involve a situation where there would be a difficult and time-intensive search that was needed.
I would be sympathetic because there are only so many tax dollars available for compliance with the FOIA mission. And I credit that the FBI FOIA criminal side is much busier than the FOIA DOJ Civil side.
But given the historic importance of this matter — and given we are only talking a about a single critically-important document, I think they can just work a little faster blacking out whatever they like on the single document.
I think it may be 52 pages. Indeed, I think they could do the entire thing within 2 hours.
I want to think that rather than bad-faith, the denial as just boilerplate from a low-level functionary who is obviously wrong.
But at the same time, Dave Hardy is the one putting his name on these letters. FBI FOIA may be overburdened. (I think Mr. Hardy supervises 60).
If Dave Hardy does not think there is a public interest in the massive amount of evidence exculpatory of Bruce Ivins, he maybe should read more than he does — the issue was widely covered in the national media.
If he has never thought about it, then he should not have signed the letter.
The person claiming that the FBI is withholding a massive amount of exculpatory evidence is the author of the summary memo, Richard L. Lambert.
Hardy is in no position to claim that former FBI Special Agent and lead investigator Lambert is lying. Nor is he acting in good faith when he claims there is no public interest in anthrax or the whodunnit of the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. The issue has received extensive national and international publicity throughout the summer.
The national press given Lambert’s claim contradict’s Dave Hardy’s palpably wrong claim there is not public interest on the issue.
When something is really wrong, many people will perceive the FBI as dilatory and obstructionist. (Personally, I just think the person checking boxes is uninformed).
Dave Hardy, on this issue at least, is part of the problem, not the solution. There was no excuse for him being so wrong here.
Dr. Dillon should draft his own appeal of the fee denial.
Separately, Public Citizen should closely consider representing Ken Dillon in bringing suit against the FBI and seek attorneys fees.
It is a good test case of historic importance.
Production of a redacted copy of this memo warrants the very best representation in the country.
That would be, in my estimation, Public Citizen.
I wish Dillon and Scott Nelson could meet in-person. I know them both and sense that they would immediately hit it off.
Nelson was greatly admired by his law school peers. He won an election against Spitzer for President of the Law Review and was a wonderful President.
He stood up against people being bullied.
DXer said
Vincent Lisi, Head of Boston FBI Office, Retires
NBCNews.com-21 minutes ago
The man who presided over the Usaamah Rahim terrorism case, helped lead the 2001 Anthrax investigation, and saw the FBI through the Boston bombing trial …
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/vincent-lisi-head-boston-fbi-office-retires-n401386
DXer said
Here is the Table of Government’s motion to dismiss. Any formatting errors are mine.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………1
SUMMARY OF ALLEGATIONS AND CLAIMS ………………………………………………………………1
STANDARDS OF REVIEW……………………………………………………………………………………………..3
ARGUMENT …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..4
THE UNITED STATES SHOULD BE SUBSTITUTED FOR
PATRICK W. KELLEY IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AS TO COUNT I …………..4
PLAINTIFF’S FEDERAL TORT CLAIMS ACT
(“FTCA”) CLAIMS MUST BE DISMISSED FOR LACK
OF SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION PER RULE 12(b)(1)…………………………………5
Sovereign Immunity Bars All Claims Against
the Named Defendants in Their Official Capacities …………………………………………5
Plaintiff’s FTCA Claims Are Barred ……………………………………………………………..6
Plaintiff’s FTCA Claims Are Barred by § 2680(h)
Because They Arise out of Defamation and Misrepresentation ………………6
Plaintiff’s FTCA Claims Are Barred by § 2680(h)
Because They Arise out of Interference with His Employment ………………9
Plaintiff’s FTCA Claims Implicate the Exercise of
Discretionary Functions and Are Thus Barred by § 2680(a)…………………10
PLAINTIFF’S COUNTS I THROUGH IV
FAIL AS A MATTER OF LAW PER RULE 12(b)(6)……………………………………………..14
Plaintiff’s Legal Malpractice Claim Fails Because
Plaintiff Had No Attorney-Client Relationship with Mr. Kelley………………………14
Plaintiff’s Negligent Hiring, Supervision,
and Training Claims Fail as a Matter of Law ………………………………………………..17
Plaintiff’s Privacy Act Claim Fails as a Matter of Law…………………………………..18
Plaintiff Fails to Identify a Record in a “System of Records”……………….19
Plaintiff Fails to Allege an Actual
Unauthorized Disclosure of His Agency Records ……………………………….20
Plaintiff Fails to Allege Facts Showing FBI
and DOJ Intentionally and Willfully Violated the
Privacy Act by Disclosing His Records Without Authorization ……………22
Plaintiff Fails to Allege That He Sustained “Actual Damages”
as a Result of an Unauthorized Disclosure of a Privacy Act Record………23
CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………25
DXer said
Excerpt from the government’s motion to dismiss:
“INTRODUCTION
Two years ago, Plaintiff Richard L. Lambert represented to another court in this District that his former employer, UT-Battelle, LLC, “fired [him] for reporting fraud, waste, gross mismanagement, abuse of authority and contractor self-dealing.” (Ex. A, Lambert Reply at 4 in In re Compl. of Retaliation, No. 3:13–CV–352 (E.D. Tenn. June 28, 2013).)1 Plaintiff now claims that he was fired because of a supposedly “erroneous legal opinion” that was issued by the FBI, his previous employer, over seven months before he was terminated by UT-Battelle. (Dkt. 12, Second Amended Complaint (“Complaint” or “Compl.”) ¶¶ 4, 8, 36.) Despite that Plaintiff no longer worked at the FBI when the legal opinion was disseminated, his primary cause of action is against an FBI employee for legal malpractice. Plaintiff also levies tagalong negligent hiring and training claims against former Attorney General Eric Holder and former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, and a barebones Privacy Act claim against the FBI and the DOJ. As explained below, Counts I, II, III, and IV should be dismissed.2
SUMMARY OF ALLEGATIONS AND CLAIMS
On March 9, 2012, Plaintiff retired from the FBI. (Compl. ¶ 18.) Shortly thereafter, he was hired by “[his] employer UT-Battelle” as the Senior Counterintelligence Officer for the Oak Ridge Field Office of the Department of Energy (“DOE”) Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. (Id. ¶¶ 8, 37.) UT-Battelle managed and operated the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a “Federally Funded Research and Development Center” or “FFRDC.” (Ex. C,
Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725, dated Sept. 12, 2005, § B-1.)3 FFRDCs “enable agencies to use private sector resources to accomplish tasks that are integral to the mission and operation of the sponsoring agency.” 48 C.F.R. § 35.017(a)(2).
On November 8, 2012, “FBI attorney and ‘designated agency ethics official’ Patrick W. Kelley” sent an e-mail to two FBI employees concerning Plaintiff’s interaction with the FBI. (Compl. ¶ 3; Ex. B to Dkt. 1 (“Kelley E-mail”).) Mr. Kelley recounted that Ken Moore, an FBI Special Agent in Charge (“SAC”) in Knoxville, approached him at an FBI conference regarding an earlier e-mail Mr. Kelley had sent concerning the one-year post-employment restrictions found in 18 U.S.C. § 207(c). (Kelley E-mail.) Section 207(c) generally prohibits certain former senior executive branch personnel from communicating with their former department or agency with the intent to influence official action within one year of their separation from government service. Mr. Moore reportedly asked Mr. Kelley whether § 207(c) “meant that he couldn’t talk to former SAC Rick Lambert.” (Kelley E-mail.) Because Plaintiff was not employed by the government, Mr. Kelley “thought the restrictions of 207(c) applied.”
Although “[a] former employee is not prohibited by any of the prohibitions of 18 U.S.C. 207 from engaging in any activity on behalf of the United States”:
[a] former employee will not be deemed to engage in an activity on behalf of the United States merely because he is performing work funded by the Government, because he is engaging in the activity in response to a contact initiated by the Government, because the Government will derive some benefit from the activity, or because he or the person on whose behalf he is acting may share the same objective as the Government.
5 C.F.R. § 2641.301(a), (a)(2)(ii)(B) (emphasis added); see also § 207(c)(1).
After consulting with “DOE and DOJ ethics offices,” Mr. Kelley believed that both agencies “thought [§ 207(c)] applied to [Plaintiff’s] situation.” (Kelley E-mail.)4 Mr. Kelley recognized that this conclusion “mean[t] that [Plaintiff] cannot talk directly to any FBI employee,” which was “problematic since [FBI] ha[s] two agents imbedded in the Lab.” (Id.) Mr. Kelley lamented: “I know this will prove disruptive but I see no way around it and the statute is a criminal prohibition so we can’t very well ignore it.” (Id.)”
DXer said
In its motion to dismiss, the United States notes:
“Nowhere does the Complaint reference Plaintiff’s supposed whistleblowing activities at UT- Battelle, which, according to Plaintiff’s 2013 court filings, caused his termination.”
DXer said
Here is the docket from the lawsuit brought by former lead Amerithrax investigator.
Date Filed # Docket Text
07/14/2015 19 RESPONSE in Opposition re 14 MOTION to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction MOTION TO DISMISS FOR FAILURE TO STATE A CLAIM MOTION to Substitute Party United States for Patrick W. Kelley in His Individual Capacity as to Count I filed by Richard L. Lambert. (Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 07/14/2015)
06/30/2015 18 AFFIDAVIT of Service for Summons and Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint served on Defendant Patrick W. Kelley on 06/23/2015, filed by Richard L. Lambert. (Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 06/30/2015)
06/28/2015 17 AFFIDAVIT of Service for Summons & 2nd Amended Complaint served on Attorney General Eric Holder on 06/16/2015, filed by Richard L. Lambert. (Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 06/28/2015)
06/25/2015 16 NOTICE of Appearance by Matthew Allan Josephson on behalf of Federal Bureau of Investigation, Eric Holder, Patrick W. Kelly(in his official capacity), Robert S Mueller, III, U.S. Department of Justice, United States of America (Josephson, Matthew) (Entered: 06/25/2015)
06/24/2015 15 MEMORANDUM in Support of Motion re 14 MOTION to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction MOTION TO DISMISS FOR FAILURE TO STATE A CLAIM MOTION to Substitute Party United States for Patrick W. Kelley in His Individual Capacity as to Count I filed by Federal Bureau of Investigation, Eric Holder, Patrick W. Kelly(in his official capacity), Robert S Mueller, III, U.S. Department of Justice, United States of America. (Davis, Elliott) (Entered: 06/24/2015)
06/24/2015 14 MOTION to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction , MOTION TO DISMISS FOR FAILURE TO STATE A CLAIM , MOTION to Substitute Party United States for Patrick W. Kelley in His Individual Capacity as to Count I by Federal Bureau of Investigation, Eric Holder, Patrick W. Kelly(in his official capacity), Robert S Mueller, III, U.S. Department of Justice, United States of America. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Petitioners Reply and attachments in In re Complaint of Retaliation, No. 3:13CV352 (E.D. Tenn. July 5, 2013), # 2 Exhibit Memorandum in Support in In re Complaint of Retaliation, No. 3:13CV352 (E.D. Tenn. June 28, 2013), # 3 Exhibit Contract with the Department of Energy, Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725, dated September 12, 2005, # 4 Exhibit Certification of the Director of the Torts Branch, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, dated May 12, 2015)(Davis, Elliott) (Entered: 06/24/2015)
06/22/2015 13 AFFIDAVIT of Service for Summons & Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint served on Civil Clerk, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern Dist. of Tenn. on 06/16/2015, filed by Richard L. Lambert. (Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 06/22/2015)
06/10/2015 12 AMENDED COMPLAINT Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint against All Defendants., filed by Richard L. Lambert.(Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 06/10/2015)
06/10/2015 11 ORDER granting 10 Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Amend Plaintiff’s Original Complaint. Signed by Magistrate Judge H Bruce Guyton on June 10, 2015. (AYB) (Entered: 06/10/2015)
06/04/2015 10 First MOTION to Amend/Revise Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave of Court to Amend Plaintiff’s Original Complaint by Richard L. Lambert. (Attachments: # 1 Other Plaintiff’s Proposed Second Amended Complaint)(Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 06/04/2015)
06/03/2015 9 First MOTION Plaintiff’s Motion for Order of Service of Process on Defendant Patrick W. Kelley by U.S. Marshal or Deputy Marshal Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(c)(3) by Richard L. Lambert. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Certified Letter to FBI General Counsel, # 2 Exhibit Waiver of the Service of Summons Form to Defendant Kelley)(Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 06/03/2015)
06/02/2015 8 AMENDED COMPLAINT Plaintiff’s First Amended Complaint against All Defendants., filed by Richard L. Lambert.(Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 06/02/2015)
05/05/2015 7 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE by Richard L. Lambert on Defendant FBI (Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 05/05/2015)
05/05/2015 6 AFFIDAVIT of Service for Summons & Complaint served on Attorney General Eric Holder on 04/13/2015, filed by Richard L. Lambert. (Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 05/05/2015)
05/05/2015 5 AFFIDAVIT of Service for Summons & Complaint served on Civil Clerk, U.S. Attorney’s Office on 04/06/2015, filed by Richard L. Lambert. (Lambert, Richard) (Entered: 05/05/2015)
04/27/2015 4 ORDER granting 3 Plaintiff’s Motion to Access and Use the Court’s Electronic Filing System. The Plaintiff shall be allowed access to the ECF system, subject to the same terms and conditions that apply to other users. To obtain access, Plaintiff may complete the online registration form available on the Court’s website, located at: http://www.tned.uscourts.gov/ecfreg/RegistrationForm.html. Signed by Magistrate Judge H Bruce Guyton on April 27, 2015. (AYB) (Entered: 04/27/2015)
04/10/2015 3 Pro Se MOTION for Permission to Access and Use the Court’s Electronic Filing Systsem by Richard L. Lambert. (AYB) (Entered: 04/13/2015)
04/10/2015 2 First Declaration of Richard L. Lambert. (AYB) (Entered: 04/13/2015)
04/02/2015 Summons Issued as to Federal Bureau of Investigation, Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, Patrick W. Kelly (in his individual capacity and in his official capacity), Robert S Mueller, III, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney. (AYB) (Entered: 04/03/2015)
04/02/2015 1 COMPLAINT against All Defendants (Filing fee $ 400: K3027435) filed by Richard L. Lambert. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A, # 2 Exhibit B) (AYB) (Entered: 04/03/2015)
DXer said
The former lead investigator Amerithrax discusses destruction of evidence in a July 14, 2015 filing in a suit he has brought against the United States et al. I love Plaintiff’s phrase “deprecatory sniff”:
“PLAINTIFF’S REPLY MEMORANDUM OPPOSING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS
The half-dozen DOJ apologists assigned to this matter begin their denial of Defendants’ responsibility with an “Introduction” [Doc. 15, p. 10] pointing to a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction which Plaintiff previously filed on June 20, 2013 in a separate case. In that Motion, Plaintiff sought a federal court order compelling UT-Battelle, LLC and the U.S. Department of nergy (DOE) to preserve pertinent documents related to Plaintiff’s termination as a Senior Counterintelligence Officer on June 10, 2013. In Re Compl. Of Retaliation, No. 3:13-CV-352 (E. D. Tenn. June 20, 2013) [Doc. 1]. In response to Plaintiff’s request that the court enjoin the destruction of all evidence related to Plaintiff’s termination in anticipation of litigation, both DOE and UT-Battelle immediately proposed mediation of Plaintiff’s underlying claims. On August 7, 2013, just 48 days after Plaintiff initiated document preservation efforts, the motion for a preliminary injunction was voluntarily dismissed by joint agreement of the parties based on “a successful early mediation.” Doc. 21, p.4; Doc. 22.
Absent from Defendants’ deprecatory sniff at Plaintiff’s prior Motion for Preliminary Injunction is any mention of the existence of this “successful early mediation.” Defendants also omit any identification of the terms and conditions of the “successful early mediation” and any explanation of why it was necessary to engage in “early mediation” with a plaintiff who had not yet filed a complaint in federal court.
Nevertheless, DOJ now labors to suggest that Plaintiff’s prior motion to bar the DOE and UT-Battelle from destroying evidence somehow weakens Plaintiff’s instant claim for legal malpractice against the named Defendants – defendants which do not include DOE or UT-Battelle. If indeed Plaintiff’s prior motion had any bearing on the legal merits of the instant case, the Department would now be asserting the affirmative defenses of res judicata or collateral estoppel. It has invoked neither. Instead, Defendants point to Plaintiff’s prior civil action for only one purpose – to bias the court by raising an inference of litigiousness and attack Plaintiff’s character in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). …
Providence, not artifice, is the reason Plaintiff’s prior pleadings in civil action number 3:13-CV-352 did not include a claim for legal malpractice. Plaintiff did not discover the existence of the Department’s super-secret criminal probe targeting him until after the “successful early mediation” took place less than two months after Plaintiff’s termination. Only through Plaintiff’s own subsequent investigation did Plaintiff learn of the existence of the Department’s covert criminal probe spawned by Defendant Kelley’s erroneous legal opinion.”
DXer said
Attorney Lambert, pro se, writes:
“Plaintiff clearly understands that Defendants wish that Plaintiff’s claim was for misrepresentation rather than legal malpractice – just as fervently as Dorothy wished that Oz were Kansas. But, it is stare decisis and concrete evidence which carry the day in this forum, not closed eyes and clicking heels.”
DXer said
The former lead Amerithrax investigator, Richard L. Lambert, sheds a little light on FOIA and how FBI keeps its records:
“Paragraph 88 of Plaintiff’s Complaint states: “Plaintiff is informed and believes that Defendants FBI and DOJ (including the DOJ Office of the Inspector General) both maintain, with respect to the investigation of Plaintiff’s alleged violation of 18 U.S.C. § 207(c), a “system of records” as defined by the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(5).” As documented in the Federal Register, the FBI maintains a “Central Records System” which includes information about “subjects” and “suspects” in “official FBI investigations.” 63 Fed. Reg. 8659-02, 8671 (Feb. 20, 1998). Plaintiff was such a “subject.” “This system consists of one numerical sequence of subject matter files.” Id. Within that “numerical sequence” are the following file categories: “66 – Administrative Matters . . . 194 – Corruption of Public Officials . . . 197 – Civil Litigation . . . 211 – Ethics in Government Act of 1978 . . . 319 – Administrative Records.” Id; https://www.fbi.gov/foia/privacy-act/file-classifications.
Based on these facts, there is a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal which specific files in these numerical classifications contain information about Plaintiff, indexed to and retrievable by Plaintiff’s personal identifiers, which were actually retrieved by those identifiers. The same reasonable expectation applies to the DOJ’s “Criminal Case Files,” 63 Fed. Reg. at 8669 and DOJ’s “Office of the Inspector General Investigative Records,” 72 Fed. Reg. 36,725 (July 5, 2007).”
Case 3:15-cv-00147-PLR-HBG Document 19 Filed 07/14/15 Page 21 of 26 PageID #: 732
DXer said
In his July 14, 2015 filing, Attorney Richard L. Lambert, Pro Se, writes:
“CONCLUSION
Lacking the courage to litigate this case on the merits, DOJ trundles out its now ragged repertoire of Fabian tactics. Axle-deep in mud and spinning away, Defendants throw every conceivable defense against the wall, hoping that something will stick. Indeed, this is Defendants’ acknowledged “strategery.” In a recent article regarding DOJ’s defense of government wrongdoers, a DOJ Senior Counsel divulged: “A skillful practitioner will never forget the Bivenista maxim semper rogatio adiecta (there is always another motion).” Paul M. Brown, Personal Liability Tort Litigation Against Federal Employees: A Primer, 8 Univ. of St. Thomas L.J. 329, 346 (2011). While DOJ’s “pray and spray” approach is a suitable gun fighting strategy for its law enforcement agents who struggle with accuracy, it is poorly suited to civil litigation where it only forestalls justice and wastes the Court’s time. “
DXer said
Sometimes you need to speak up for a mute swan — even while others smear them as a menace.
Manlius swan lays eggs; law says destroy them, but mayor says no
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/05/manlius_swan_lays_eggs_but_new_law_requires_they_be_destroyed.html#incart_m-rpt-1
DXer said
There is a good question and answer with former FBI whistleblower Whitehurst today that I link further below.
For comparison, we have the benefit also of my question and answer — my email exchange — with the consummate, well-spoken and professional former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard L. Lambert.
I have never asked his permission to publish emails — but I have never hesitated because (1) his lawsuit is a very public venture that cries out for transparency, and (2) I have never known him to write a word that was not articulate and well-considered. He seems both very up-front and a by-the-book guy, living up to the highest ideals of the Bureau. He shares no secrets with me. If ever he were to object, I would take down any and all such emails.
[my question to Attorney Lambert ]
“Rick, has the FBI Director Comey asked to meet with you while making the rounds to Knoxville?
The Director was Vahid Majidi’s supervisor. In Vahid’s e-book marketed to his Linked-In contacts, he said he was confident that Mr. Comey had his back — and his spin continued unabated even after a lot of documents had been uploaded (for example, about Ivins’ experiment with the 52 rabbits explaining Ivins’ time in the lab).
While I respect the integrity of FBI officials and agents, I think they have the same CYA instincts as most anyone does.”
[Rick’s response]
“Ross, no, the FBI Director did not ask to meet with me when he came to Knoxville. Moreover, I was the only former Knoxville agent in charge not invited to his visit. This is to be expected. Standard litigation strategy for the FBI is to keep the Director isolated from litigation to protect him. Meeting with me would potentially expose him to being a witness in the case – something the General Counsel is not going to let happen. No offense taken on my part. I do understand their logic.
I agree with you 100% about the FBI. It has good people and bad people, just as any other organization. On the issue of CYA, I’ve found that most men, when pressed, will sacrifice their ethical integrity in the interest of self-preservation. I think its just human nature……..”
Here is the Whitehurst interview:
Bad FBI Science
A forensic whistleblower on the latest scanda
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/24/bad-fbi-science
By ANDREW COHEN
Dr. Frederic Whitehurst knows a thing or two about FBI lab scandals. As a “supervisory special agent” and noted forensic scientist, he began complaining to his federal supervisors more than 25 years ago about shoddy policies and practices within the vaunted crime lab. Then, in the mid-1990s, he went public with his concerns, officially becoming a “whistleblower” by highlighting flawed forensics and testimony relating to (among other things) the Oklahoma City bombing investigation. For this he was scorned by many of his colleagues and retaliated against at work, but ultimately vindicated by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which in 1997 issued a report endorsing some of Whitehurst’s claims. He left the FBI following a settlement with the government in 1998 and now serves as a co-chair of the National Whistleblowers Center.
***
[question]
What does this latest forensic scandal tell about the trustworthiness of FBI analysis in all those criminal cases?
{Whitehurst]
It tells us that all of them were doing the same thing. When I was at the FBI, we had people with English degrees, history degrees, doing complex chemical analysis. Our chief chemist didn’t have an undergraduate degree in chemistry. They were not scientists. They weren’t out to hurt anyone. They believed in their work. They believed what they were saying when they said it. Those people gave misleading testimony in courts of law but they believed it, and they taught it to thousands of state hair examiners all over the U.S.
***
As soon as this week’s news is last week’s news, they are going to stop the reform. What was revealed this week was known since 1998. They knew there were issues, and they did nothing about it.
[question]
Why don’t more FBI scientists blow the whistle on their colleagues who are undertaking questionable lab work?Doesn’t make sense.
[Whitehurst]
Once you embarrass the FBI, you lose your job, your reputation, your kids can’t look forward to college, your mortgage defaults, you get a job working as a correctional officer or serving coffee, no one really seems to care. You have to be insane to tell the truth at the FBI, absolutely insane. The recent Senate hearing concerning whistleblowing at the FBI spells it out very clearly. FBI managers will destroy anyone who does not give them the answers they demand. …
[question]
What are some of the perverse incentives built into the system?
[Whitehurst]
FBI scientists can look forward to comfortable retirements until they die. Who wants to give up all of that? If you disagree with practices at the FBI you will be put first on administrative leave, probably sent for psychiatric evaluation (really), fight alone without any assistance from any citizens you are trying to protect for years and years and years, and see the folks who remained quiet gradually move on to better jobs and great retirement paychecks. ….
[question]
What specific steps need to be taken to fix the problems? …
[Whitehurst]
We have an adversarial justice system that encourages gamesmanship, ambush, secrecy, cheating. Lab analysts go along with the practices in our adversarial justice system. Because they don’t have to compete with real scientists, they don’t have to question their own work product. And so they are mentally lazy.”
DXer said
AUSA Lieber, as I recall our exchange years ago, once told me that I would never get anything additional from the FBI under FOIA. And she has proved to be not without influence.
Thus, I need a non-profit or media requestor to make the same request (a couple of references unique to my theory can be stripped).
The FBI plans on denying my request for a fee waiver but will grant the request if made by a non-profit or media requestor.
The correspondence this week with FBI’s FOIA:
David P. Sobonya
Public Information Officer/GIS
Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS)
FBI-Records Management Division
170 Marcel Drive, Winchester, VA 22602-4843
PIO: (540) 868-4593
Direct: (540) 868-4286
Fax: (540) 868-4391/4997
Dear Mr. Getman,
The FBI has received your Freedom of Information Act/Privacy (FOIPA) request and it will be forwarded to Initial Processing for review. Your request will be processed under the provisions of FOIPA and a response will be mailed to you at a later date.
Requests for fee waivers and expedited processing will be addressed once your request has been assigned an FOIPA request number. You will receive written notification of the FBI’s decision.
Information regarding the Freedom of Information Act/Privacy is available at http://www.fbi.gov/, http://www.fbi.gov/foia/ or http://www.justice.gov/oip. If you require additional assistance please contact the Public Information Officer.
Thank you,
From: Ross Getman
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 4:11 PM
To: FOIPARequest
Subject: Amerithrax – forensic reports that have not yet been produced (see FBI Vault) as specified in the request
April 22, 2015
Record/Information Dissemination Section
Attn: FOIPA Request
170 Marcel Drive
Winchester, VA 22602-4843
Dear FOIA Officer
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Date range of request: October 1, 2001 to the February 1, 2010
Description of Request: All forensic reports in Amerithrax that have not been produced (as specified below).
Richard L. Lambert, the former lead investigator in Amerithrax for four years, has brought a suit in federal district court in which he alleges that there is a wealth of exculpatory information that is being concealed by the FBI from the American people and the public. (see para. 53 of his Complaint against the FBI). In an interview with Scott Shane of the New York Times, former FBI Special Agent and attorney Richard L. Lambert said that the amount of material being withheld that tended to be exculpatory Bruce Ivins was “staggering.” (Bruce Ivins committed suicide before he was ever charged).
Special Agent Lambert has been interviewed by Fox News and news of his claim of FBI concealment was reported by the Associated Press.
Former FBI director alleges agency concealing evidence in anthrax …
Fox News-Apr 15, 2015
Ex-Knoxville FBI official: Agency hiding evidence in anthrax case
WBIR-TV-Apr 15, 2015
I do not seek materials that would invade the privacy of third parties or would name the names of alternative suspects. (Moreover, any proper names of scientists and investigative employees and prosecutors can be redacted if you deem it necessary).
Instead, I request the traditional forensic reports that have been mentioned in the announcement of its conclusions but have not been produced, to include the following:
(a) ink, including but not limited to all documents showing that there was no match with any of Dr. Bruce Ivins’ writing;
(b) paper composition, including but not limited to all documents showing that there was no match with any paper ever used by Dr. Ivins;
(c) photocopy toner, including but not limited to all documents showing that there was no match with any photocopies ever made by Dr. Ivins and that the USAMRIID photocopiers could be excluded;
(Agent Lambert tells me that the USAMRIID photocopiers could definitely be excluded — this is contrary to the innuendo in the Amerithrax Investigation Summary setting forth its argument favoring its its “Ivins Theory.”
(d) fiber, including but not limited to all documents showing that there was no match with any fiber used by Dr. Ivins;
(e) all handwriting examinations of Bruce Ivins’ handwriting, and all handwriting examinations of the late Mohammed Atta and Adnan El-Shukrijumah; Mohammed Atta was the 911 lead hijacker, and Adnan El-Shukrijumah was killed by a drone late 2014. Both are dead and the Amerithrax case is closed. So a privacy exemption and law enforcement exemption does not apply.
(f) CIA finding of Ames strain of b. anthracis in Kandahar that the FBI didn’t credit,
(g) the bloodhound alert relating to Dr. Ivins (negative as to Ivins). I do not seek the bloodhound report alert that was positive relating to Patricia Fellows.
(h) Ivins’ polygraphs, including all documents interpreting those polygraphs,
(i) meglumine and diazotroate, which involved a finding of meglumine and diazotroate found in Flask 1029 but not in the mailed anthrax,
(j) all documents relating to the code that the FBI imagined was used by Bruce Ivins, to include which letters were asserted to be double-lined in developing a theory of a code based on which letters were doublelined.
I request a fee waiver exemption. I will upload all documents produced. The documents I have obtained so far from USAMRIID (thousands of pages) have all been uploaded at the USAMRIID Electronic Reading Room, including thousands of pages of civil depositions I obtained. The Case Closed blog has now had 374,569 hits. It’s purpose is to get people on the “same page.” I have spent many years of pro bono time collecting documents with that aim in mind.
Here is where I upload the documents not uploaded to the FBI Vault.
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com
Here is where I have set forth my theory of the case.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
I am a member of the DC and New York bars.
Thank you very much for your assistance in the matter.
DXer said
As experienced prosecutor, Senator Leahy should write the FBI and ask that the requested forensic reports be produced under FOIPA.
http://www.mywebtimes.com/news/editorial/our-view-stronger-freedom-of-information-act-is-important/article_5edfa6af-f75b-5f4e-97f5-6479dc272013.html
OUR VIEW: Stronger Freedom of Information Act is important
Posted: Monday, April 20, 2015 10:12 pm
Caroline H. Little
President Obama has routinely promised greater transparency within the federal government. Now, Congress is making strides toward achieving this critical goal.
The House of Representatives and Senate are currently considering nearly identical bills to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which provides the general public, including journalists, with access to federal government records.
This legislation has received broad support across media organizations, including the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of which the Newspaper Association of America is a member. And here’s why:
Openness instead of secrecy would be the “default” key within the government.
The legislation would require agencies to release documents under a “presumption of openness,” reaffirming the principle that information should never be kept confidential to protect government interests at the expense of the public. Agencies would need to prove specific harm that could result from disclosures before withholding documents. While this policy has been in place since 2009, the legislation would ensure future administrations honor this objective for openness.
The process of obtaining FOIA records would be much more efficient.
Citizens and journalists would receive requested information in a more timely fashion and would be updated on the status of their request or reason for denial. Federal agencies would be allowed to withhold information on policy deliberations for only 25 years — currently, there is no limit.
More records would be available.
The legislation would require agencies to post frequently requested information online. This will give citizens and journalists more timely access to key information and a deeper understanding of what the government is doing — or not doing.
Why is this important?
The Freedom of Information Act remains a powerful, although currently inefficient, tool to obtain public information. Last year, several key stories were brought to light as a result of reporters’ FOIA record requests.
***
Congress came very close to passing FOIA reform legislation last year before the end of the 113th Congress. Now, members in both the Senate and House are working in a bi-partisan fashion to move these bills forward in the new Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved its FOIA reform bill, S. 337, which is sponsored by Senators John Cornyn, Patrick Leahy, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley.
The House bill (H.R. 653), which is sponsored by Representatives Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings, was reported out of committee last week. We applaud the bills’ sponsors and the congressional leadership for turning their attention to this good government legislation. We hope that this momentum bodes well for bipartisan, bicameral action early in the new Congress.
Caroline H. Little is president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America.
DXer said
In his new “behind the scenes” manuscript on the Amerithrax forensics, where does Scott Decker, PhD, even identify the number of labs swabbed for the genetically distinctive subtilis? How does a failure to swab all relevant labs even begin to comport with sound scientific approach?
DXer said
In his new “behind the scenes” manuscript on the Amerithrax forensics, where does Scott Decker, PhD, explain why the FBI withheld from the NAS news that DARPA researcher Dr. Ezzell had made dried powder out of Ivins’ Ames that was genetically matching. Dr. Ezzell’s assistant doing the work then went to Johns Hopkins where the former Zawahiri associate supplied virulent Ames by Bruce Ivins had his decontaminant tested (in addition to the testing done at LSU, Dugway and USAMRIID).
DXer said
In his new “behind the scenes” manuscript on the Amerithrax forensics, where does Scott Decker, PhD, discuss the email withheld for years that shows Dr. Ivins knew that 5 ml of virulent Ames was missing. Dr. Ivins was writing to Pat Fellows about this 5 ml. She was the one who is curiously silent on the rabbit documents — which Dr. Ivins was working on in late September and early October 2001. Her deposition testimony on the subject was shredded!
DXer said
In his new “behind the scenes” manuscript on the Amerithrax forensics, where does Scott Decker, PhD, disclose or the address the information about Rauf Ahmad, the scientist infiltrating the Porton Down anthrax scientists for Dr. Ayman Zawahiri.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
In his new “behind the scenes” manuscript on the Amerithrax forensics, where does Scott Decker, PhD, disclose or the address the information reported about Yazid Sufaat’s work in Kandahar?
The FBI culled the production of Al Qaeda-anthrax documents provided to the NAS and public (Dr. Majidi explains) — providing only what they wanted. Documents from abroad, in any event, were under the control of other agencies and so the reasoning is that they weren’t the FBI’s to give. For example, Yazid Sufaat explained to KSM that he and his assistants were vaccinated to work with the virulent anthrax they were using In his new manuscript, what is Dr. Decker’s justification for not informing the NAS and the public that Yazid Sufaat was vaccinated to protection against his work with virulent anthrax? The fact that Sufaat was working with virulent anthrax should remain classified? Nonsense. The American people had a right to know. Dr. Majidi cites the 911 Report (which cites a December 2001 interrogation report) on Sufaat’s training — but Sufaat has explained that he was lying in December and not admitting he had worked as part of Malaysian’s biological weapons program. It took a “friend” to tell his interrogators about his past. Where does Scott Decker even address the subject?
DXer said
My friend Barbara, one of those PhD microbiologist types, writes:
“Who made the anthrax? Who sent it?
Consider the premise that US decision-makers knew very quickly where the letter anthrax came from and who may have been responsible for mailing it, and they believed that information to be so potentially embarrassing or damaging to the US that it should never be released.
Treaty or other international concerns may have influenced that decision.
Among the early clues were the determination that the letter anthrax was Ames strain and contained silicon; the recent Canadian tests, at that time known to very few, that demonstrated the spread of dry anthrax simulant spores from a letter envelope; and the knowledge, available to top officials, of classified US biodefense activities involving dry, active Ames anthrax spores.[1]
Subsequent analyses of the letter anthrax would have been confirmatory.
******
Whereas that initial decision may have been appropriate, the subsequent handling of the situation proved to be an abysmal mistake. The FBI proceeded to investigate the case to a disastrous end, with the critical facts off-limits to the investigators on the ground. Many observers will agree that the history of the anthrax investigation does not make logical sense without assuming restrictions of some kind.
From the start of the investigation the FBI ostensibly assumed that the letter anthrax was prepared and mailed by a single individual. It was a common supposition that the letter anthrax had special properties allowing it to disperse readily as an aerosol, and that its preparation required high technical proficiency. But after five years of investigation without definitive results,[2] a decision seemed to have been made to take a different tack. A statement about the nature of the letter anthrax, without supporting data, was appended in 2006 to an FBI scientific article on an unrelated subject. The Washington Post was given unattributed, seeemingly authoritative explanations of the meaning of the statement: the letter anthrax was not special and its maker did not have to be, either. At the same time, Lambert was ditched as Inspector in Charge of the Amerithrax Case and the investigation turned its focus on USAMRIID–a government laboratory that worked with Ames anthrax[3] but had no classified anthrax projects.
******
After the anthrax case was closed, the National Academy of Sciences Committee that had been asked by the FBI to conduct an independent review of the science in the case reported that it was never given access to any classified information, and that a conclusion could not be reached on the basis of the [clearly incomplete] evidence made available to them. Similarly, the recent GAO report is far narrower than had been requested by Congress. By now, many in the media and the international community have undoubtedly surmised the truth of the situation but have felt it politically desirable to keep quiet, in spite of all the holes in the FBI’s argument. The Lambert lawsuit may disrupt that calm.
******
The presence of tin and silicon at the levels measured by the FBI in the letter anthrax has never been explained in any way by the FBI. The known function of the two elements in producing a silicone coating, and their plausible use for microencapsulating the letter spores, provides the most likely explanation, and is consistent with the observed location of silicon on the spore coat. Such microencapsulation would NOT increase dispersibility, as is frequently supposed to be the purpose of any modification of the spores; rather, silicone microencapsulation increases stability to environmental conditions, such as uv light–an important property for the open-air use of bioweapons as aerosols, but irrelevant to the anthrax letter threat. Conclusion: the letter anthrax was unnecessarily complex for use in the letters, and must have been made for a different purpose. It could not have been made by an isolated, inexperienced individual.
Such material would have been of interest to the US biodefense program for threat assessment purposes, such as determining the effects of anthrax microencapsulation on the detectability and decontamination of anthrax. There were several research programs on detection or decontamination of anthrax in progress in government-related laboratories at the time of the letter attacks, and several of the programs had an expressed interest in microencapsulation.
[1] The lawsuits of Hatfill vs Ashcroft et al, and Hatfill vs NY Times, produced evidence that there were classified projects relevant to the anthrax case that could not be made public; and defense attorneys for the NY Times claim they acquired, from various third parties and sworn depositions, a considerable amount of record evidence and other [classified] information relevant to the case.
[2] Twice during that period, in 2003 and 2004, Michael Mason, FBI Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office (which has been charged by Lambert with intransigence) stated publicly that he was not sure the anthrax case would ever be solved, “despite our very, very, very best efforts.”
[3] In pursuing anthrax clues, the FBI “deviated from traditional lab practice” and allowed top investigators to influence how the science was conducted. “There were some political things going on behind the scenes” said Jenifer Smith, chief of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Intelligence and Analysis Section (www.propublica.org/article/fbi-science-id-anthrax-killer). “
DXer said
Barbara asks: Who sent the anthrax? I think the mailer was Adnan El-Shukrijumah.
DXer says: Adnan El-Shukrijumah is the anthrax mailer … on or about 9/13/2001, he phoned from KSM’s house to tell his mom he was coming to the US
But FBI Special Agent Vincent Lisi is not an easy man to dissuade of his Ivins Theory, and so I’ve ventured to offer unsolicited help on finding his missing $500 million dollar Isabella Gardner paintings also. He can thank me later.
Numerous major newspapers and journals have published editorials urging that the FBI’s proposed solution of Amerithrax should be reconsidered. Frontline, ProPublic and McClatchy joined together in an in-depth investigative look and found the FBI’s evidence unconvincing. Most of Dr. Ivins’ colleagues, in sworn civil deposition testimony, have detailed the reasons the FBI’s “Ivins Theory” lacks merit. Senator Daschle, one of the recipients of the mailed anthrax, in a 2013 book emphasized: “To this day, authorities have not conclusively figured out who mailed those letters.” The FBI’s anthrax expert Claire Fraser-Liggett explained that the genetic analysis of the spores in Ivins’ flask do not indicate Ivins is guilty and that the FBI’s use of the science was misleading.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that the FBI’s reliance on four morphological variants was flawed. But even more fundamentally, that analysis merely narrowed things to several hundred scientists and others who had access. The reality that any one of them could have given the genetically matching Ames strain to someone else. Security at labs was very lax. Anyone with access to a lab could simply walk out with a pathogen. The FBI had estimated up to 377 had access required elimination — and that was just at USAMRIID. US Taylor nonetheless falsely claimed in August 2008 that only 100 needed to be eliminated. He premised his conclusion on the claim that only those with access at USAMRIID’s Building 1425 had to be eliminated — overlooking the fact that the genetically matching Ames was also stored in Building 1412.
Dr. Ayman Zawahiri’s colleagues explained in 1998 that he intended to use anthrax against US targets to retaliate for the rendering of senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) leaders, to include Blind Sheik Abdel Rahman. Ali Mohammed, the EIJ head of intelligence, had a document on his computer seized by the FBI that outlined principles of cell security that would be followed. Ali Mohammed trained Dahab, a Cairo medical drop-out, to make deadly letters. Dahab was involved in the founding of the Blind Sheik’s Services Organization in Brooklyn.
Dr. Ayman recruited Pakistan government scientist Rauf Ahmad to infiltrate Porton Down-sponsored conferences in the UK in 1999 and 2000. In 1999, after visiting a first lab that did not have pathogenic strain, Rauf Ahmad arranged to visit a second lab. He ominously began a letter to Dr. Ayman about that visit to the second lab: “I have successfully achieved the targets.” The public still does not know the identity of that second lab.
Rauf Ahmad reported to Dr. Ayman that he had made contacts that were helpful in learning processing tricks. The official history of MI5 indicates that Ahmad was intercepted leaving with equipment and strains after the 2000 conference. At the 2000 conference, Rauf Ahmad’s presented his paper on harvesting anthrax in the wild and killing mice with 100 injected spores. That abstract is online. The FBI and CIA thus had reason to know that Al Qaeda’s anthrax scientist already had been working with virulent anthrax. The information on what he took with him from the 1999 lab continues to be suppressed. So it should be no surprise that the label of “anthrax spore concentrate” harvested in April 2001 appears to be in the handwriting of Rauf Ahmad. CIA Director Tenet reports in his book that Ahmad helped set up Yazid Sufaat’s lab in Kandahar in May 2001. Rauf Ahmad, in occasional correspondence, would not cooperate with me unless I paid him money. The Washington Post correspondent in Pakistan once arranged to conduct an interview but then the ISI backpedaled on its consent.
The potential access to Ames is not reasonably denied. For example, a microbiologist connected to the Al Qaeda network, Ali Al-Timimi, shared a suite with the leading DARPA-funded Ames anthrax researchers at George Mason University. One, Ken Alibek, had been a former Russian bioweaponeer. The other had been the former commander of USAMRIID.
Indeed, one non-citizen from Sudan and then Egypt for a few days in 1998 worked alongside Bruce Ivins in the B3 with Ames anthrax. He studied at Cairo Medical where Dr. Ayman Zawahiri recruited students to jihad every Friday. Dr. Ayman’s sister Heba taught microbiology at Cairo Medical. A federal undercover did my graphics which were then uploaded by Lew to his blog and made available for comment.
David Relman, the Vice-Chairman of the National Academy of Sciences panel that reviewed the science relied upon in Amerithrax, explained in “Science” that Ames was detected at a lab in Afghanistan. Indeed, Ames was detected in the remains of the hijacker who came in June 2001. The hijacker had been at Kandahar, where Yazid Sufaat’s anthrax lab was located. Whenever there was a positive finding, however, the FBI concluded it was a false positive. Yet when a genetics test narrowed 700-1000 researchers to 300, the FBI closed the case.
Yazid Sufaat told KSM that he was not at risk because he and his two assistants had been vaccinated to protect them against their work with virulent anthrax. One of those assistants was tortured and then kept in secret prisons in Jordan and Israel. He told his CIA interrogators that “I made the anthrax” but then later would recant.
The main evidence relied upon by the FBI was Dr. Ivins’ work at night and on weekends in late September and early October 2001. The documents eventually produced by USAMRIID under FOIA and published on Lew’s blog, however, show that Dr. Ivins was working on an experiment with 52 rabbits. Checking on animals at night and on weekends was a one person job and would take a couple of hours. That is the amount of time Dr. Ivins spent in the lab. The binding and mandatory protocol required that the principal investigator conduct the observations for the first 7 days after the rabbits were injected in early October 2001. US Attorney Taylor in explaining Ivins’ overtime in Fall 2001 (including November and December) overlooked that the 2-person rule implemented in January 2002 that precluded such overtime. That is why there would have been no continuing late night hours working alone past December 2001. The FBI’s Amerithrax Investigative Summary makes no mention of the rabbits — it either was negligent for the FBI not to know of the experiment or 52 rabbits were knowingly stuffed down into a hat.
Other imagined evidence involved a concocted interpretation of a coded message: “PAT FNY”. The only expert interviewed by the FBI about the code in the letters for which documents were produced disagreed with the FBI’s theory of code in the letters. He noted that all the letters needed for the FBI’s interpretation of the code were NOT double-lined. The documentary evidence showing that Ayman Zawahiri used “school” as code — the return address on the letters to the Senators — and not Bruce Ivins.
Other evidence was exculpatory. For example, in a handwriting report nowhere mentioned in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary, concluded that Dr. Ivins probably did not write the letters.
The genetically distinctive b. subtilis contaminant found in the Brokaw and New York Post anthrax letters was not found in Dr. Ivins lab. The FBI acknowledges it did not swab all the other suspect labs for b. subtilis contaminant. Similarly, meglumine and diatrizoate were in Flask 1029 but not in the mailed anthrax).
The FBI, in the case they initially touted as being established by the scientific evidence, then turned to its stock psychological profile of a lone nut. The FBI’s key witness however, was Dr. Ivins’ first counselor who has written a 2009 book explaining that when she counseled Dr. Ivins, she was receiving her instructions each night from an alien. She reports that the alien, she believed, had implanted a microchip in her butt. She thought that murderous astral entities were attached to her clients in her new part-time addictions counseling gig. In her book, she explained that each night she would fly to Afghanistan and Ground Zero. The astral entities would chase her back home, and she would narrowly escape through a vortex of energy that would close up behind her. That counselor annotated the psychiatrists’ notes. Her notes were handed to the second counselor in July 2008 — and the second counselor then sought a restraining order that day against Dr. Ivins leading up to Dr. Ivins’ suicide. She alleged he was a murderous sociopath. The chain of events led to Dr. Ivins suicide.
Lew Weinstein has done a huge public service. Week after week — over the course of years — he uploaded the original documents so that the public can see for itself the lack of evidence supporting the FBI’s Ivins Theory. The FBI must not rest on a mistaken intelligence and true crime analysis. Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and his fellow members are part of a cult of death. Dr. Ayman seems determined to attack the United States in a mass attack. Zawahiri has shown himself to be all too willing to kill innocents, to include innocent elderly and children.
In written exchanges with me, Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat does not deny responsibility for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. Instead he “pleads the Fifth.” I believe Adnan El-Shukrijumah, who like Yazid Sufaat stayed at KSM’s house in Kandahar in September 2001, was the anthrax mailer.
A number of the individuals associated with Al Qaeda’s anthrax program were closely associated with Adnan El-Shukrijumah. Adnan El-Shukrijumah was the son of a salaried Saudi missionary who while the family lived in Brooklyn would translate for Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman. Shukrijumah was at a Sarasota, FL home with his accomplice, 911 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta. Shukrijumah called his mother on or about September 11, 2001 to tell her he was coming to the United States. He insisted he was coming over her protests that he would be arrested. The FBI reported that El-Shukrijumah, traveling under an alias, entered the United States sometime after September 1, 2001. The FBI did not tell the “Joint Inquiry” about Shukrijumah even though he was known to be an associate of Mohammed Atta. Shukrijumah was with Atta and the other hijackers at a Sarasota, FL home associated with a close advisor of a key Saudi Arabia prince.
Leaked detainee statements from Guantanamo indicate that Shukrijumah lived in safe houses in Karachi from February 2002 to April 2002. Hawsawi was KSM’s assistant and had documents explaining how to turn anthrax into a powder. Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab was equipped with a dryer, centrifuge and the other equipment the FBI deems necessary to make a dried powder out of anthrax. Shukrijumah was killed in a raid in Pakistan’s tribal area late last year. The public may learn more about Shukijumah and his association with Mohammed Atta in a litigation under FOIA .
Separately, documents in Ali Al-Timimi’s pending case may shed some light about his possible access to the genetically matching Ames. Ali Al-Timimi shared a suite with the leading DARPA-funded Ames anthrax researchers. “911 imam” Anwar Al-Awlaki was coordinating with his fellow Falls Church imam, Al-Timimi. Awlaki in the Al Qaeda publication “Inspire” — from his grave — urged followers to attack using a biological weapon. Ali Al-Timimi had unfettered access to ATCC, the largest microbiological repository in the world. The ATCC bacteriology collection scientist was the future head of the Amerithrax science investigation who would help guide the review by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the production of documents from the FBI to NAS.
The Technical Review Panel Summary notes that the NY Post sample had apparently been treated with hydrophilic silica. The term “weaponization” — when equated with “floatability” — is used as a straw man to avoid the potential key probativeness of the silicon signature. Former FBI WMD Director Vahid Majidi says the silica could have been in the culture medium. To credit that the silicon signature did not relate to floatability – as many people do — does not avoid the fact that it is potentially highly probative, and without more tends to be exculpatory of Dr. Ivins. For example, if it relates to “microencapsulation” using hydrophilic silica, that might be a huge lead. Leading experts Weber and Velsko, key experts on the nonmicrobiological signature signature, think that further study is warranted to determine the source of the silicon signature. Microencapsulation, for example, protects the anthrax from destruction by sunlight and from destruction of enzymes in the body.
The FBI’s Ivins Theory is Hatfill Theory redux. The “Ivins Theory” was part of the same unstoppable train wreck as the “Hatfill Theory.” There was a change of cars (investigators), but it was the same flawed train of reasoning and the investigators never overcame the earlier truncated emphasis of the investigation.
There are many difficult potential conflicts of interest in Amerithrax. Those conflicts of interests were not addressed by the GAO’s extremely narrowly focused review. For example, USAMRIID’s John Ezzell, the FBI’s anthrax expert, prior to 9/11, made a dried aerosol using Ames supplied by Bruce Ivins from Flask 1029 and sent to Johns-Hopkins Applied Physics. In another potential conflict of interest, the daughter of the lead Amerithrax prosecutor represented “anthrax weapons suspects” Ali Al-Timimi for free. The prosecutor pled the Fifth Amendment at civil deposition when questioned about whether he leaked hyped reports about Hatfill that led the investigation astray.
It may very well be that Dr. Ayman Zawahiri is the one to write the history of Amerithrax. In the meantime, we can entertain ourselves with Lew Weinstein’s all-too-plausible novel and consider the possibilities.
DXer said
Barbara asks who made the anthrax? That question might be broken down to: who grew the anthrax, and two, if it was someone different, who made it into a dried powder?
I venture that it appears that a scientist named Rauf Ahmad grew the anthrax in April 2001.
CIA and FBI Knew Rauf Ahmad harvested “anthrax spore concentrate” for Al Qaeda for experiment on guinea pigs on “7-4-001″ – handwriting on anthrax spore concentrate is same as handwriting of Rauf Ahmad in correspondence planning anthrax lab with Ayman Zawahiri
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 26, 2014
The FBI has known since 2001 that a paper at the 2000 UK conference chaired by the lone non-US Amerithrax advisor Les Baillie, explained how Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab scientist Rauf Ahmad had killed mice with 100 injected spores.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 16, 2014
The Chair of the Dangerous Pathogens 2000 conference at which the Al Qaeda scientist’s Rauf Ahmad’s research on killing mice with anthrax was presented, worked at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Center while advising the FBI’s Amerithrax Investigation ; the paper Dr. Baillie presented was co-authored with sequencer of the Ames strain
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 16, 2014
The UK Lab That Let Al Qaeda Scientist Rauf Ahmad Leave With Virulent Anthrax in 1999 Made A Mistake; To Keep The Lab’s Identity A Secret Prevents Us From Learning From History
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 5, 2014
DXer said
More on Rauf Ahmad:
Suspect and A Setback In Al-Qaeda Anthrax Case – Washington Post, Oct 31, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/30/AR2006103001250.html
Prof Les Baillie presented on “The Misuse of Biology” last month in this slide presentation at the Global Trends and Implications for British Security Conference
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 16, 2014
In his recent slideshare on the “Misuse of Biology,” the sole non-US Amerithrax adviser Les Baillie discussed Amerithrax, stealing pathogens from lab, and the consquences of a small-scale and large scale anthrax attack
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 16, 2014
DXer said
Then as to who made it into a powder, I venture it was the affable but murderous Yazid Sufaat, with whom I have corresponded on the subject before he was rearrested for terrorism.
Al Qaeda anthrax lab tech says he had been part of Malaysian Armed Forces biological weapons program
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 23, 2012
In today’s installment of a continuing series, Al Qaeda anthrax lab technician Yazid Sufaat defends his decision to go to Afghanistan to work on his “anthrax project” for Al Qaeda
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 20, 2012
Al Qaeda anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat discusses Zacarias Moussaoui in this 2011 French language television interview
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 28, 2012
Senate Torture Report: Yazid Sufaat’s assistant Al-Barq alternately would say “I made the anthrax” or “I lied”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 10, 2014
DXer said
Yazid Sufaat was happy with the anthrax work when he stayed with KSM for 6 days in 2001 and when he reported to Dr. Ayman on the results of his research with virulent anthrax in August 2001 with Hambali; in his correspondence with DXer, he seems happy today also (and very much in love).
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 1, 2012
CIA pushback: Senate Torture Report selectively omits that CIA learned “important information about al-Qa’ida’s anthrax plotting and the role of Yazid Sufaat”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 11, 2014
Moussaoui testimony: After Moussaoui got in trouble with KSM for Yazid Sufaat’s unauthorized purchase of 10 tons of ammonium nitrate to blow up the US embassy in KL, AQ #2 Atef formally tasked Moussaoui with buying and learning to fly a crop dusting plane for use in an attack
Posted on February 6, 2015
I’m just saying…
DXer said
I see some advantages of Dillon’s framing of the request.
But I think there are many traditional forensic tests that are not exempt from production and would be produced, to include those relating to:
(a) ink, including all documents showing that there was no match with any of Dr. Ivins’ writing;
(b) paper composition, including all documents showing that there was no match with any paper ever used by Dr. Ivins;
(c) photocopy toner, including all documents showing that there was no match with any photocopes ever made by Dr. Ivins and that the USAMRIID photocopiers could be excluded;
(d) fiber, including all documents showing that there was no match with any fiber used by Dr. Ivins;
(e) all handwriting examinations of Bruce Ivins’ handwriting, and all handwriting examinations of the late Mohammed Atta and Adnan El-Shukrijumah;
(f) CIA finding of Ames strain of b. anthracis in Kandahar that the FBI didn’t credit,
(g) the bloodhound alert relating to Dr. Ivins (negative as to Ivins),
(h) Ivins’ polygraphs, including all documents interpreting those polygraphs,
(i) meglumine and diazotroate,
(j) all documents relating to which letters were asserted to be double-lined in developing a theory of a code based on which letters were doublelined.
The request is intended to avoid privacy exemption — so as to not seek information about other individuals who are still living. For example, I would request all handwriting examinations of Atta and Shukrijumah. Both are dead and the case is closed. So a privacy exemption and law enforcement exemption should not apply.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Was that Rick meeting with Director Comey at the Knoxville IHOP yesterday?
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
I was just kidding about the meeting in IHOP. Attorney Lambert was the only former Knoxville agent in charge not invited to his visit.