* Did USAMRIID’s John Ezzell and Terry Abshire, through no fault of their own, turn out to have a massive conflict of interest?
Posted by DXer on November 14, 2015
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Terry Abshire knew (see other 301) that her own sample in Building 1412 was a match. Yet Terry, who was collecting the samples (along with John Ezzell) for the FBI, did not submit a sample from her own lab. The FBI was involved in Ezzell’s research. He made a dried powder out of the anthrax from Flask 1029.
But the FBI, rather than face these awkward facts, hounded a guy with known mental frailties to commit suicide, after stained panties were found in his garbage a second time.
It is especially outrageous that US Attorney Taylor and AUSA Lieber then spun facts as if only 100 at USAMRIID were relevant, needing elimination as suspects, rather than 300+ who had known access between the two buildings. And that’s before you get to the issue of access to any sample elsewhere. There were no records of transfer of the genetically matching Ames (no Form 11) if they were made to visiting scientists coming to USAMRIID. Moreover, Form 11 was a new requirement.
DXer said
Trump lashes out at Mueller for alleged conflicts of interest
By Brett Samuels – 07/29/18 04:50 PM EDT
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/399427-trump-says-he-and-mueller-had-nasty-business-relationship
DXer said
Trump Criticizes Investigators, Citing ‘Unrevealed Conflicts of Interest’
By Eileen Sullivan
May 7, 2018
DXer said
It is astounding that R. Scott Decker can write so extensively about John Ezzell without so much as mentioning that he had made a dried powder out of Flask 1029 — not Ivins.
Decker writes in his book published last year:
“Coordinating the analyses performed by state public health laboratories from New York to Florida, private contract labs located around the country, Atlanta’s CDC, Keim’s lab in Flagstaff, and John Ezzell consumed [Scott] Stanley’s days.”
Scott Stanley and R. Scott Decker had long worked with John Ezzell in the Hazardous Materials Unit. So they were just one step removed from the guy who made dried powder out of Flask 1029. yet they were ones conducting the investigation.
Is that why it was no big deal when Ezzell’s lab threw out Ivins’ sample and when Ezzell’s lab didn’t submit the sample they had from Ivins’ Flask 1029?
Bizarrely, these facts were used as evidence of Ivins’ guilt rather than facts lying at a profound conflict of interest.
It was the FBI’s lack of transparency on these issues in 2008 and 2009 — as they spun their waves to new positions and careers on Ivins grave — that was especially disturbing.
DXer said
Scott Stanley and R. Scott Decker were in the new Hazardous Materials Response Unit with John Ezzell from its inception. (Recounting the Anthrax Attacks, p. 48) And so his conflict of interest — having been the one who made a dried powder out of Flask 1029 — extended to the entire FBI’s science investigation.
So when you see Decker fail to address an issue as central as the Silicon Signature or the fact that the FBI scientist had made a dried powder out of Flask 1029, you can the enormousness — and the enormity — of the conflict of interest.
It makes it all the more important that the FBI — and Decker — identify who threw out Ivins February 2002 sample and why the Ezzell lab did not submit a sample itself, given that they stored the genetically matching anthrax in an unlocked refrigerator.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
In his recent book, at page 96, Scott Decker writes:
“We went on to plan a protocol for the samples once they arrived. Ezzell agreed to assign Terry Abshire to process the arriving Ames samples, and I made a request to the Hazmat Unit for Darin” (p. 91)
Ivins’ sample was thrown out — while others on comparable slants were not. So how was throwing Ivins’ sample out consistent with the protocol that Scott Decker says he was involved in developing?
Was the reason that Ezzell’s lab — with its embedded FBI Agent — threw out Ivins’ sample because that lab had made a dried powder out of Ivins’ Flask 1029? Is that why Terry Abshire didn’t even submit the Ames sample (obtained from Ivins) that she kept in her fridge? Did FBI Agent Darin Steele throw out the sample? Did FBI Agent Scott Stanley? He is the one spinning the behavioral aspects so hard — and expressly relying on the part-time addictions counselor who says she was controlled by a microchip that an alien had implanted in her butt. Did FBI Agent and now book author Scott Decker? Terry Abshire? John Ezzell? The public interest in knowing who threw out the sample in violation of the protocol outweighs an individual’s privacy interest.
Why does Scott get to selectively tell the story without disclosing who destroyed this critical evidence? The FBI’s entire theory was based on Bruce Ivins acting suspiciously when it was the FBI scientists who were acting suspiciously — who destroyed the evidence. And they were the ones who made the dried powder out of the genetically matching Ames! Not Bruce Ivins.
DXer said
Scott Decker, who has the book on Amerithrax coming out next Spring, was on the Federal Hazardous Response Unit with John Ezzell prior to 2001. Who threw out the sample that Ivins submitted in early 2002? Was it John? Was it his assistant? It was John and his assistant who made the dried powder out of Ivins’ Flask 1029 for the DARPA research. Scott knew that in February 2002, right? And so wasn’t it understood that John, despite his undisputed character and integrity — and his straight shooting manner — had an acute conflict of interest?
DXer said
Why was the FBI Laboratory dragging its feet?
Was it because it knew that its hazardous materials unit consulting scientist USAMRIID (Ezzell) had made a dried powder out of Ames from Ivins’ Flask 1029?
And that the scientist working in the unit had thrown out Ivins’ sample? And had not submitted a sample?
Lambert in recent interview:
“[A sense of urgency] was not prevalent in the lower levels of the FBI which really hampered the investigation significantly.” (38.30)
Questioner:
“Could you go to them and say ‘guys I need help… could you put the heat on them? You got Dick Cheney on the phone. Say, ‘Dick’ I need help over here.’ You know, put some heat on these guys.”
Lambert:
“Right, um. I had too much respect for the Director to bring that sort of scrutiny and criticism to him at that point of time.… I tried to deal with his subordinates as he instructed me to do.”
DXer said
OFFICIAL use ONLY
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious
Diseases (USAMRIID) provided analytical services to the FBI
Laboratory since 1998.
Initial examination of the letter spore preparations for
physical characteristics (microscopy and electron
microscopy) and spore viability studies.
18 oct 2001 SPS02.57(Daschle) CFU Report
21 Oct 2001 EM Report of Daschle Letter
24 Oct 2001 Post) CFU Report
25 oct 2001 EM. Daschle “si” ‘Report
25 Oct 2001 Simons Letter re NY Post
1 28 Oct 2001 Report of NY Post
27 Nov 2001 Report on Isolates from Daschle and NY
POSE Letters
Special Pathogens Sample Test Laboratory Analytical Test
Reports: Results of Analysis-of Letter Material
sPs.o2.sa
SPS.O2.
NY Post l’O/22/2001
44 Brokaw Envelope 11/4/2001
SPS.02.57 Daschle Letters and Powders 11/9/2001
Leahy Powder
Microbiological examinations and identification of
phenotypic variants which appeared different
than the predominant “Ames” phenotype.
Report #1 Analysis of Evidentiary Material
Report #2 Analysis of Repository Samples
Report #3 Analysis of Environmental Samples AMI
Report #4 Examination of Repository Spore
Preparations: Screening for the Hemolytic
B. subtilis Contaminant
Report
#5 Analysis of Repository Samples
Isolation of Morphological Variants from FBI Repository
Samples FBIR 049 004 (Leahy) Powerpoint Photos
“These documents are the _property of the FBI and are loaned to your
organization pursuant to contract dated ~Apri1 23, 2009 between the
FBI and the NAS. These documents and their contents are not to be distributed
outside ‘of your organization without the express permission -of the As FBI
records, they may be released only with permission and only in accordance
with the provisions of federal statutes and regulations, including but not
limited to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552; the Privacy
Act of 1974, 5 552a; applicable civil and criminal discovery
privileges; and any other applicable federal statutory and regulatory
authorities .
OFFICIAL USE ONLY
DXer said
The FBI scientists have publicly emphasized that Terry Abshire played the key role in the entire case.
Trail of Odd Anthrax Cells Led FBI to Army Scientist
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/26/AR2008102602522.html
“In late October 2001, lab technician Terry Abshire placed a tray of anthrax cells under a microscope and spotted something so peculiar she had to look twice. It was two weeks after the country’s worst bioterrorism attack, and Abshire, like others at the Army’s Fort Detrick biodefense lab, was caught up in a frenzied search for clues that could help lead to the culprit.
Abshire focused her lens on a moldlike clump. Anthrax bacteria were growing here, but some of the cells were odd: strange shapes, strange textures, strange colors. These were mutants, or “morphs,” genetic deviants scattered among the ordinary anthrax cells like chocolate chips in a cookie batter.
Unknowingly, Abshire had discovered a key to solving the anthrax case. ”
__________
Comment: When in late October 2001, and Terry Abshire noticed that the mailed anthrax looked like her spores, hadn’t she perhaps found the key to solving the anthrax case?
But when it pointed to the FBI’s Hazardous Materials Response Unit and the FBI’s Special Pathogens Branch, might her observations been lost to history?
Look how the FBI investigator spun her observation:
“[Ivins] wasn’t an expert. He was the expert,” said a senior FBI investigator, who answered questions about the still-open case on the condition of anonymity.”
Really? Terry Abshire had told the FBI that it looked like HER spores and the FBI was spinning things in the still-open investigation away from the spores of the FBI HMRU’s unit? This does not seem transparent and accountable at all.
__________
“Many outside experts and some lawmakers dismiss the government’s case against Ivins as circumstantial, while Ivins’s former colleagues and friends argue that he was incapable, technically and constitutionally, of committing an act of mass murder. “Bruce Ivins was a victim of a vicious plot,” said Ayaad Assaad, a toxicologist who once worked with Ivins at Fort Detrick, in Maryland.”
***
“The finished product, a muddy, off-white liquid in a glass flask the size of a small coffee pot, was the greatest single concentration of deadly anthrax bacteria in the country, FBI investigators said.”
Really? Ivins had what — about 333 ml. of virulent Ames. The scientist working for the FBI’s Special Pathogens Branch had just been shipped 340 ml. — on top of the 175 ml. previously shipped.
“Top FBI officials hoped that science could provide a link to the bioterrorist, but they soon grasped the difficulty of the task. They searched for traces of human DNA in the anthrax powder, and in the envelopes, but found none.”
__________
Comment: Oops! Nowis that a big fat lie? According to the former lead Amerithrax investigator in a Complaint filed in federal district court, the FBI Laboratory DID find human DNA. But that it was someone who worked for the FBI. But the lead investigator alleges that FBI Laboratory (incredibly) did not tell the investigators — did not tell the lead Amerithrax investigator Rick Lambert. I guess the advantage of spinning a perp’s guilt in an open case — while speaking anonymously — is that you are not bound by what the documents being wrongfully withheld by the FBI in fact establish. The human DNA was from a female technician working for the FBI, wasn’t it? (Yes). Whose DNA was it? (I don’t know; it has never been disclosed).
__________
“The breakthrough the FBI sought came not from a big-name scientist but from a technician who had spent years studying anthrax bacteria under a microscope.”
“Terry Abshire had been tasked with growing colonies of anthrax bacteria from spores recovered from one of the mailings. When the 56-year-old Frederick resident studied the cells, she noticed that a few colonies were different in subtle ways, so she allowed the bacteria to grow for a longer period so as to check again.”
“They looked different — different colors, different textures,” said Richard Langham, an FBI scientist who was assigned to work at the Fort Detrick lab. He said it was Abshire’s 20 years of experience that allowed her to spot the subtleties.”
“A new postdoc working with anthrax probably would not have noticed,” he said.
“The FBI was fortunate: Not only were there multiple mutations among the attack strain, but they also were the kinds that led to easily detectable physical changes.”
Comment: Yes, and what Terry Abshire told the FBI was that it looked like HER spores. Or did these learned investigators not know that.
Was the missing 340 ml. of virulent Ames sent in June 2001 ever irradiated? Or, instead, was it used by someone in the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings?
DXer said
The Videotaped deposition of KRISTIE M. FRIEND, June 9, 2011
Click to access Friend%20Deposition_Redacted.pdf
Q. Who are they?
A. Ms. Cindy Allen, Ms. Stephanie Readus —
Q. R-E-A-D-U-S?
A. — yes, sir — and Ms. Terri Abshire. And
one soldier worked with them as well, and he would have been Sergeant Lee Spinogle.
Q. Spinogle?
A. Um-hmm.
Q. And these were lab techs that were already
there.
A. Right. And their mission, they primarily
worked in the SPSTL. They didn’t do any other type of lab research. Their primary focus was to receive samples and test them for any kind of biowarfare agents that may have affected wherever. So they had received many samples from all over the country and all over the world, at times.
Q. I’m sure, though, that they had access to the rest of USAMRIID to call in other people in case they needed some expertise, like you said earlier.
A. Yes, absolutely.
(p. 30)