* By letter dated August 23, 2016, DOJ’s Matthew Hurd has failed to provide Dr. Ivins’ Notebook 4282 which has notations on September 18, 2001, the date of the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings.
Posted by DXer on August 24, 2016
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Who is the employee “primarily responsible for the withholding” of Notebook 4282 when I asked for it some years ago — and USAMRMC FOIA officer Sandra Rogers asked US DOJ that copies of all of the notebooks be returned to USAMRIID?
Who is the “officer or employee primarily responsible for the withholding” of the other notebooks she requested be returned? (For example, the notebooks copied at the USAMRIID Library and put on a CD (or seized and not returned in 2007), would have included Notebook 4037 ).
Who is the “officer or employee primarily responsible for the withholding” of Notebook 4282 when Ken Dillon initially asked for it — before he had to avail himself of the services of OGIS?
Who is the “officer or employee primarily responsible for the withholding” of Notebook 4282 in recent months?
What about the recent days and weeks after I pointed out that USAMRIID was the originating agency and long ago had asked that it be returned to USAMRIID for processing?
5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(F) provides:
(i)
Whenever the court orders the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant and assesses against the United States reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs, and the court additionally issues a written finding that the circumstances surrounding the withholding raise questions whether agency personnel acted arbitrarily or capriciously with respect to the withholding, the Special Counsel shall promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted against the officer or employee who was primarily responsible for the withholding. The Special Counsel, after investigation and consideration of the evidence submitted, shall submit his findings and recommendations to the administrative authority of the agency concerned and shall send copies of the findings and recommendations to the officer or employee or his representative. The administrative authority shall take the corrective action that the Special Counsel recommends.
DXer said
Notebook 4010, 4037 and Notebook 4282 were not returned to the late Bruce Ivins. I fully credit the good faith of all the DOJ and FBI officials. Some can-do type , however, should now go retrieve the notebooks and provide them without additional delay. (It has now been nearly a decade of delay). The notebooks will then be available to include online with Ivins’ other 15 or so notebooks that have been uploaded at my request.
http://mrmc.amedd.army.mil/index.cfm?pageid=foia_reading_room.overview#
DXer said
Some take a dimmer view. For example, here is KSM’s motion to disqualify judge because of intentional destruction of secret evidence:
Background:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/01/judge-prosecutor-conspire-to-manipulate-ksm-trial-lawyers-claim/
Judge, Prosecutor Conspired To Manipulate 9/11 Mastermind’s Trial, Lawyers Claim
Attorneys representing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed have alleged his trial’s presiding judge secretly conspired with federal officials to destroy evidence.
According to recently unsealed documents, Mohammed’s defense team filed a motion May 10 claiming that the trial’s presiding judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, secretly authorized the destruction of evidence relevant to al-Qaeda leader’s defense. On December 19, 2013, Col. Pohl issued an order preserving several items of evidence relevant to the defense. The evidence at issue remains classified. Pohl then allegedly issued a secret order six months later authorizing the Obama administration to destroy the evidence in question.
The defense claims the order was “the result of secret communications between the government and Judge Pohl, which he conducted without the knowledge of defense counsel.”
The secret order included a provision requiring the prosecution to proffer a redacted version of the order to the defense. The defense was not provided with a redacted version until 18 months after the order had been issued, and more than a year after the evidence itself was destroyed. Thus, for nearly a year and half, defense lawyers were unaware that evidence previously ordered preserved had in fact been destroyed. The redacted report, when furnished by the prosecution, was attached to another secret report.
“As a result, his right to prepare a defense in a capital case and his right to a reliable determination of guilt in penalty in a capital case has been substantially gutted,” the defense motion reads. (RELATED: Enforcing Legal Limits On Gitmo Transfers)
Mohammed’s lawyers also slammed the court’s lack of transparency, writing “Whatever legitimate national security interests might purportedly justify the near-Star Chamber proceedings that have riven this case, there can be no articulable excuse for so clearly misleading Mr. Mohammed’s counsel and preventing them from seeking remedies to prevent the destruction of crucial evidence.”
The defense has called for Colonel Pohl’s recusal, claiming his conduct in the case “evidences a lack of detached impartiality and the neutral, even-handed administration of the laws governing this case to which Mr. Mohammed is constitutionally entitled.”
The government’s response to the defense motion will not be made public for several more weeks, per military commission rules.
DXer said
Background:
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
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
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2014
DXer said
W. S. Carus, in a chapter in the 2016 book, “Biological Threats in the 21st Century” describes the FBI’s theory, as “highly controversial.”
Toby Ewin, in another entry, “Point of View” explains that “The anthrax letters sent in autumn 2001 arguably represent the highest small-scale terrorist attack ever mounted, and the perpetrator’s identity is even now controversial.”
DOJ attorney Matt Hurd, when he sees that there is a notebook (Notebook 4282) that the FBI is withholding that contains contemporaneous notes for days that the FBI claimed Ivins had no reason to be in the lab, should have someone go get the damn notebook. If he doesn’t, he is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
DXer said
In the same 2016 book Kathleen M. Vogel, in “Aftershocks of the 2001 Anthrax Attacks,” similarly notes “There is still controversy remaining about whether Ivins conducted the attacks.” She cites an article by Scott Shane in the New York Times about the former lead Amerithrax investigator who claims that the FBI is withholding from production a massive amount of information exculpatory of Bruce Ivins.
DXer said
See the reference 1A GJ 1100 on the excel spreadsheet by an FBI Agent on the science squad describing that the pages are from the mailings? It appears to indicate the location of the photocopied pages from the notebook.
As background, note this explanation that the pages were put in 1A according to this 302 statement.
DXer said
An excerpt from the FBI’s excel spreadsheet giving the location of the notebooks (and whether they had been returned) — see part of 55 of the 59 sections in the FBI’s “Vault” is here:
DXer said
It’s not merely the FBI that is wrongfully concealing the evidence. It is the United States Department of Justice.
FOX NEWS interview with RICHARD LAMBERT … Former agent claims FBI concealing evidence in anthrax case
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 22, 2015
NYT interview of former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard Lambert: “a staggering amount of exculpatory evidence” regarding Dr. Ivins remains secret
Posted by Lew Weinstein on July 16, 2016
FBI not only is concealing evidence exculpatory of Ivins (according to former lead investigator Lambert), but it took key lab notebooks from USAMRIID that it has refused to give back!
Posted on September 14, 2015
FBI fights release of exculpatory information regarding 2001 anthrax attacks
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 10, 2015
DXer said
Here is Dillon’s appeal being denied by DOJ Attorney Matthew Hurd.
Dr. Ken Dillon appeals FBI’s wrongful stonewalling of documents from the September-October 2001 time period of the anthrax mailings
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2016
DXer said
Now if you search “4282” in the FBI’s Vault, you learn that Notebook 4282, IVINS Pages 65 through 70 contain experiments conducted between 8/23/2001 and 09/18/2001,
including the growth of Ba Ames. Given that this was the period that AUSA Lieber claimed Ivins had no reason to be in the B3, the notebook contradicts her claim. It should be produced without further delay. Indeed, it should have been produced many years ago.
Sometimes, as in the case of the Florida Pulse shooter, the FBI closes a case upon lack of evidence when actually the problem is that the evidence was available but not efficiently obtained.
Dillon already took an appeal. He should just bring suit, having exhausted his administrative remedies, and seek attorneys fees.
The FBI knew full well that it had not returned Notebook 4282 which had entries from the time of the mailings.
Why did the DOJ and FBI deem it acceptable not to return all of the lab notebooks — when the AUSAs appreciate the importance of the contemporaneous record of events provided by the notebooks?