* FOIA Complaint filed by Ken Dillon in federal court against the US DOJ filed last week
Posted by DXer on August 29, 2017
DXer:
Here is the link to the FOIA Complaint filed by Ken Dillon in federal court against the US DOJ filed last week.
http://foiaproject.org/dc_view/?id=3954341-DC-1-2017cv01716-complaint
Over the past two years, through numerous requests, letters, appeals, calls and emails, academic researcher Ken Dillon has exhausted all attempts to obtain the Notebook 4282 with the entries from the time of the first Fall 2001 anthrax mailing and the prior week. The FBI’s “Ivins Theory”, you’ll recall, was premised on the claim that Ivins had no reason to be in the B3 laboratory.
The FBI should have returned a copy of all the Ivins notebooks to the USAMRIID — as the USAMRMC FOIA Officer Rogers long ago requested — for uploading in the USAMRMC’s excellent reading room which contains most of his numerous other notebooks.
I see a reference in the FBI’s “Vault” that the notebooks relating to the distribution of Ames strain were added as “a 1A to the FD-340 section of the file, serial 7825.” The USAMRMC FOIA Officer explained to me last week that there also is a CD containing all the Ivins notebooks that were in the library that is still being withheld by the FBI. For example, the FBI has not produced the 88 pages of Notebook 4010, the Notebook relating to the so-called (and inaptly named) “murder weapon” (which it imagines to be Flask 1029).
Lots of people have different theories of the difficult and complex Amerithrax whodunnit. But Dr. Dillon’s efforts will serve to help get people “on the same page.” I urge that everyone support this request that the FBI comply with the rule of law embodied by the FOIA. Importantly, an additional item Dillon is seeking is the lengthy memorandum by lead Amerithrax investigator Richard Lambert, who has publicly said that the FBI is withholding a staggering amount of evidence that is exculpatory of Bruce Ivins.
As a start, though, given that the FBI, I believe, has already located Notebook 4282, all that is left for them to do is to shoot it over to USAMRIID so that USAMRMC FOIA Officer Sandra Rogers can process it under FOIA. (USAMRIID, not the FBI, is the “originating agency” and so it is up to USAMRIID to process it like it did all the other of Ivins’ notebooks that eventually were returned by the FBI.)
CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
DEFENDANT’S NOTICE OF SUBMISSION OF
DOCUMENTS FOR IN CAMERA REVIEW
Pursuant to the Court’s Order dated February 5, 2020 (see ECF No. 48), Defendant the
U.S. Department of Justice, through counsel, hereby provides notice that it has provided a
redacted version of the 38 pages of Interim Major Case Summary (“IMCS”) excerpts at issue in
this Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) action, including specifications of the claimed FOIA
exemptions for the withheld portions of the document, for the Court’s in camera review. Per the
Court’s direction, Defendant has excised the classified information contained within these pages.
Dated: February 19, 2020
Respectfully submitted,
TIMOTHY J. SHEA, DC Bar No. 437437
United States Attorney for the District of Columbia
DANIEL F. VAN HORN, DC Bar No. 924092
Civil Chief
By: /s/ Christopher Hair
CHRISTOPHER HAIR, PA Bar No. 306656
Assistant United States Attorney
U.S. Attorney’s Office – Civil Division
555 Fourth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20530
***
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
https://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
The DOJ made their in camera submission to the federal district court on Wednesday, Feb 19, 2020.
DXer said
Federal Agencies Are Still Abusing Their Favorite, Super-Vague FOIA Exemption Thousands Of Times A Year
Failuresfrom the (b)ecause-we-can-can-can dept
Thu, Feb 13th 2020 3:44pm — Tim Cushing
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200207/18525043878/federal-agencies-are-still-abusing-their-favorite-super-vague-foia-exemption-thousands-times-year.shtml
DXer said
2020-02-05 48 ORDER directing Defendant to produce redacted version of Interim Major Case Summary excerpts. See document for details. Signed by Judge Rudolph Contreras on February 5, 2020. (lcrc3) (Entered: 02/05/2020)
DXer said
1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) [aka Spanish flu pandemic of 1918]
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html
DXer said
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2020/jan/10/muckrock-foia-idea-contest-2020/
January 10, 2020
Think you’ve got the best FOIA idea? Here’s your chance to prove it — and win $500
We’re spotlighting the most clever, useful, and impactful requests ahead of Sunshine Week 2020 — and MuckRock’s 10th birthday!
Written by Michael Morisy
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We’re grateful to the FOIA experts at Government Attic for sponsoring this contest and we hope it will highlight — and inspire — the amazing creativity of this community. If you’re looking to see what others have submitted, you can check out the public database of suggestions here.
DXer said
Notebook 4282 was written by Ivins’ assistant, Kristie M. Friend, who then worked for years for the FBI on Amerithrax. That begins to explain why the FBI withheld it for years. It appears to demolish the FBI’s claimed evidence in support of an Ivins Theory.
Whatever conclusions and inferences you draw in this complicated whodunnit, one thing that is clear is that the Notebook 4282 would not have been produced absent the good work by Plaintiff Ken Dillon and his Attorney, Scott Hodes. By forcing production of the notebook — and the documentary evidence is plain that it would never have been produced without their suit — Plaintiff and counsel have vindicated the rule of law under FOIA.
Now, onward to the Lambert memo! The game’s afoot!
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http;//www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Here is Ms. Friend’s full civil deposition in a suit brought by one of the victims.
DXer said
Kristin Friend explains who had access to Flask 1029, imagined by the FBI to be original source of the anthrax used in the attack:
“Q. All right. And who would have had access to
the RMR 1029 flask, assuming it was in that location?
A. Anyone who had access to suite B3.” (Civil depo. at 70)
DXer said
Kristie M. Friend, in her civil deposition, explained that she did not credit the FBI’s theory.
She both worked for the FBI on Amerithrax for years as a scientist and had personal knowleddge of Bruce Ivins laboratory and available facilities.
“Q. What I was asking was, based on your
knowledge and from having read the FBI report, where
they assert that the equipment used was at USAMRIID,
there was a lypholizer and a speed vac that was used to
dry the liquid anthrax and turn it into powder, do you
think that was possible to do with the equipment that
you were aware of that was there?
A. No.”
***
A. Because I think the type of equipment that
would have been necessary — yes, a lyophilizer could
have been used, but the only one that I am aware of
that’s actually at USAMRIID could not have been used to
produce this quality of the powder.
Q. And why not, in your opinion?
A. The lyophilizer that could have been used is
not in a containment suite, A, so I’m pretty certain —
Q. Is it outside the containment suite?
A. That’s correct, it’s in the Biosafety Level 2. (Civil Depo. at 87)
.
DXer said
“And do you have any opinion
as to whether you think Dr. Ivins was the anthrax
mailer? …
A. I don’t believe he’s guilty.
Q. Okay. And why not? You’re entitled to your
opinion.
A. I don’t believe he’s guilty because I
think — I mean, specifically with RMR 1029, what I know
now, USAMRIID was not the only Army institute that has
that strain. (Civil Depo. at 106)
DXer said
Kristin Friend explained:
“I mean, there are two other organizations I
know of that defintely could, and the one who actually
prepared the original stock is half across the country
away, and I don’t think that —
Q. Dugway, you’re talking about.
A. That’s correct. I don’t believe that we had
the means to do it and I don’t think that Bruce had it
in him to do this. I really don’t.
Q. Okay. So you’re giving me two bases there,
really.
A. Yeah.
Q. One is that —
A. Scientifically.
Q. Well, it’s really a nonscientific, I guess,
opinion, but —
A. Yes.
Q. — that Dugway might have been an option
because they had, what, more equipment?
A. Yes. I mean, they can do it all right
there.
Q. Right.
A. And no one would know, because that’s what
their mission is out there. Their mission out there to
create biowarfare agents. (Civil Depo at 107)
DXer said
“A. I mean, the times that the FBI and the
report states that he was in the lab, after hours and on
the weekends or whatever really doesn’t give enough time
to have made that kind of preparation. I think that a
lot of the times that they — they count the time that
it takes you to actually get into the lab and shower
out, and when you look at those times really closely,
there is only a small window of time that he was
actually in the laboratory.
So I have heartache over that when I look at
that. It would require a lot more time within the lab
to do something of that nature, from the knowledge that
I do know. So that’s my other reason for that”. (Civil Depo at 110)
DXer said
Q. Were you, in the time period before
September of 2001, were you familiar with the shipping
practices — I should say were you familiar with
Dr. Ivins’ practices with respect to shipping anthrax
material outside of the lab?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know if he made any studies of
bacillus anthracis material outside the lab in that time
period before September of 2001?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know if any of those shipments are
Ames material?
A. I cannot a hundred percent tell you that
they were all Ames. They could have been Ames, they
would have been any strain that we with working with at
the time. (Civil Depo at 120)
DXer said
Here is Notebook 4282. It is in two parts just because of its length.
Click to access Notebook%204282%20Part%201%20Redacted.pdf
Click to access Notebook%204282%20Part%202%20Redacted.pdf
I have provided documentary evidence to plaintiff’s counsel that DOJ had it all these years.
The DOJ thus owes Plaintiff Dillon his attorneys fees for requiring a federal court lawsuit to force compliance with FOIA.
DXer said
I am reading the notebook for the first time now. Note that at page 9, it refers to what Pat Fellows reported. This powerfully indicates that Pat Fellows is not the one who wrote the notes on these pages. (And it is not Ivins, and so it would be the person whose name is redacted; the one who shared the notebook with Ivins.). (It is not PF”s cursive.)
DXer said
On page 11, the note on September 11, 2000 states: “Pat Fellows and I harvested Vollum)1B spores.”
This suggests that maybe the notebook author on these pages was Mara Linscott, Bruce Ivins’ other technician at the time.
DXer said
Although I don’t know who wrote the notebook, the August 31, 2001 entry states, it wasn’t Ivins. The person wrote:
“Today, I harvested the Ames strain of Bacillus anthraces [—] B3. The pellet of the spores was very tight, and when I looked at the spores under the phase contrast microscopy there were lots of free spores and not many vegetative cells present.” Who wrote this? It wasn’t Ivins. That’s not his handwriting.
DXer said
The September 10, 2001 entry by the person (who was not Bruce Ivins) states:
“Today I streaked out Ames with SPA and placed it @ 37 [degrees] for overnight growth.”
DXer said
Ivins had another assistant named Kristie Friend:
“I came down to the Spring Research Festival
in May of 1999 and put my resumé back in. Dr. Ivins
found it and contacted me, and at that time the position
had changed as far as salary and benefits, so I accepted
it at that time.”
p. 11
Click to access Friend%20Deposition_Redacted.pdf
I now surmise she was the writer.
It was her desk — and her concern that her desk might be contaminated — that Bruce cleaned. The FBI used that cleaning (somewhat speciously) as evidence of the anthrax crimes.
I would think it was nice for him to be protective of the assistant’s health, who after graduating from college was growing anthrax.
DXer said
Throughout the notebook, so far as I know, where you see (b)(6) redaction, what is redacted is the name “KM Friend”.
DXer said
Indeed. It surely was protective of Dr. Ivins. When she initially was offered a job in November 1998, she had not been offered health insurance.
Q. You mentioned that the contracting situation
changed between November of ’98 and June of ’99, when
you actually started work.
A. Yes.
Q. Tell me how that changed.
A. Well, like I mentioned, at the time it was
offered to me, I would have had to purchase my own
health insurance. So there was no — Clinical Research
Management in 1998 was not was not the contractor, so I
think it might have been an independent contract; I’m
not really sure how that worked, but I would have had to
purchase my own health insurance; they weren’t going to
offer it to me, and I thought working with something
like bacillus anthracis, someone should be giving me
health insurance.
Q. Good idea. (Civil deep. at 14)
DXer said
Ms. Friend explains her job in working with Dr. Ivins:
“A. My primary job was to grow bacillus
anthracis spores from all strains that were available at
that time, to assist in animal challenges for the
current vaccine that’s being used, which is American
Vaccine, the AVA strain, and we were hoping at that
point in time to move forward into a new generation of
anthrax vaccine. So whatever that would have been, we
would have compared against the current one in animal
models to see the efficacy of both vaccines.”
DXer said
A. I was interested in Fort Detrick. My
original interest would have been the cancer side of the
base. When I was offered this position, I thought it
was interesting. Of course I had seen the movie
Outbreak, and thought that USAMRIID as an interesting
place to work, and I would joke that some day I would
work there. Was it a goal? No, but it was a good
opportunity at the time.
Q. So originally, you — when you say the
cancer side, the National Cancer Institute that’s also
located here?
A. Correct, yes.
Q. Okay. And after Dr. Ivins outlined the
various obligations of the job and you finally came to
work and started to execute your job, what were your
duties and responsibilities as you found them,
practically, when you got here? (Civil deep at p. 18)
DXer said
“Yes, Dr. Ivins, Pat Fellows and Mara.
Because Pat originally graduated from Shepherd. So when
they interviewed me, they thought it would be fun to
come and see what the campus looked like. She hadn’t
been there in several years. So they all just took a
road trip and came and interviewed me at the college.
Q. Dr. Ivins, Pat Fellows and Mara Lindscott?
A. That’s correct” (Civil depo at 81)
DXer said
It is no wonder Dr. Ivins was concerned about the possibility of contamination. He was aware of the lax protocol that had been used in opening the letter in BS-2 and only transferring it in a single baggie with the exterior wiped down by a ten percent bleach solution.
“with a one-to-ten solution of bleach.
Q. One to ten?
A. One to ten solution, or ten percent, however
you like it. It was removed from that area and it was
hand-carried to B3. The letter was placed into the path
box, the ultraviolet light path box. I actually stayed
on the outside of the path box to make sure no one else
opened it before Dr. Ivins was able to enter the suite
and retrieve it from the hot side, or containment side.
Q. Okay. So the ultraviolet light is applied
basically to the exterior of the baggie?
A. Yes. Correct.
Q. And the letter and the envelope itself,
though, are inside the baggie.
A. Correct.
Q. Was there any loose powder inside the
baggie?
A. I don’t recall.” (Civil deep at 34)
DXer said
Ms. Friend reports that her desk was contaminated with Sterne, not Ames.
“A. Yes. And actually, Dr. Edison didn’t give
the data, Dr. Ezzell did, because the samples got turned
other to his laboratory and they confirmed what it was.
Q. And it was confirmed anthrax?
A. That’s correct. But it was not Ames.
Q. What was it, if you remember?
A. Sterne.” (Civil Depo. p. 90)
DXer said
Q. Now, and Dr. Ivins said that the reason that
he went ahead and did that was because you had voiced
concern about contamination to him —
A. That is correct.
Q. — based on the powder that was brought into
that AR —
A. 105-106.
Q. — 105 room and that his position was that
you told him that you didn’t think they were using safe
practices and you were concerned about contamination.
A. That’s correct.
Q. And so he went ahead and he saw dust on your
DXer said
On August, the writer (who I now identify as KM Friend) writes: _______________ and I challenged groups 19 + 20 guinea pigs today at approximately 9 a.m.
DXer said
On August 8, 2001, they challenged Groups guinea pigs #21 and #22. For both this challenge, the chart of animal deaths is shown. It follows the same general pattern as the challenge in early October 2001. The FBI used the spike in hours beginning in August 2001 (speciously) as evidence of Bruce Ivins guilt of the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. … When it instead reflected his participation in small animal challenges and handling of night and weekend checks (required under animal protocols).
DXer said
On September 17, 2001, KM Friend, Bruce Ivins assistant, writes:
“I streaked B. anthracis strain Ames and placed it {at} 37 (degrees) for overnight growth. I also layered ~200 ml of Ames spores onto purification highjack and …. for further purification at a later date.To do this I combined in a 500 ml centrifuge bottle 174 ml of 50% hypaque and 120{?} ml. of ___. From this stock I put 75 mld’s of hypogea = H20 into 4 250 ml. centrifuge bottles. After each … had the specific contents I layered about 25-30 ml of Ames spores onto the hypaque/water solution. These bottles were placed in the cold room of Hot Suite B4 until when they could be spun down.”
Click to access Notebook%204282%20Part%202%20Redacted.pdf
DXer said
Kristie Michelle Friend had the title of Biosafety Specialist since June 1999. (Civil deep at page 9)
A. I contracted for the government, so at that
time there were three contract companies that were still
— basically, the money still gets paid by the
government, but you’re not a formal federal civilian.
So at any given time they can terminate your position.
So that’s kind of the risk you take as being a
contractor.
Q. Okay. So you’re not considered a federal
employee, right?
A. Right. Currently, right now I am, but at
that time I was not.
Q. I’m going to try and move through
chronologically.
A. Okay. So at that time, no. I was a
contract employee, and I was paid by for Clinical
Research Management.
Q. That’s what I was going to ask. Who is the
contractor?
A. Clinical Research Management.
Q. And where are they at?
A. They’re out of Hinckley, Ohio, but they also
have a local office here in Frederick. (Civil deep at page 9)
DXer said
Kristie M. Friend testified at a civil deposition:
A. I did — spent many hours growing spores
from all various strains of bacillus anthracis. I
learned how to handle animals, from small rodents like
mice and hamsters to rabbits and non-human primates. We
also did vary storage studies on spores to see how long
they could stay in various type of media, to include
water, different buffers; pretty much a lot of different
stuff in the lab. I spent a lot of time in the lab.
Q. Did you — when you say the lab, are you
talking about the hot suites?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay. There is — and just so we’re clear
in the record, can you explain to me how, physically —
what, physically, the layout of the laboratory was? I
know you had an office. Tell us where your office was
relative to the different labs.
A. Okay, so my office, when I worked for
Dr. Ivins, was office number 19, which is in the back
part of USAMRIID, in the bacteriology office area, and
basically in order to get to suites B3 and B4, Bac T 3
and 4, you basically have to walk down the hallway from
the office through a set of double doors and about
halfway down another hallway to get to the suites.
For 1412, because we also did a lot of work
on the hot side of building 1412 — (Civil depo at 19)
DXer said
Q. When you say B3 and B4 in building 1425,
those are designations for the type of pathogens or the
level of security, right, that those labs provide?
A. Those are actually the laboratory names. So
B stands for Bacteriology 3 and Bacteriology 4.
Q. Okay.
A. And primarily the work that’s done in those
suites is work with bacteria at a level 3 and above
status.
Q. Okay. Thank you. I got confused there.
A. That’s okay.
Q. So B3 and B4 are just designations for the
two laboratories.
A. Correct.
Q. But they were the BSL level 3.
(Civil Depo. at p 20-21)
DXer said
It was this Ivins assistant, Ms. Friend, who grew the Ames before the first mailing,
who was tasked with working for the FBI to identify any possible identifying
morphologies. She shared a notebook with Ivins about the small animal experiments
in August and September 2001, and the growth of the Ames strain.
The FBI hid it for years and steadfastly failed to produce it even though no exemption applied.
As important historical background, when Ivins submitted a sample in February 2001, it was
thrown out. Who threw it out? Terry Abshire? Kristie Friend? John Ezzell?
Incredibly, the FBI then used this as evidence of Ivins’ guilt — when the copy
that Keim kept in fact did show the 4 morphs had been submitted.
Whatever conclusion or inferences you draw, people should agree that under the rule of law
FBI should have produced the notebook years ago.
__________
“you were kind of — you weren’t subpoenaed, but you were
doing work on behalf of the FBI, and it was considered
classified.
So what we did is, we created a spread
sheet. Ms. Abshire has — well, now she has nearly 40
years of experience; at that point in time, she probably
had 30, so she had a good eye for what she was looking
for. She has also grown spores for many, many years.
That’s pretty much all I did in the
beginning, so I had a pretty good eye of what I was
looking for.
With anthrax, it’s very homogeneous, so it
doesn’t change a lot. It’s hard to introduce mutants
into the bacteria, so we really had to look very, very
hard at the differences of the colonies, how they formed
on the plates, the color of them, if they were shiny or,
you know, kind of cut glass, which is what anthrax looks
like; it kind of looks very — very gray, very rough.
Q. Now, this is what a microbiologist or a
pathologist calls a gross examination (p 50)”
DXer said
Errata: “As important historical background, when Ivins submitted a sample in February 2001, it was
thrown out. Who threw it out?”
I mean the sample was submitted in February 2002.
DXer said
“Q. No microscope?
A. Not for this. So we would just make general
— we had divided a few different categories of what we
were looking for and the different colony types, and we
would just annotate that. We kept that. And all of
that data has been supplied to the FBI numerous times.
Q. And we all know by now they had a big bank
of samples.
A. Yes. Yes.
Q. All right. So beyond that — and I assume
that took place over a significant period of time?
A. Yes.
Q. About how much time?
A. Oh, from December of 2001 is when we began
receiving the first repository samples, and that lasted
well until — and we were still getting some different
repository samples all the way through to like 2006 and
2007. They were few and far between, but at some point
in time the FBI would say “We need to have this
reexamined,” so we would have to go back to whatever
laboratory assays and resubmit those samples.”
(Civil deep at 51)
Comment:
This is funny. It is Terry’s and Kristie’s Ames strain that had the four morphs.
The sample from Kristie’s lab (Ivin’s lab) in February 2002 was thrown out and
Terry did not submit a sample until much, much later — relying on the sample
submitted by Ivins’ lab (which, hehe, Terry’s lab had thrown out).
Ya think the FBI’s scientific “cotton candy” case might have run into a few road bumps? Ha!
The FBI’s 4 morphs scientific evidence would have been crushed in court. Totally annihilated.
Whatever conclusions or inferences you draw — and whatever your biases —
the FBI should not have withheld the Ivins notebook — for years — that showed Kristie’s growth of Ames in the B3 in Building 1425.
The Notebook demolishes the FBI’s claim that Ivins could have grown the Ames unnoticed during the period — let alone dried it.
Terry assisted John Ezzell in making the dried powder out of Ivins’ Flask 1029 for DARPA. And I’ll leave it to you to figure out whether it was white or yellow — but I commend the question.
What happened to the dried powder Dr. Ezzell made out of the Ames from Flask 1029 for DARPA? Was it sent to the DARPA Center for Biodefense? Was it sent to SRI? Was it sent to JHU? Was it sent to other DARPA researchers?
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
“Q. Okay. So May of ’03 forward, then, you were
really working not for USAMRIID anymore, but for this
separate organization, NBACC.
A. That’s correct.
Q. And you were more involved in the
bioterrorism examinations of different things, right?
A. Yes. Correct, correct.
Q. How long did that last?
A. Until November of 2004, and pretty much
during that time, you know, the FBI was ramped up, they
were taking samples from everywhere, outside the United
States, and we would process those samples for the
investigation.
Q. So you were really sort of like — almost
like a CID type person, taking samples from around the
world and analyzing —
A. Yes, sir.
Q. — and reporting back.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And Dr. Ezzell and Dr. Burans were also
involved at that time.
A. Right. Dr. Burans ran everything.” (KM Friend Civil Depo p. 58)
DXer said
Ivins assistant, examining samples, explained about the 2003-2004 period:
“So at that point in time NBACC was stood up,
because they were a pristine laboratory; you wouldn’t
have to worry about potential contamination of samples
that were coming in the door, and pretty much the FBI
was the primary customer, so pretty much you did what
they asked you to do.” (Civil Depo. at 59)
DXer said
At page 61, in a civil deposition, KM Friend explains that from October 1, 2001.when she was first assigned to DSD to help with Amerithrax, her office continued to be at her desk in Ivins area. She then moved to DSD in March 2002.
“A. Once — March, 2002, I actually moved up to
where Diagnostic Systems is, I had my own desk, so I
moved out of room 19 into a different area.
Q. Room 19 is where your desk was originally?
A. Correct.
Q. Is that where Dr. Ivins’ desk was as well?
A. Yes.
Q. Who else as in there?
A. Pat Fellows.”
DXer said
In the Friend deposition uploaded at the USAMRMC website you will see redactions. But I long ago uploaded depositions excepts without the redactions so you can see what was redacted. (I believe I would have obtained the unredacted copy from the court website).
DXer said
Q. And what you have just described was 1425,
the layout, correct?
A. Yes, correct.
Q. Go ahead. 1412?
A. You actually had to walk out the back door
of building 1425, across kind of like a field, into the
hot suite of 1412.
Q. When you got here in June of ’99, did you
start working in the hot suites right away?
A. No.
Q. How long did it take?
A. About eight months.
Q. And why did it take eight months for you to
commence work on the hot suites?
A. At that time it was a requirement to obtain
vaccinations to enter the containment suites. So to
enter B3 and B4, which was in building 1425, I think it
took about six months for me to gain access to there,
and for 1412 it took eight.
1412 required more vaccinations than B3 and
B4, so I still was able to do some work in the hot
suites and then moved into 1412 once I got all those
vaccinations. (Civil depo at 20)
DXer said
Ms. Friend had only known him to get mad a couple times over some practical jokes directed at him. (He too was a big practical joker).
“Ms. Fellows used a Sharpie marker to color his glasses in, his extra pair of glasses on his desk, and he wasn’t very happy that day, either.”
***
Q. The glasses, she colored in the clear part with a dark marker?.
A. Um-hmm. Um-hmm. A green Sharpie marker. So the only way to get that off was to use alcohol , and the glasses happened to be pretty old, and he didn’t get all the green Sharpie out. So it wasn’t a good day.” (Civil depo at 79-80)
DXer said
Q. Okay. What about Pat Fellows and Mara
Lin[]scott? Did Dr. Ivins ever tell you or did you ever
notice that he had any type of special relationship with
them?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. And what was your observation
about that?
A. Well, Bruce was very protective of Pat. If
things didn’t work out, like if people were trying to
make — like if Pat did something wrong or she said
something wrong to someone and someone would come to
report that back to Bruce, he would definitely defend
Pat. I mean, Pat and Mara couldn’t do anything wrong.
Mara is a very bright individual. When I
first met her, I was very impressed. She could do the
dilution math calculations in her head; she didn’t have
to draw the pictures like the rest of us did. Her mind
and Bruce’s mind scientifically and mathematically
worked very well together.
So in the beginning I did find it very
difficult to fill Mara’s shoes…(Civil depo at 83)
DXer said
“Q. Did he — what would he say to you about the
capacity to be able to perform this type of operation?
A. He would only say very minimally things. He
never said that he had the ability to do what was in the
anthrax attacks. The only comment that Bruce would
commonly say is that once it was determined that it was
the Ames strain, that he felt very guilty, because all
of his animal studies prior to that were performed with
the Ames strain, and he, of course, had published our
data on that, and he felt that it was his fault that
whoever used the — they were going off of his research
to do it. So he felt very guilty about using Ames in
all those studies, because if he hadn’t done those
studies, the perpetrator would have never known to use
hat strain of anthrax.” (Civil Depo. at 86)
DXer said
A September 18, 2001 notebook entry by KM Friend states:
“I inoculated 4 flasks of Leighton & Doi with Ames.”
DXer said
The FBI has not provided the entry dated September 19 — nor is any exemption claimed..
DXer said
Comment:
With respect to the notebooks that the FBI is still withholding, they are on a CD disk that the USAMRIID library had made by a contractor that did the scanning.
The FBI took the only copy (according to the USAMRIID librarian). That CD would reveal whether there were notebook entries post-September 18, 2001.
One of the notebooks I understand the FBI to be still withholding is the one associated with the University of Michigan researchers who were supplied virulent Ames by Bruce Ivins and worked in the lab alongside Bruce Ivins. The researchers thanked Bruce Ivins for supplying the virulent Ames and thanked Pat Fellows for her technical assistance. And also (in the numerous patents published) thanked the illustrious Art Friedlander and Ivins’ technician Mara Linscott, who is now an MD.
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
If the Army does not have success in obtaining the CD from the FBI, then perhaps the Army could simply be asked for KM Friend’s inventory of notebooks, to include the table of contents of the notebooks.
Given that the former lead Amerithrax investigator told the NY Times and Fox News that the FBI is withholding a staggering amount of information exculpatory of Bruce Ivins, it really should comply with FOIA. That statute has privacy and national security exemptions that would safeguard relevant interests. Failing to comply with the statute is all about CYA — no one wanted to be blamed for Bruce Ivins’ suicide. No one took into account that he had already paid his lawyer $70,000, had been isolated from his support network, had not been given the contemporaneous notes that would allow his time to be reconstructed, and were posed to humiliate him with the second discovery of a bag of semen stained panties.
KM Friend has explained the inventory she made of the notebooks:
“I would make table of contents in the front of each notebook so that if people had to
go through them, you would know what was on each page, could easily find something
if you were looking for it. I was able to do basic lab research in the
biosafety level 2 lab, which was in Bacteriology 5, so I
would grow media that they would use in the hot suites,
that they could take in and use. That’s primarily what
I did up until that point.
Q. And who directed your work assignments?
A. Dr. Ivins and Ms. Pat Fellows.
Q. Was there a certain team of people that were
working on the anthrax project in connection with the
vaccines?
A. Yes. So it would have been Dr. Ivins,
Ms. Fellows, myself, Mr. Steven Little and — I mean,
Colonel Friedlander, Art Friedlander at the time, he was
kind of the person over charge of that area of studies.”
(Civil deep at 24)
DXer said
“Q. Okay. And so then after this eight-month
period, which would take us to roughly, I guess,
February of two thousand — of 2000?
A. 2000, right.
Q. How did your responsibilities change at the
that point?
A. I basically did what I had said before,
where I spent a lot of time in the suites growing varies
amount of spore batches to be used for animal
challenges. We did a lot of characterization between
different strains to determine which strains were more
virulent, meaning more pathogenic to animals, and
potentially humans. That’s pretty much it.” (Civil deep at 24-25)
DXer said
Ms. Friend was present when the Daschle letter opened in the BL-2.
(On October 1, 2001, she was detailed to work for Dr. Ezzell and his team
that was checking samples sent in by the FBI, Secret Service etc.
“A. I was not the original person who opened the
letter. I was present in the laboratory when the
original letter was opened.
Q. What laboratory was it opened in?
A. AR 105.
Q. Where is AR 105?
A. In the middle of part of USAMRIID, AR, there
is no designation, unfortunately, for AR, it’s just AR
105. That was the primary laboratory that the special
pathogen sample test lab used.
Q. Was that building 1425?
***
“A. So the SPSTL, which is the Special Pathogens
Sample Test Lab at that time, they frequently received
samples to be tested from the FBI, Secret Service,
Department of Justice, to determine if there were any
biothreats out there. So they were — that lab was
stood up for that purpose. That was their main mission.
And Dr. Ezzell was over top of that. And prior to the
letters arrived, there were only three other technicians
work as a part of team.” (Civil depo at 29)
***
Q. Because the AR — I have got to look back at
the numbers — the AR 105 is not a BSL level 3 lab,
right?
A. That’s correct. It was a Biosafety Level 2
lab. (Civil depo at 32)
Comment: I have no idea why they would open the letter in Bl-2 rather than the readily available BL-3. Seems foolhardy.
DXer said
“Q. Can you describe what you saw in terms of
the powder, what it looked like?
A. It was pretty grainy. It was definitely
white. That’s about it. I mean, white and grainy.” (Civil depo at 41)
DXer said
“We also did test all the luggage that was
found in the car that the — I can’t remember his name,
the lead bomber from Boston, his car was found in the
parking lot, and we actually sampled the evidence that
was in his car. So there was luggage, there was
clothes, there was beer bottles.
So anything that was suspicious at that
point in time came to USAMRIID for testing. So in my
spare time, you know, if I got called to help with
letters or whatever else, I was doing the sampling for
that to make sure we didn’t have any other biological
warfare agents out there.” (Civil deep at 45)
DXer said
“Q. Anything else you did in furtherance of the
investigation?
A. Terri Abshire and myself, once the anthrax
repository was generated — I mean, every lab in the
United States or all over the world had to submit any
anthrax, specifically Ames, to the repository. I would
assist Terri in receiving the samples. We plated out
every one of those samples to compare the morphological
differences between those strains and the ones that were
used in the powders, or in the attacks.
Q. And when you say to compare, who actually
did the comparison?
A. Myself and Terri Abshire.” (*Civil depo at 48)
DXer said
Kristie Friend, in explaining why she expressed concern about her desk and contamination, explained the unsafe nature of the opening of the Daschle letter in the BL-2.
That the FBI used Bruce Ivins’ protectiveness of his worker was extremely unsound.
“A. Because the practices, the safety practices
that he’s referring to was the day the letter was opened
in area 105 when Ms. Abshire took that slide out. She
didn’t have any gloves on — well she had one glove on
one hand and one glove on — not on the other hand. So
the glove she used to carry that slide out of that lab
was gloved; this hand, she didn’t, and she walked
halfway through the institute with that slide, and to
me, that was not a safe procedure, considering at that
time it was unknown exactly what the agent was.
We had no idea the concentration of it, and
from all I had been trained by Dr. Ivins and Ms. Fellows
at that point in time, I did not feel that was safe.” (Civil Depo at 92)
DXer said
” A. Well, the letter at that point in time was
taken into several biosafety level three laboratories
for various tests. The one that I was primarily
involved with was with Dr. Ivins. The letter was taken
into bacterial Suite 3, so B3 in building 1425.
Q. Okay.
A. And our mission was to determine how many
spores were present in that powder so we could determine
to see how many colony-forming units were present. So
to determine the exact volume of what was present in
that letter.
Q. And who was charged with that, Dr. Ivins and
you?
A. Dr. Ivins was charged with that, and I
assisted him, for two reasons; A, I was the one that was
detailed to DSD. It was really their evidence, so to
speak.
Q. So it was kind of an overlap there?
A. Right. But Dr. Ivins was directed to do
this work by Dr. Peter Jarling, who at that point …”
(Civil depo at 31)
DXer said
“A. L. SPSTL, Special Pathogens Sample Test
Laboratory. When they receive samples, they’re
considered diagnostic specimens until they’re confirmed
positive for any agent that we work with at USAMRIID.
So basically there was no harm in bringing it to that
area, or so we thought at that point in time, because a
diagnostic specimen is nothing other than diagnostic
until you confirm it. So it was sent out to our lab, to
Dr. Ivins’ lab, and to where Dr. Ezzell works in his
Biosafety Level 3 lab to determine that.
We did sign a chain of custody before we
removed it from that area; however, there were no
specific procedures in place as far as moving samples
from suite to suite or lab to lab. So the only thing we
had was a chain of custody document at the time we took
the letter, how long it was out of the evidence
repository and when it was returned.
Q. All right, there are no specific procedures,
but tell me as a practical matter how it was done. How
did you physically take the envelope and letter from AR
105 to the B3 laboratory.
A. It was bagged, and it what a ziplock bag.
The outer part of the ziplock bag was decontaminated”
(Civil deep at 33)
DXer said
The Ivins notebook all these years withheld by the FBI involving work with virulent Ames in the B3 lab in Building 1425 the week before the first mailing was a scientist that then came to work for the FBI. Who made the decision to conceal the notebook all these years? Was is it AUSA Lieber? Who is concealing the remaining notebooks not yet produced that are in the possession of the FBI on that CD disk?
“Q. Ms. Abshire. Was she a microbiologist?
A. Yes.
Q. Ph.D.?
A. No.
Q. Was she a lab tech?
A. Yes.
Q. So — but they had two lab techs, yourself
and Ms. Abshire —
A. Um-hmm.
Q. — who are making the comparison from
what — your basic stock that you grew of the anthrax
with what’s coming in in the various investigations,
right?
A. Correct.
Q. Did anybody have oversight there, Dr. Ivins
or Dr. Ezzell?
A. We would actually submit those results. The
FBI pretty much reviewed them, because at that point in
time the reason why we went through the lie detector
test was because we were supposed to be kind of separate
from both entities, so at that point in time, we were
doing work specifically with the FBI, so we weren’t
allowed to discuss that with Dr. Ivins or Dr. Ezzell. I
did not have discussions –discussions with either one
of them on that work. (Civil deep at 49)”
DXer said
DOJ asked for — and Plaintiff consented — to yet an additional 2 weeks to answer the Complaint.
If it takes so long to respond to a simple FOIA Complaint, why do you think the DOJ is likely to be efficient in the analysis of a difficult whodunnit?
Indeed, the DOJ could have mooted half the complaint by shooting over by email Notebook 4282 — which long ago has been retrieved, is ready for production, and is appropriately subject to only very very minor redactions under (b)(6).
Why would you defer to the FBI’s unproven assertions in an important terrorism investigation the way Dave Willman does in his piece in the Los Angeles Times does today in channeling criticism of Mueller? Self-interest? Axe to grind?
DXer said
BENTON PETERSON. Assistant United States Attorney, responded to the FOIA Complaint. His attention to the matter is greatly appreciated and is in furtherance of the admirable purposes of the FOIA statute. (That statute also serves the interest of protecting privacy and national security interests).
JESSIE K. LIU, United States Attorney and DANIEL F. VAN HORN, CIvil Chief, also appear on the papers.
If I might kibbitz, Attorney Peterson can now moot half the entire proceeding — by cutting through the bureaucracy, contacting the FBI, and shooting over Notebook 4282. The notebook has been retrieved and is available for production. It is obscene the avoidable backlog that develops because FOIA personnel do not make efforts to handle things in an efficient manner. This Notebook has been the subject of requests and footdragging FOR YEARS. If DOJ likes, it can be shot over to USAMRMC FOIA, the originating agency, for processing by the FOIA officer experienced at processing a couple dozen or so other Ivins notebooks. (see the notebooks below which are uploaded at the link).
The only exemptions properly made are to redact the other person’s name on the cover and in some entries in the notebook itself. The notebook, appropriately, is titled “Anthrax.”
I have uploaded the other notebooks, Benton, here
http://mrmc.amedd.army.mil/index.cfm?pageid=foia_reading_room.overview#
Those trained in law know that the DOJ can choose its hires from the most talented litigators. And so one never wants to push paper against a DOJ litigator unnecessarily. But, here, the interests of the requestor, former intelligence analyst Dillon and the DOJ, are the same. We only want to get people on the same page consistent with the FOIA statute.
Notebook 4282 is not exempt from production and should be produced without further delay. The alternative is simply to have to pay attorneys fees for all the period of continued withholding. The attorney hours incurred date back years and so Attorney Peterson would be taking advantage of a great holiday special (and currying much favor) if he acts promptly to shoot over Notebook 4282 so that it might be uploaded with the other notebooks.
Contents of: Lab Notebooks
19950124_LabNotebook 3716(redacted) (18811 KB) — Posted: 08/24/2012
19950618_LabNotebook4103(redacted) (107678 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
19960903_LabNotebook3919(redacted) (2993 KB) — Posted: 05/10/2011
19980106_LabNotebook4000(redacted) (155721 KB) — Posted: 06/21/2011
19981202_LabNotebook3745(redacted) (32444 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
20000114_LabNotebook4237(redacted) (16714 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
20000216_LabNotebook 4240(redacted) (7698 KB) — Posted: 08/24/2012
20000216_LabNotebook 4241_B01-11(redacted).pdf (6173 KB) — Posted: 08/24/2012
20000303_LabNotebook3921(redacted) (22150 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
20000608_LabNotebook4281(redacted) (6568 KB) — Posted: 05/13/2011
20000828_LabNotebook4306(redacted) (4286 KB) — Posted: 05/03/2011
20010809_LabNotebook4383(redacted)f (28822 KB) — Posted: 04/29/2011
Notebook 3655 redacted (19003 KB) — Posted: 04/28/2016
Notebook 3945 redacted (12176 KB) — Posted: 04/28/2016
Notes and Sample Anaylsis from Notebook 3268 (19684 KB) — Posted: 01/05/2012
DXer said
Invoking J. Edgar Hoover, DC Circ. Doubts FBI’s FOIA Claims
By Bryan Koenig
https://www.law360.com/articles/984614/invoking-j-edgar-hoover-dc-circ-doubts-fbi-s-foia-claims
Law360, Washington (November 13, 2017, 5:58 PM EST) — A D.C. Circuit panel showed little patience Monday for FBI assertions that the government adequately searched under the Freedom of Information Act for records of agents impersonating journalists, with one judge invoking his tenure with the U.S. Department of Justice and the time he found J. Edgar Hoover’s files as indication that a determined effort can often turn up sought-after records.
Comment: Ken Dillon should seek attorneys fees for the FBI’s failure to provide Notebook 4282, not only in connection with the pending request, but in connection with the numerous previous requests. Given that we knew that the FBI had it, we basically had to keep asking for it.
The FBI should simply have returned a copy of the CD with all the notebooks on it to USAMRIID, like USAMRMC FOIA officer Sandra Rogers requested years ago.
DXer said
As Thanksgiving approaches, consider pardoning a certain bird and taking a stand against xenophobic, unjustified killing — and promote the symbol of international peace.
Please consider passing this article below on to someone who loves animals, nature, beauty and decision-making that is actually based on the peer-reviewed science. There has been enough xenophobic killing in the world based on propagandistic jingoisim cloaked as science. (The chief argument against the mute swan made by the NYS DEC — and the hunters who want a large white trophy bird to shoot — is that it is non-native.)
When it comes to killing — without scientific justification and in defiance of the rule of law (see recently passed legislation on the precise issue) — enough is enough.
Assemblyman cries fowl over new DEC mute swan plan
November 16, 2017
http://legislativegazette.com/assemblyman-cries-fowl-over-new-dec-mute-swan-plan/
Excerpt:
“Cymbrowitz says he is angry that the DEC has not updated its population projections or other data that justifies killing the birds.
“Critically, the plan violates the legislation I introduced with Sen. Tony Avella, which passed both houses of the Legislature overwhelmingly in 2014 and 2015 and was signed by Gov. Cuomo in 2016, which included requirements that DEC fully document the scientific basis for future mute swan population projections and produce current evidence supporting its claim that mute swans are harmful to either humans or the environment. The plan does neither,” Cymbrowitz said.
“Instead, DEC’s third draft plan contains no new scientific data on population projections and relies on the same dubious and outdated evidence – including an alleged swan attack that took place back in 1970 – that raised valid objections when DEC’s first two drafts were released.”
“Since the time I first introduced the two-year moratorium on DEC’s mute swan eradication plan, I have heard from individuals and organizations across the state, including many people in my own southern Brooklyn district, who stand in agreement that DEC is behaving in a manner that is both inhumane and without scientific merit,” Cymbrowitz said. “DEC’s third draft plan only strengthens my resolve to keep fighting.”
***
“The plan to kill 100 swans a year (or more) upstate defies the will of the thousands of citizens who demand that mute swans be protected and managed compassionately…”
To the parapets!
DXer said
On the Day JFK Was Assassinated, CIA Tried to Kill Castro With Rigged Ballpoint Pen
By Christal Hayes On 11/9/17 at 5:14 PM
http://www.newsweek.com/exact-moment-jfk-was-assassinated-cia-was-trying-kill-castro-rigged-ballpoint-707192
DXer said
CIA Reposts Bin Laden Documents After Removing 3,935 Files
The agency says the removed files contained copyrighted material or possible malware.
Posted on November 9, 2017, at 6:17 p.m.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevincollier/cia-reposts-bin-laden-documents-after-removing-3935-files?utm_term=.wogOVqBpd#.heeXQaJmZ
DXer said
CIA notice:
“IA resolved the technical issues associated with the 1 November 2017 posting of the Abbottabad compound material, removing operating system and other copyrighted files as well as files that potentially posed a risk to users. CIA also converted Microsoft Office files into Portable Document Format (PDF) to enable viewing of the material from any device and to minimize any risks to users, and converted executable files (files that run programs on a computer) to a format that no longer poses a risk to users.
For all removed files, the original filename is listed in a glossary to allow users to trace the disposition of the file and to understand the specific reason for the file’s removal or conversion.
All converted files are available by original filename in the Converted Material section.”
Comment:
The CIA’s explanation seems principled and transparent — and can be appreciated. At the same time, by all means, the deleted files can be explored for any material that does not fit the description.
DXer said
Bin Laden Files Have Been Unavailable For Days After CIA Put Them Online
Technical problems might explain the outage, but the bin Laden files have been offline longer than they were available.
Posted on November 4, 2017, at 1:38 p.m.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/kevincollier/bin-laden-files-have-been-unavailable-for-days-after-cia?utm_term=.kqzQYb9Oo#.nll5K2Q8a
All together, the fileset is 332 GB, said Emma Best, a national security journalist and digital archivist who scraped the files before they became unavailable. Best created a torrent file out of the zipped files, which will be available at the Internet Archive once uploaded, she said.
Comment: Kudos to the IT folks who are trying to overcome the technical and logistical difficulties.
DXer said
November 2017 Release of Abbottabad Compound Material
https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html
Analysis: CIA releases massive trove of Osama bin Laden’s files
BY THOMAS JOSCELYN & BILL ROGGIO | November 1, 2017 | billroggio@gmail.com |
https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/11/analysis-cia-releases-massive-trove-of-osama-bin-ladens-files.php
BREAKING: CIA Releases Hundreds of Thousands of Documents from Osama bin Laden
An invaluable resource finally becomes public.
12:49 PM, Nov 01, 2017 | By Jonathan V. Last
http://www.weeklystandard.com/breaking-cia-releases-hundreds-of-thousands-of-documents-from-osama-bin-laden/article/2010291
DXer said
DXer said
FBI Agent Scott Decker’s process-of-elimination analysis relating to the Ames strain of anthrax was faulty because it did not take into account accidental loss, ineffective inactivation, or surreptitious acquisition — by something as simple as leaving a door unlocked.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1545936/3-us-labs-handling-ebola-anthrax-inadvertently-released-lethal-pathogens-report/
Excerpt:
US labs handling Ebola, anthrax inadvertently released lethal pathogens: report
By Reuters
Published: October 31, 2017
Spores from the Sterne strain of anthrax bacteria (Bacillus anthracis) are pictured in this handout scanning electron micrograph (SEM). PHOTO: REUTERS
CHICAGO: A year-long audit of the programme overseeing US labs that handle lethal pathogens such as Ebola and anthrax found overworked safety inspectors, an absence of independent review and weak bio-safety protections that could expose lab workers and the public to harm, a government report will say on Tuesday.
The report by the Government Accountability Office to Congress followed a series of mishaps in which dangerous pathogens were inadvertently released. The report, seen by Reuters, concluded that the Federal Select Agent Programme needs an overhaul.
The GAO audited laboratory safety oversight following errors that could have exposed dozens of people to live anthrax bacteria and the deadly toxin ricin. Its report will guide questioning of officials before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight subcommittee on Thursday.
The Federal Select Agent Programme is jointly run by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service [APHIS] of the US Department of Agriculture.
According to the report, a chief concern is that the programme is too focused on physical security measures, such as preventing theft from labs, and needs to focus more on bio-safety issues that could protect researchers and the wider public from errors.
The GAO report also noted that many of the labs using high-risk pathogens for research belong to either CDC or the USDA, and recommended that Congress consider setting up a fully independent oversight body to remove potential conflicts of interest. “The Select Agent Program does not fully meet our key elements of effective oversight,” the report stated.
Safety lapses in CDC labs captured headlines in 2014 when scientists at a high-level biosecurity lab did not properly inactivate anthrax bacteria before sending the material to labs with fewer safeguards. More than 80 scientists were exposed to potentially live anthrax, though no one fell ill.
In the months that followed, the Food and Drug Administration disclosed the discovery of decades-old vials of smallpox in a storage closet, while a US Army lab erroneously shipped live anthrax to nearly 200 labs worldwide.
To address concerns of conflict of interest, CDC and APHIS have made structural changes to increase the program’s independence, but according to the GAO report, the program has not undergone a comprehensive risk management review, even as problems with lab safety continue to come to light.
As recently as last November, the Department of Homeland Security found a private lab inadvertently shipped ricin – a lethal poison – to one of its training centers on multiple occasions in 2011.
We’re not really DIA — I just like the catch 2010 version, which was much catchier than the slower 2012 version.
DXer said
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/30/kennedy-assassination-fbi-files-244348
FBI to release all of its JFK assassination files
By HENRY C. JACKSON
10/30/2017 08:45 PM EDT
The FBI said Monday it has now authorized the release of all the previously withheld materials in its files about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The bureau said that the files would now be released by the National Archives on a rolling basis in the coming weeks.
Last week, President Donald Trump delayed the release of an unspecified number of documents while also allowing the release of dozens of new files on events surrounding the 1963 assassination. The White House said at the time it was doing so at the request of the FBI and CIA while directing federal agencies to re-review remaining files. Officials cited national security concerns.
The FBI said Monday that the remaining documents contain some redactions that relate to individuals who provided information during its investigation of the shooting, and whose lives may be at risk if they’re identified.
The bureau said it would make every effort to lift those redactions going forward.
DXer said
I bought “AMERICAN RADICAL: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent” by Tamer ElNoury (with Kevin Maurer) today. I rarely buy new (as opposed to used) books, but it is a small token — a way to thank the agent for his service to his country. I realize that undercover operations often involve as many — if not more — questions and controversies than your usual difficult and complex whodunnit. Entrapment is often raised as an issue, for example. But no one can deny that it often takes courage to do that sort of work — especially undercover drug transactions (such as he did for his early years in law enforcement). And I suspect it commonly makes for a complicated personal life.
I haven’t started it yet, and there’s a chance I’ll hold it to savor over the holiday break.
DXer said
At page 65, the book AMERICAN RADICAL says of Chiheb:
“Chiheb was a doctoral student at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Canada’s top research university. He was world renowned for his work in biological nanotechnology. His research was part of a project developing special and electrochemical biosensors. But his trips to Iran were a red flag, because as part of his research he had research to infectious diseases.” ( p.66)
DXer said
New Biosecurity Threats Appear in Less Familiar Forms
NOV 01, 2017 | SASKIA V. POPESCU, MPH, MA, CIC
http://www.contagionlive.com/publications/contagion/2017/november2017/new-biosecurity-threats-appear-in-less-familiar-forms
The 2001 Amerithrax attacks easily come to mind when discussing the threat of bioterrorism. Following the September 11, 2001, attacks, letters laced with anthrax added a new horror to the United States, a country that was already vulnerable. The Amerithrax attacks killed 5 individuals and sickened 17 and are considered the worst biological attacks in US history.1 The decontamination costs alone were estimated to be $320 million, and challenges with postexposure prophylaxis recommendations and compliance only added to the chaos.2 Perhaps one of the most unexpected aspects of this attack was the conclusion that US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases biologist and anthrax expert Bruce Ivins, PhD, was considered the most likely culprit (he later took his own life prior to charges being filed).3
Typically, bioterrorism is thought of in terms of attacks like the ricin release by Aum Shinrikyo in the Tokyo subway and the poisoning of salad bars with Salmonella by the Rajneeshee cult in Oregon.4 All these attacks involved fanatical groups and revealed deep-rooted challenges with the science of acquiring, growing, weaponizing, and disseminating complex biological weapons. The Amerithrax attacks were different because the anthrax was delivered in a fine powder that ensured easy inhalation exposure. Many were surprised that the threat came from not only a scientist but also an American researcher working at an infectious disease institute aimed at protecting the United States. Moreover, Dr. Ivins had the means and capacity to make the attack exponentially worse but simply had chosen not to.3
It was during this time that significant gaps were found within the United States’ response to such an attack. Whether it was who was responsible for decontamination, physician capacity to diagnose agents likely to be used for bioterrorism, or the sensationalized news, numerous factors left the United States truly struggling to handle such an event.5 The Amerithrax attacks gave insight into not only the poor American preparedness and response for bioterrorism but also a new source for weapons: skilled scientists.
Although there is always the potential for nonstate actors—ISIS, for example— to develop crude biological weapons, a more recent focus regarding biothreats has aimed at emerging technology.6 The scientific capabilities and tacit knowledge of bioterrorism will ultimately affect the bioweapon, whether it be the selection of organism, the crude design or complex dissemination method, etc. The Amerithrax attacks gave us a small window into the capabilities of a nefarious individual with significant skills and knowledge in bacteria. Recent biotech advances have added a new spin to biothreats.
DXer said
p. 317:
“Personally, I have no doubt there was an American sleeper. My biggest regret is that I couldn’t find him.”
“I spent months imagining what the American sleeper looked like. Every time the image was the same. He was the real Tamer Elnoury in my mind. In my daydreams, he was always in a business suit. Overtime the image was the same. He was the real Tamer Elnoury in my mind. In my daydreams, he was always in a business suit. I could see him watching the press conference announcing Chibeb’s arrest on the flat-screen in his office. Rattled, he dumps his cell phone in the trash outside his building and disappears into the crowd walking down the street.”
DXer said
At page 131, the FBI undercover discusses Ayman Zawahiri:
“He was talking about Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born doctor and a former deputy to Osama bin Laden. He took over after bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
“I got a message from him personally,” Chiheb said.
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“Praise be to Allah,” Chiheb said.”
DXer said
The FBI undercover agent discusses the American sleeper at 132:
“N, I never met him,” Chiheb said. “But I know he was there, because El Massoul talked about him a lot. When I’d do something good he said I reminded him of Al-Amriki [the American]””
***
We needed to rethink the case. Chiheb was our only link to the American sleeper.”
DXer said
At page 139, in describing the visit to Montreal to meet a second plotter, Jaser, there was talk about Qutb. “”Jaser started quoting from Milestones, written by Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb. He was one of Osama bin Laden’s idols.”
For a decade, I’ve been opined that Qutb would be more important to the anthrax mailer than Zawahiri (in terms of intellectual influence).
DXer said
Qutb, the FBI undercover explains, wanted to form a “vanguard” that resembled Mohammed’s first followers. (p. 139)
For many years, my analysis was titled “The Vanguards of Conquest”, which I believe is the name of the group responsible for the anthrax mailings. In the popular media’s imagination, The Vanguards is equivalent to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad which is understood to have been then merged into Al Qaeda. But the Vanguards can be thought of EIJ living outside Egypt, with a signature of letter bombs and targeted assassination. Oversimplifying and viewing a Vanguards adherent as Al Qaeda or Bin Laden follower is like thinking that all Republicans must be fans of President Trump.
DXer said
“The American sleeper trained in Iran before Chiheb,” I said.” (p. 141)
DXer said
Let me back up a moment to Chiheb’s poison plot that is unrelated to the American sleeper.
At p. 129:
“Chiheb said his other plan was to hire a cook and send him to work on a military base in the United States. Once there, he would poison the soldiers’ food. He wanted me to help find a cook.”
Comment: I have always been of the view that it would violate the hadiths to poison foodstuffs. But it is Chiheb’s belief system. I guess he owns the consequences of his actions in this life and any afterlife.
DXer said
p. 167
“Chihab … learned al Qaeda’s codes and how to send messages to brothers overseas.”
p. 169
[Final note from his handler before he left to return to Canada] said ‘Focus on your studies and don’t argue.’”
…
“”Live among them, as them to defeat them. Blend in using my work. … He told me it meant not to draw any attention to myself when I was finding good brothers.”
DXer said
The note given to him telling him to focus on his studies was written by Ayman Zawahiri. He carried it in his wallet.
“The Sheikh was Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al Qaeda. Ed Massoul was one of a handful of people on the planet who could meet with the Sheikh in person, Chibeb said.” (p. 169).
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
Message to Agent “Tamer ElNoury”:
I think your book is a good read and a tremendous public service. It’s much more interesting than the usual fiction because it really happened.
I’m a big fan of the FBI and always have been. But like you, the higher priority is to keep the country safe. And I have to call them like I see them. Amerithrax was highly compartmentalized — only my friend Rick Lambert saw everything. Agent Scott Decker, who has a book coming out, did not.
So I hope you can give some thought to the American sleeper. Ali Mohammed and his friend from Silicon Valley once travelled to Afghanistan and reported to Bin Laden himself about the sleepers they had recruited. So you might consider working forward from Ali Mohammed, and focus on the Vanguards of Conquest.
DXer said
“Everything changed when we learned of the American sleeper. Chiheb was planning attacks across the border, but the RCMP was aware. We had our own Chiheb and had to find him.
This had become my only case. The FBI had other undercover agents take over my caseload. Progress on the case was briefed daily to the White House. My four-day babysitting mission had stretched into three months with no end in sight. (p. 171).
DXer said
Jaser and Chiheb have a big discussion about the best means of proceeding — after a scare involving being approached by a traffic cop while scoping out the train bridge they hoped to bring down. But the undercover FBI and his colleagues chose to stay with, to side with, Chiheb, because he was the means of possibly some day identifying the American sleeper.
“So you will be a dcctor?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I am not looking for money or looking for PhD. I am just looking for the PhD because it is good for our projects. You understand?”
“Of course,” I said.
“I mean if I am a doctor or a professor, who will catch me?”
“Nobody,” I said. “No one is going to look at a doctor.” Not true but it made sense to him. (p. 201)
If there were enough hours in a day, it would be interesting to read the trial testimony from Chiheb’s prosecution. In the book, he comes across as a real hopeless, religiously brainwashed, dolt. Jaser would have been much better suited to lead the cell. To either of them, it should have been obvious to them that “Tamer” was right out of central casting for an FBI undercover. Jaser was much more like Adnan El-Shukrijumah, the Al Qaeda operative I have suggested was the mailer of the anthrax in the Fall of 2001.
Chiheb and Jaser never needed a third guy from the start. Rule of thumb for cell security: If someone seems to be giving you what you need, just walk away. Unless it’s chocolate and has a crunch. Okay, any free food. Or the offer of a high-low seven card poker game. Or a nice smile. Okay, a nice smile and home-baked cookies brought to scrabble.
There is no purpose served by any of this violence, as illustrated by the truck killing random civilians in Manhattan yesterday. Absolutely nothing was accomplished except to make people with this propensity toward violence seem really pathetic.
It’s the worst possible advocacy of a cause. Ayman Zawahiri has been a major loser since at least 11 years old and under his own belief system is going to burn in hellfire. He was a huge disappointment to his family, as his micriobiologist sister Heba could confirm.
DXer said
“Since the American sleeper revelation, we wanted to get him a visa so he could visit the United States. The goal was to get him to New York in hopes he could facilitate a meeting with the sleeper.” (p. 207)
DXer said
At page 210-11, the undercover recounts a conversation where Chiheb is exploring why he trusts that “Tamer”, the agent (and now author), is not a government undercover.
Then the agent, in the book, explains that he feels bad that Al Qaeda had brainwashed him, taking advantage of his awkward social skills.
And the agent touches on the importance of his own mother’s influence as motivation to his work. The people who turn out so badly — we should remember — often had very rough childhoods. Parents are so important in setting a person on their life’s trajectory. The agent’s mom would be very proud of him — and the book is a lovely and moving tribute to her.
DXer said
Speaking of recruiting tools, this book would be a great recruitment tool for the FBI. It’s to the agency’s credit that they allowed it to be written.
DXer said
At page 220:
“According to Chiheb, El Massoul was Muhammad ar-Rahayyal, one of four terrorists who took part in the 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Pakistan.”
DXer said
At page 235, the undercover is meeting with a friend of Chiheb who shares jihadi sentiments. He was studying nuclear engineering. (p. 235)
DXer said
The FBI and undercover hope to delay the Canadian arrest of Chiheb while they try to identify the American sleeper.
At page 244,
“Wouldn’t it be great if we can everything lined up with the American sleeper by the time you get to the States?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I just sent an e-mail a few days ago asking Abu Hamza for the phone number for El Massoul.”
“Why don’t you let Abu Hamza know you’re going to be in the United States to meet with a brother and that you could call him from there,” I said. “We’ll get a secure phone of some sort.”
“I’m not so sure about secure phones, and I can never tell him where I’m going,” Chiheb said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m under orders,” he said. “El Massoul and I’m never allowed to tell anyone, even Abu Hamza, where I am or where I’m going. That’s rule number one.”
Comment: I’m just the opposite Total transparency in “open source” analysis is my goal — which is why I talk out loud on this blog. The “red cell” approach to open source analysis allows compartmentalization to be overcome. The goal is to get people on the same page while avoiding the perils of groupthink in a politics and career-minded bureaucracy.
For example, in advance of meeting a friend from college, I might text things like: “Leaving the garage at W. 57th.” If it were to lead to a flurry of men with ear pieces at some farm-to-table tourist location, that would just be free entertainment and give the bees someone else to bother.
When I texted Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab head, Yazid Sufaat, to ask him if Al Qaeda was responsible for the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings, I would send copies in real time to the undercover doing the blog’s graphics so as to not offend or get in trouble with anyone. Things were pretty much equally transparent on Sufaat’s end given that mostly the questions were posted on his Facebook page for all to to see. I posted representative reply IMs on this blog.
DXer said
I’m about 70% through “American Radical” and am close to declaring FBI Agent “Tamer ElNoury” as the superman who could sweep me off my feet.
Separately, I’m tempted to stop posting tributes to NCIS now that I’ve heard how lame and clueless the investigators were (IMO) in the Suzanne Jovin matter (on the polygraph issue).
DXer said
At page 250, the agent’s Dad describes the “rules of war” under Islam.
“No innocent person can be killed. Women and children of your enemy are off-limits. Even the men of your enemy who are not fighting are off-limits. Never to be touched. The only people of your enemy that you are allowed to kill during times of war are the combatants. That is black and white in the Quran.”
I never read any religious texts and so don’t personally have a basis for having an opinion on these things. But there is a recent review of this book in a conservative publication that would take a different approach — finding fault with the black and white of the text of the Quran. But, in contrast, I tend to credit a 2001 article by Princeton’s Bernard Lewis about how the use of biological weapons are treated under the hadiths. And I have long argued that the hadiths on their face expressly govern the use of biological weapons and were grievously violated by the Fall 2001 anthrax letters. This is notwithstanding the care (as instructed in the Al Qaeda manual) to protect the mail carrier from harm. (The envelopes were sealed with tape). The fact that the FBI profilers saw the tape as pointing away from Al Qaeda just showed how insufficiently qualified they were to address the issue — intelligence analysts were needed to work on the profile, not just criminal profilers in the basement of Quantico with no relevant training or experience in Al Qaeda’s biological weapons program.
Tony my mailman, who came trick or treating last night, would be happy that I always plug that the Al Qaeda manual itself (in the chapter on deadly letters) requires that care be taken not to harm the mail carrier under the Quranic rules of war.
The current crop of unstable ISIS supporters — such as the Manhattan driver yesterday — test society’s fabric.
When unstable individuals pop up with their threats, they should be smacked down in the came of Whack-a-Mole that is part of our rush of current events.
DXer said
“By dinner, I’d had my fill. All I wanted was to identify the American sleeper. But Chiheb was focused on Operation Happy New Year. The U.S. attorney was ecstatic. He had listened to the previous day’s recordings and knew we already had a strong case against Chiheb. He’d gifted us by putting his own money in the suitcase and verbally earmarking it for a specific terrorist group.” (p. 266)
DXer said
At page 281:
“I have two projects — one in the United States and one in Canada — that need attention,” Chiheb said. “We need his skills. He can do whatever he wants long-term. But I need explosives for Operation Happy New Year and Operation Fishing.”
“And we need to meet the American sleeper,” I said. “Have you heard from El Massoul?”
Chiheb looked away.
“No,” he said. “I sent a message before I left but got nothing back. They are very careful. We must be patient.”
DXer said
Page 291:
“You’re a scientist,” Abassi told Chiheb. “You work with hazardous materials. You work with deadly diseases. You can get some. We can grow it in our lab. Take it to a reservoir and put the virus in the water. It will mutate and grow on its own. They’ll drink it and we’ll have thousands of dead Americans.”
DXer said
In page 336-338, one short of the final page, there is discussion of how the issue of Qutb was addressed at trial. FWIW, you’ll note that Qutb’s “Milestones” was found in Bin Laden’s materials and you can read it there. Being the deep, well-read intellectual I am, my understanding of Qutb is that, when he lived in America, he didn’t like mowing lawns. (I can only guess what he thought about shoveling driveways in the winter.)
The fellow who shared the suite with the Ames anthrax researchers at the DARPA Center for Biodefense, Ali Al-TImimi, quoted Qutb in so eloquently proclaiming his innocence. Upon his indictment, in September 2004, al-Timimi explained he had been offered a plea bargain of 14 years, but he declined. He quoted Sayyid Qutb. He said he remembered “reading his books and loving his teaching” as a child, and that Qutb’s teaching was prevented from signing something that was false by “the finger that bears witness.” He noted that he and his lawyers asked that authorities hold off the indictment until he had received his PhD, but said that unfortunately they did not wait.
As to the “American Radical” book as a whole, I think the Agent deserves a medal or award for his service, the authors deserve a prize for the book, and the FBI team and FBI deserve congratulations for a job well done. Given the good evidence the Canadians had already collected regarding the casing of the train tracks, one could pause over the budget and delay in the investigation on the US side. But it should be understood that the agent, by so brilliantly gaining the gullible Chiheb’s confidence, had developed a good platform for vetting persons of interest on both sides of the border. And, so on balance, the budget seems justified. Some might argue that where the evidence was already so strong, it would have been nice to have been wrapped up earlier and “the American sleeper” identified by by CIA investigation or electronic surveillance of El Masoul, Chibeb’s contact. But it is a lot easier to second-guess. The agent is quite forthright and pointing out missteps, a candor that is notably absent in those in putting forth their Ivins Theory.
But the wonderfulness of the book is that it enables us to “get on the same page” and understand that there doesn’t seem to have been entrapment. Hopefully, by complying with FOIPA, the FBI will set the stage for people “getting on the same page” in Amerithrax.
I’ve closely followed the Amerithrax matter for years, and in contrast to the FBI’s claim that Bruce Ivins was the mailer (a claim for which there is no convincing evidence), I think Adnan El-Shukrijumah was the mailer. Ivins was living in a small house with three adults, and he would have had to make the 7 hour trip unnoticed at night. (On an earlier trip to Ithaca, his wife was out of town). In contrast, Adnan El-Shukrijumah called his mother on or about 9/11 from KSM’s house, where the anthrax lab director was staying, and told her he was coming to the US. He had cased Washington DC and New York City targets a few months earlier with Al-Hindi. The FBI knows that he did in fact enter the country after 9/11. I have interviewed the Al Qaeda anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat and he does not deny responsibility for the anthrax mailings. He pleads the Fifth.
DXer said
Oh, and did I mention the CIA detected Ames anthrax at the Afghan lab but the FBI scientists — in an investigation riddled with acute and outrageous conflicts of interest — dismissed the finding.
DXer said
“60 Minutes” had an interview with the FBI undercover who met with the terrorist operative proposing a biological attack on US water supplies.
One target of the undercover’s operation was Chiheb Esseghaier, a PhD student in Canada doing doctoral research on nano sensors (whatever they are).
He was in a PhD program “developing optical and electrochemical biosensors.” Chiheb Esseghaier reportedly discussed a plan to derail a train and to poison water supplies in a bioattack.
The focus of the current PR is: Who was American sleeper that the Iranian handlers hadn’t yet introduced Esseghaier? (I have no idea).
Background:
Chiheb Esseghaier, Raed Jaser, Via Terror Suspects, Move Toward …
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/19/chiheb-esseghaier-raed-jaser_n_3780247.html
Aug 19, 2013 – Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser appeared in court… … and Esseghaier, a PhD student doing doctoral research on nanosensors in Quebec
Question:
Who did Mr. Esseghaler meet in Iran? Saif Adel? Shehata? Islambouli? Or just low-level or middle manager Al Qaeda fixers.
Background:
Canada train plot suspect traveled to Iran: U.S. officials | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/…/us-arrests-iran-idUSBRE93O1D320130425
Apr 25, 2013 – Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian-born doctoral student, traveled to Iran on a trip that was directly relevant to the investigation of the alleged plot, …
***
One of the two men accused in Canada of plotting to attack a Via Rail passenger train was “radicalized” by a Tunisian national who recently travelled to the U.S. to expand his terror network and envisioned even grander attacks, unsealed U.S. court documents state.
In fact, the Tunisian man allegedly thought the timing of the train plot was “not right,” and suggested an alternate scheme — to contaminate the air or water with bacteria in order to kill 100,000 people, the court documents say. However, the plan was dismissed and no steps were taken to further the idea.
***
While in New York, Abassi had regular contact with Montreal’s Chiheb Esseghaier, one of the two men charged last month in Canada in connection with the alleged scheme to derail a Via passenger train, court records state. Esseghaier, himself from Tunisia, was previously radicalized by Abassi, the records state, and thereafter received overseas training.
Abassi also had regular meetings with an undercover FBI agent in New York.
***
“If you have someone with the technical expertise, and in this context technical expertise for biological weapons, even some of the pharmaceutical research techniques, that gives you a head start,” Cameron said. “But it’s not going to solve any of the problems.”
That may explain why Esseghaier, a PhD student in biology, ultimately dismissed the plan.
DXer said
Undercover FBI Operative Is Trying to Live a Normal Life — Even When He’s Being Someone Else
By Elaine Aradillas•@elaineja
Posted on October 29, 2017 at 5:01pm EDT
http://people.com/crime/fbi-undercover-operative-on-new-book/
Comment: Most undercovers in Amerithrax had an easier gig. For example, one’s job was to send cute pictures of kittens from the internet to Bruce Ivins after going on a cruise and “bumping” him and his brother (she was accompanied by another agent; one of them was pregnant). She didn’t even have to be good at trivia or be able to drink Bruce under the table.
Sometimes an undercover “cover” does not survive the target’s vetting. For example, upon his return, Heine told Ivins that his cruisemates were obviously FBI just from googling.
Ivins was upset and paranoid — as his friends at the same time were being alienated from him by base command and told not to speak with him. (see email)
Indeed, an undercover did this blog’s graphics — and they were much appreciated over the years. The first year of his assignment was a tragic waste — as he admits, his handler was writing really lousy scripts for him. (The content of his cover story was barely intelligible — revealing a massive confusion on the part of the FBI, which would have included Agent Decker).
The FBI’s lousy analysis the year after Ivins’ suicide was most plainly manifested by those lousy voluminous scripts — which are preserved for posterity. The graphic artist’s handler was a lousy analyst — whereas the graphic artist is quite talented analyst (whatever his actual beliefs and conclusions).
The graphic artist’s arrival and identity was known before he flipped his first burger at a friend’s barbecue — the site of the planned “bump.” (Then there was the related “vouch” which I won’t get into). Talking about nanobiology cover issue of Scientific American over the coals of a campfire — while the two other men were talking sports and cuban cigars — was a pretty heavy and transparent come-on. I had just emailed my friends earlier in the day to ask where the FBI’s undercovers were.
So he really did have me with hello — even apart from his charm and good looks.
But most of all, I was impressed with the fellow’s astuteness in representing content. Any mistakes are solely my own.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
FBI agent in Via terror plot busts fears sleeper agent on loose
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — An undercover FBI agent who helped convict two men of plotting to derail a Via passenger train in Canada did not see the arrests as a triumph, because he feared another extremist had eluded his grasp.
In a new book published under his cover name from the operation, Tamer Elnoury reveals how gaining the confidence of the would-be rail saboteurs led to knowledge of an apparent al-Qaida sleeper terrorist in the United States.
http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/fbi-agent-in-via-terror-plot-busts-fears-sleeper-agent-on-loose
DXer said
Biggest Threats to U.S. Are Nuclear War With Russia, Biological Attack and Climate Change, Former Spy Chief Says
By Tom O’Connor On 10/27/17 at 2:40 PM
“The first is a nuclear exchange with Russia. That could destroy the United States. The second is a naturally occuring or man-made biological agent that kills 60, 70 percent of the population…We don’t spend enough time on that,” Morell told the Pod Save the World podcast Thursday.
“And then the third—and some people may laugh at this, but it’s absolutely true—the third is climate change. It’s an existential threat to the United States of America,” he said.
http://www.newsweek.com/biggest-threats-us-nuclear-war-russia-biological-climate-change-694938
DXer said
On this date:
In 2001, the nation’s anthrax scare hit the White House with the discovery of a small concentration of spores at an offsite mail processing center.
***
In 1935, mobster Dutch Schultz, 34, was shot and mortally wounded with three other men during a gangland hit at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey. (Schultz died the following day.)
DXer said
Daschle, Brokaw see bright future
By Brad Johnson, Columnists
https://www.thepublicopinion.com/opinions/daschle-brokaw-see-bright-future/article_c18168ce-b5e6-11e7-929c-83bfcd7fbabb.html
Daschle, the Senate majority leader on 9-11, recalled being whisked away in a helicopter to an unknown location. Brokaw was on the air when a plane flew into the second tower. He looked at the camera and said, “We are at war! This will change us.”
Both men, because of their high profiles, were targeted with anthrax attacks. Daschle said 28 of his staff members were infected. Brokaw’s secretary and another staffer were injured and went on disability.
“It could happen again,” Brokaw said.
DXer said
CBS/AP October 21, 2017, 8:48 AM
JFK assassination: Trump to allow release of classified documents
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jfk-assassination-trump-to-allow-release-of-classified-documents/
DXer said
The government’s answer is due November 28, 2017.
http://foiaproject.org/dc_view/?id=4067144-DC-1-2017cv01716-docket
DXer said
In his forthcoming book, R. Scott Decker writes:
“I joined the FBI in 1990, after a brief career in biotechnology. I’d gotten a doctorate in genetics, then used it to study DNA and the diagnosis of disease. The work was interesting, but results came slow. Success often measured itself in years. Investigating crime promised more immediate impact.”
After the lengthy Amerithrax investigation, he might have come to see the irony.
It is still very cool that he went from a post-doc at Harvard to chasing bank robbers.
DXer said
On the nearing eve of dramatic Amerithrax documents being revealed in a federal court litigation brought this past month, is the FBI now trying to get my friend James Vandevelde (CIA) indicted for a grisley murder of Yale co-ed?
Police enlist help of hypnotist to solve cold-case Yale murder
By Fox News
September 28, 2017
http://nypost.com/2017/09/28/police-enlist-help-of-hypnotist-to-solve-cold-case-yale-murder/
In 2010, at the time of the conference organized by Ken Dillon, moderated by Lew Weinstein and funded by a group at UCLA, panel member James was a contractor working for the CIA CTC. In his presentation, he explained that the CIA knew that Al Qaeda kept its bio program much more closely held than its chem program. In Spring of 2002, he was the only intelligence analyst at the DIA that I knew to be working on Amerithrax … while the FBI was turning to anthrax smelling bloodhounds (Lucy and Tinkerbelle). The Task Force was staffed mainly by people right out of Quantico who had no experience in intelligence analysis.
Ken Dillon is seeking the Table of Contents from the AQ summary of Richard Lambert’s memorandum. Former lead Amerithrax investigator Lambert says the FBI is withholding a massive amount of information exculpatory of Bruce Ivins.
My friend, Hartford Courant journalist Dave Altimari, and/or Courant who was sued unsuccessfully by James V. for libel if I am recalling correctly. The Courant should realize that use of a hypnotist in this 1998 case is not validated science. In addition to the frivolousness of the inquiry from the start, the local police chief long argued that James Vandevelde was the only suspect. hopelessly contaminating issue of such guided subconscious recall.
Now that the FBI is involved, hopefully they won’t also bring along a psychic (like their key witness in Amerithrax) She was starting a new gig as a part-time addictions counselor. She had written a book (that the FBI investigators promoting an Ivins Theory didn’t bother to read) that explained that she considered herself a psychic and in 2000 and 2001 was psychotic. She thought astral entities attached to her clients were trying to kill her — and thought she flew each night to Afghanistan and Ground Zero trying to piece together lost souls… only to be chased back by murderous astral entities. Each night, she writes in her book, she narrowly escaped back through a vortex.
Is this how the FBI wants to be thought of as building a case?
So FBI, I’m all in favor of a solution to the Joven murder. But any Yalie can tell you that crime is a problem in some places on the outskirts of campus. And so the DNA on the soda can should have been tested like Vandevelde urged. And, by all means, we can wish the police and FBI good luck in finding relevant probative evidence.
The police chief’s theory was not based on any evidence that I know of — it was a theory based on some sexual harassment claims at another employer, and the idea that anyone who has served abroad in our government is handy with a knife etc. That’s great evidence for a speculative theory — but not evidence to allege a crime.
Ms. Joven had recently turned in a paper to Vandevelde on Al Qaeda but James told me that he didn’t think that some jihadi type would be offended by her research about Al Qaeda, which was said to be TIME magazine type stuff.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
.
DXer said
From Pillar To Pariah
Yale Lecturer Combats Suspicions He Killed `Inspiring’ Senior
January 13, 1999|By DAVE ALTIMARI amd ERIC M. WEISS; Courant Staff Writers Courant Staff Writers Janice D’Arcy and Gary Libow contributed to this story.
Their names have become linked.
There is Suzanne Jovin, a bright Yale University senior, a volunteer to the mentally retarded, a promising woman brutally murdered on an upscale city street corner.
FOR THE RECORD – Correction was published Thursday March 15, 2001 on Page A2.
On Jan. 13, 1999, The Courant published a front-page article about James Van de Velde, a then-lecturer at Yale University whom the school had identified as among a pool of suspects in the 1998 slaying of Yale student Suzanne Jovin.
In that article, “From Pillar to Pariah,” The Courant reported, among other things, that Van de Velde “was the target of police complaints filed by two local television reporters.” The story stated that, “Both filed complaints with New Haven police although no action was ever taken, sources said. In one case, Van de Velde was accused of looking into the windows at the home of one of the reporters, and constantly phoning her after she broke off a fledgling relationship, a police source said.”
Van de Velde has since sued The Courant, saying those statements were inaccurate.
Upon review, The Courant believes that one of the reporters, who could not be reached to comment for the original article, did not file a formal complaint with the New Haven police. Rather she was interviewed by them as part of their Jovin investigation. She told police she believed Van de Velde had been spying on her.
The other reporter formally complained to police in Branford, not New Haven, that she had been getting hang-up telephone calls. Though she speculated that they might have come from Van de Velde, she had no evidence of that and asked police not to contact him, according to a copy of the complaint. New Haven police also later interviewed her as part of the Jovin case.
Van de Velde denies ever spying on or harassing either woman, and neither woman’s statement resulted in any charges against Van de Velde, who also has not been charged in connection with Jovin’s death.
Comment: Wow. I get at least one hang-up phone call a day. In my case, they are robocallers where the machine doesn’t kick in for one or the other reason. So it turns out that the police chief’s theory was not just speculative — but so far I haven’t seen a scintilla of evidence.
DXer said
Murder of Suzanne Jovin
“The city of New Haven and Yale University have offered a combined $150,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of Jovin’s killer.[1] The crime remains unsolved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Suzanne_Jovin“
DXer said
What would the experts and the peer reviewed literature say about the merits of hypnosis-induced testimony 19 years after a witness heard in passing two raised voices? We need some ace reporter to do for hypnosis-induced eyewitness testimony, 19 years after the fact, what the NYT’s Scott Shane did for anthrax smelling Tinkerbelle and Lucy in the Amerithrax investigation.
It’s fine for police investigators and reporters to have their theories and personal beliefs — but our justice system needs to rely upon reliable investigative techniques.
Death Watch: The Merits of Hypnosis-Induced Testimony
Attorneys argue Charles Don Flores’ conviction is rooted in junk science
By Chase Hoffberger, Fri., June 3, 2016
https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-06-03/death-watch-the-merits-of-hypnosis-induced-testimony/
Charles Don Flores received a stay of execution from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals just six days before his scheduled execution date of June 2. On May 19, the court had received a series of motions filed by Flores’ attorneys arguing that their client should have his execution stayed and be granted a new trial because the merits of his conviction were potentially rooted in junk science – namely, a pivotal witness who was only able to identify Flores at the scene of the murder after police put her under hypnosis in order to secure a testimony.
DXer said
I suspect that as for FBI, officially, they are doing some kind of aerial map/timeline. I suspect that they possibly are interviewing witnesses from other states. Unofficially, I suspect the state is deciding whether to turn the case over to them and get a grand jury to indict their primary suspect — but I suspect the feds already came to the sensible conclusion that the case is untriable even for them.
I suspect that they have done new DNA on palm print or are in process thereof. I suspect that no one holds out much hope that the DNA will yield anything.
I suspect that they think the GRE thing was a red herring. But I do think that the retired state police crew spent a significant amount of time trying to figure that out to no avail.
In sum: I still have this question: Is the FBI ginning up interest in an attempt to discredit a witness who could say that they screwed up Amerithrax?
If so, don’t bother. Just produce the Lambert memo — subject to any and all applicable FOIA exemptions. Then produce the corresponding exhibits, especially forensic reports (again, subject to any and all FOIA exemptions).
And produce Notebook 4282 (subject to the very minor (b)(6) redactions of a person’s name that is warranted).
But, above all, comply with the rule of law — which includes the FOIPA statute.
And don’t let the “leave no stone unturned” be a meaningless mantra invoked for PR purposes. Don’t let your ego cause you to fixate on a theory.
For example, in Amerithrax, maybe Notebook 4282 won’t be exculpatory of Ivins — maybe it would merely suggest that someone else should also have been indicted along with Ivins.
DXer said
I see that in 2009 I also expressed fascination with the possibility that James’ hiring as an analyst had the unfortunate affect of giving the FBI leverage over him. At his employment interview, he quite expressly addressing and disclosing the issue to the DIA. James told me that he explained to the DIA that he knew how Hatfill felt.
DXer said
September 18, 2009 at 10:29 pm
As a profiler of the anthrax crimes, DIA analyst Van de Velde had a unique perspective on being accused of a crime without being charged.
(Disclaimer: I really like James; we had lunch in Arlington, VA across where I lived once).
http://spectator.org/archives/2006/06/19/a-yale-murder
“VAN DE VELDE WAS CERTAINLY an anomaly: if you are familiar with the TV series Alias, I would suspect that Victor Garber’s all-business, no-BS Jack Bristow character was a caricature of Van de Velde, though Bristow lacked Van de Velde’s dry humor. VdV’s military bearing (he was a lieutenant commander in Naval Intelligence) and pragmatic focus set him apart, and as Rubin suggests, probably generated some friction among his colleagues.
Students loved him, though. He was one of few faculty members we talked about in any depth, because here was a guy with a Mysterious Past who did who knows what for The Government in exotic places like Panama. We speculated on whether he was the CIA’s talent scout, the guy who could put you in touch with Langley if that appealed to you. (Though I’m sure he knew folks in that line of work, I’m told the scout was actually another professor.) I’ve got a few great anecdotes about Van de Velde, which I will spare you, but suffice to say he was a quietly subversive force, a very adult presence in a frequently childish institution.
I’m not drawing this comparison to perpetuate stereotypes of academics; scholarship is an honorable profession with its own culture. But I do wish to point out that for an institution with such an all-fired lust for diversity that they welcome even Mullah Omar’s personal adviser as a special student, Yale’s tolerance for someone who was so genuinely different as Van de Velde was awfully brittle. When the chips were down, Yale didn’t treat him as a colleague, but as a PR problem.
If Yale approves of you, Yale will close ranks to defend you. That’s why almost all of the discussion on campus of the Taliban Man, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, was a defense of one of their own against a threat from “outsiders” — like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. And that was why, when it emerged that a Comparative Literature professor named Paul de Man, a prime mover behind the postmodern, nihilistic technique of “deconstruction,” had been a Nazi collaborator and propagandist during World War II, his colleagues closed ranks to defend him and keep his past a secret.
But rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt, Yale cut James Van de Velde loose.
I WAS SHOCKED TO HEAR he was a suspect in a murder, but I never felt it was possible that he did it. I’ve been wrong about that sort of thing before, though; two people I knew from high school turned out to be murderers. I learned back then that what I feel is irrelevant to how things actually are. But here’s what I think:
DNA evidence under Jovin’s fingernails in 2000 was found not to match Van de Velde’s. But physical evidence aside, there was no credible motive offered for James Van de Velde to murder Jovin. There was some talk that the two had had an affair, but that was never substantiated and appears to be nothing but speculation. Even if that were the case, a student’s consensual relationship with a professor is only an embarrassment, not the sort of thing that justifies a rational man taking the extreme measures Van de Velde (then single; family concerns were not at issue) was accused of. After all, feminist author Naomi Wolf recently accused Yale Professor Harold Bloom of groping her during an undergraduate tutoring session, and the result was…nothing.
Furthermore, the sloppiness of the murder itself tends to exonerate Van de Velde. Jovin was stabbed several times, and found screaming by an eyewitness who saw a van at the scene (not Van de Velde’s Jeep). But VdV is, as I said, a man of a precise and military mind. He was also in good shape and knew martial arts — one of those anecdotes I alluded to above involves a quite impressive nunchuk demonstration. If he seriously wanted someone dead, she would not have been found alive.
Van de Velde once offered a bit of advice in one class that stuck with me: “Never put anything in writing you wouldn’t want to see someday on the front page of the New York Times.” This was a careful man. If he had planned and carried out a murder, I doubt suspicion would ever have fallen on him. But of course, there is absolutely no reason to think he would commit a murder in the first place.”
Reply
DXer said
September 18, 2009 at 11:07 pm
The reward in the Joven case I think was increased to $150,000 in 2007 upon release of the composite.
In 2001, at the time of the anthrax mailings, the reward was $100,000.
Given that I think the key to Amerithrax DOD’s DARPA, I find it fascinating that the DOD hired someone to profile Amerithrax who was the subject of speculation in a case involving a $100,000 reward. Not wrong or inappropriate, mind you. Just fascinating.
I would have loved to be a spy in the wall in that meeting.
For much of the time of his work on Amerithrax, he had libel litigation pending against the Chief.
New team looks into Jovin death
Yale Daily News – Dec 3, 2007
As a result of the team’s blank-slate approach, former political science professor James Van de Velde ’82 — Jovin’s senior-thesis advisor and the only …
For Yale, new chapter opens in Jovin case
Yale Daily News – Dec 7, 2007
The “educator” was later identified as political-science lecturer and former Saybrook College Dean James Van de Velde ’82, Jovin’s senior-thesis advisor. …
JOVIN FAMILY PLEA
Pay-Per-View – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver – Dec 1, 2007
“The problem is James Van de Velde can’t hit a magic reset button and go back and … They both mentioned the $150000 reward for information leading to the …
SUPER SLEUTHS IN JOVIN PROBE
Pay-Per-View – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver – Nov 29, 2007
The private investigators did obtain a DNA sample from James Van de Velde, Jovin’s senior thesis adviser and the only named suspect in the case, …
PRIDE & PREJUDICE IN NEW HAVEN
Pay-Per-View – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver – Dec 4, 2005
James Van de Velde knew nothing of my background when he called on me at my … In addition, the university added $100000 to the $50000 reward already …
TEST SHOWS DNA NOT FROM JOVIN’S YALE ADVISER
Pay-Per-View – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver – Oct 27, 2001
New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington revealed Friday that DNA obtained from [James Van de Velde], who has long proclaimed his innocence, …
REWARD TO BE RAISED IN JOVIN CASE
Pay-Per-View – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver – Mar 27, 2001
The reward would supplement $50000 already set aside by the state to help … James Van de Velde, Jovin’s former lecturer and senior thesis adviser, …
A GRADUATION STEEPED IN SADNESS
Pay-Per-View – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver – May 4, 1999
New Haven police have confirmed that Yale lecturer James Van de Velde, … Will increasing the reward to $50000 help? What would you like to say to anyone …
JOVIN CASE INVESTIGATORS SEEK OCCUPANTS OF VAN – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver (Pay-Per-View)
Yale adds $100K to Jovin case reward – Yale Daily News
Yale Daily News – All 4 related – Related web pages
HAS CASE GOTTEN COLDER? – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver (Pay-Per-View)
State announces formation of new team to investiga… – Yale Daily News
Stalled Jovin case looks to van, DNA for leads
Yale Herald – The Yale Herald – Nov 9, 2001
This latest development came just one day after James Van de Velde, … established a $150000 reward last March to solicit information leading to the arrest …
ARE YOU WRONG ABOUT JAMES VAN DE VELDE?
Pay-Per-View – Hartford Courant – ProQuest Archiver – Apr 1, 2001
COVER COVER ON THE COVER James [Jim Van de Velde] believes the police never properly … James Van de Velde needs us. Inevitably, the two adjectives used in …
Reward may draw renewed attention
Yale Daily News – Mar 29, 2001
The problem, experts say, is that a reward is rarely effective in drawing out … Then there is the status of James Van de Velde ’82, a former Yale lecturer …
DXer said
Though if I was concerned about Ali Al-TImimi’s sharing of the suite with leading bioweaponeer Ken Aliben and Ames researcher Charles Bailey at the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense, I guess the effect was to give Army indirect leverage, with the FBI merely available to close the vise.
I guess in the renewed interest in the Joven case, the key is to stick to reliable means of investigation and not speculate, along any of these lines.
For example, identify the van that witnesses saw — James drove a jeep. I believe the FBI’s spiffy new aerial graphic illustrates that she was driven to the spot where she was found.
DXer said
“Several suspects have surfaced since Jovin, 21, was found on Dec. 4, 1998, two miles from the Yale campus, a location authorities believe she was driven to, A&E noted when highlighting the case earlier this year.”
http://www.newser.com/story/249280/police-return-to-1998-yale-murder-case-with-a-hypnotist.html
Comment: If authorities truly believe Ms. Jovin was driven, note that it was a van that was seen, not a jeep. I believe JV, according to some account I read, drove a jeep. JV himself has told me about the importance, in his mind, of identifying who was driving the van that was seen.
(If I am remembering correctly after all these years, I believe he may have gone to the hockey game.)
I know that the victim had high moral character, but I am dubious that after a full day someone would walk at least 2 miles to retrieve GRE books she had loaned (in order to give them to another friend). That would be at least a 4 miles round-trip. She had a full schedule and was very busy.
So it makes more sense to me that the van is the key to the mystery. A theory centered on a van is not fairly dismissed as a “random abduction” (as a correspondent did). Ms. Jovin was very attractive and attempted sexual assaults are more common that we would like. (see today’s news) She was much more athletic than someone might have guessed (given her 5’5” frame). So she may have been accosted and put up a fight — and then the assailant stabbed her. I believe the medical examiner found that only 1 stab wound killed her — and so it should not be surprising that he continued stabbing, especially if she put up a fight, as suggested by the DNA under the fingernail. In such a high profile murder, it is beyond the pale that there was such a delay in the testing of the DNA. The delay constitutes systemic misfeasance. That is what should be the focus of press attention — the State of Connecticut should be figuring out how to eliminate the huge backlog.
DXer said
Working with this blogger’s state timeline, is the assumption that Ms. Jovin walked 1.8 miles between 9:25/9;35 and 9:55, when she was found bleeding out?
“During her travels, at approximately 8:50pm, Suzanne passed by a group of friends who invited her out to the movies. Suzanne declined, stating that she was planning on staying in for the night to work on other assignments. At 9:02pm Suzanne logged onto her Yale e-mail and contacted a friend. Writing in German, Suzanne informed her friend that she was going to leave some books for her in the lobby of her building. Suzanne gave this friend the access code to her building and stated that she had to retrieve the books and a cd-rom from someone to whom she had lent them. Neither the friend she emailed, nor any of her friends later interviewed by police were able to identity who Suzanne had lent the books to and to this day, no one knows this person’s identity.
***
The next sighting of Suzanne takes place between 9:25 and 9:30. Walking North on College Street. A female student who left the big hockey game between Yale and Princeton to go to an off-campus party, passed Suzanne on College Street. According to the witness, she didn’t think anything was off at the time, but was able to describe both a dark skinned Hispanic or African American male wearing a hooded sweatshirt, heading North on College Street. Suzanne, also heading north, was several paces behind him, and behind Suzanne was a white male with glasses who was dressed nicely. It should be noted, that by heading North on College Street, Suzanne is likely not returning to her apartment as this path would lead her on a long, roundabout journey when she could just as easily have gone back the way she came to Phelps Gate in the first place. This is the last confirmed sighting of Suzanne Jovin alive. Sometime in the next twenty to thirty minutes, Suzanne will encounter a yet unknown suspect or suspects who will savagely and brutally murder her.
At 9:55pm two passersby called 911 to report a woman bleeding out at the corner of Edgehill Road and East Rock Road, approximately 1.8 miles from the last sighting of Suzanne Jovin.
***
Police arrive on the scene within a few minutes, at 9:58pm and find the body of Suzanne Jovin. Suzanne had been fatally stabbed 17 times in her back, neck and head. Her throat had also been slit.”
“Nearby residents reported hearing a loud argument around the time of the murder, and some have stated that they saw a brown or tan van parked right next to where Suzanne’s body was found. One witness stated that he saw “a man in his 20s or 30s with an athletic build, well groomed hair, dark pants, a loose-fitting greenish jacket, running like his life depended on it in the opposite direction from where Suzanne Jovin was killed.” Police were attempting to identify this man, and were also interested in finding out who the mysterious person was that Suzanne had planned to retrieve her loaned text books from also.”
“Police immediately begin investigating, canvassing the neighborhood and examining evidence located at the scene. However, the conduct and actions of the police have fallen under a great deal of scrutiny in the years since the murder. The police have been accused of mishandling evidence, contaminating evidence and failing to release pertinent information in a timely matter.
In addition to witness statements, several pieces of physical evidence were also collected. A bottle of Fresca is found in a bush nearby, which when tested contains Suzanne’s fingerprints, and the hand print of an unidentified person. During the medical examination, DNA is found under the fingernails of Suzanne’s left hand and the tip of the knife which was used to stab her is found broken off in the left side of her skull. According to the medical examiner, only one of the seventeen stab wounds was fatal and the blade of the knife is described as four to five inches, nonserrated carbon steel.”
“in 2008, the Jovin Task Force revealed that a witness had come forward to the police sometime close to the time of the murder and stated that she had seen a white male run past her and onto church property. According to this witness, the New Haven Police showed her a photo of Yale Professor James Van de Velde, Suzanne’s thesis advisor, and asked her if it was the same man. When the witness stated no, they brought her in a van to Van de Velde’s office so that she could see him in person, and again she stated that was not the man. According to the witness, the police did not contact her again. The task force set the witness up with a sketch artist, who managed to create a composite drawing of the man and his image was put up in the area around where the murder had taken place.
Comment:
So let’s see. The police have a witness who insists it was not JV? ( I can see the rough similarity with the composite but if the witness did not identify him, where is that going?)
And DNA under her fingernails that wasn’t a match?
Uh, yeah. And now they are going to use a hypnotist to explore the 19-year-old memory of someone who heard raised voices?
I expect the State will either charge JV or forever shelve the case by the end of the year. It seems, though, that the JV theory (as is so common nowadays) relies excessively on “profiling” — it is fervently assumed that the attack with a knife to the back, neck and head is one of rage by someone who knew Ms. Jovin well and was filled with rage. It is like the investigators are assuming their conclusion. When you are on the street in New Haven, I would take into account that there are angry crazies on the street. If the state charges JV on the evidence we know, absent new evidence, I think it is going to go badly for them. Defense might argue that a highly intelligent perp would have staged a robbery. Moreover, JV knows martial arts. Do proponents of a JV theory really think it would take someone skilled in the martial arts 17 stabs with a knife to kill someone? Oh, right, they have a profile that assumes an uncontrolled rage of someone who knew her well. Often profiling is just a means of rationalizing a conclusion unsupported by any evdence.
Meanwhile, the police still have not identified the person she was walking at least a couple of miles to retrieve the GRE books from — and have not identified whose palm print was on the fresca container. Why didn’t the GRE person come forward?
Moreover, it’s my understanding that the DNA found under her fingernails was NOT JV’s. I’m still reading about the case, but I think the police officials disclosure of JV as the only person of interest before the DNA was even tested was really wrong — and then after that JV’s suits for libel have just caused the police to dig in.
It happens at the emotional level — with both police and reporters. But it seems that the DNA under the finger nails is perhaps crucial evidence. The the lab screwed up. In Amerithrax, the lab did not even disclose that the DNA had been found — not even to the lead investigator Richard Lambert! (Apparently, the lab did not disclose it because they ruled it out as due to contamination).
And so you want to know how the police handled this all-important DNA evidence in a case so important?
“DNA was found under Suzanne’s fingernails, however this was not mentioned to the public until October 26th, 2001 when the New Haven Police made a request that friends, colleagues and acquantainces of Suzanne come forward to submit their DNA for testing. Once more, the New Haven Police waited almost three years before pursuing this evidence and releasing it to the public, and once more they failed to provide an explanation as to why. Suzanne’s parents wrote several letters to the Governor of Connecticut, complaining about the lack of work in relation to the DNA evidence and were informed that the Connecticut Forensic Science Lab had a backlog of 12,000 DNA samples which still needed to be tested, among which was the DNA found under Suzanne’s nails. Finally, in November of 2009, nearly 11 years after the murder, a DNA match was made. Unfortunately, the DNA was linked to a technician in the Connecticut Forensic Science Lab and was the result of accidental contamination.”
It seems that all we know is that the hard science was screwed up and now the police and FBI are turning to a highly unreliable use of a hypnotist to explore a person’s memory recall of raised voices heard in passing 19 years ago. That’s utter nonsense. The Department of Justice should have higher standards in the investigative techniques that are used.
Who did the DNA under the fingernails match? (putting aside that there was contamination).
DXer said
Wow! See this NH Register article I am reading for the first time. This is why I love true crime mysteries! I find this to be a very interesting suggested lead. What do those who have been following the case think? Personally, I am hoping JV gets a clean bill of health because he was one of the few people who I thought knew much in 2002 about Ayman’s anthrax program. Rauf Ahmad, his trips to Europe, etc (He then was reassigned him to study French for a year about the time Hambali was captured; I thought it was a very foolish decision on someone’s part to transfer an analyst with such valuable background relevant to AQ’s anthrax program).
I am rooting for this guy Mitchell to collect the $150,000 reward.
Is the FBI just trying to mess with JV to discredit the forthcoming revelations about Amerithrax resulting from Kenneth Dillon’s FOIA lawsuit? JV knowledge overlaps with much of the outline of AQ and anthrax from the memo that Ken Dillon is seeking to force disclosed. (The FBI did not cooperate at all with JV; Agents would walk right by him in the halls of Quantico, tight-lipped.)
http://www.nhregister.com/connecticut/article/Randall-Beach-Many-trying-to-solve-the-mystery-11356209.php
“We walked a half-block on College Street, then turned left onto Elm Street. Mitchell has theorized that this continued to be the route Jovin took that night because it has been reported a Fresca bottle with her fingerprints on it was found near her body on East Rock Road. Mitchell determined through his research that the Krauszer’s near the corner of Elm and York streets was the only place in the area that sold Fresca in bottles. (Stein said she was not carrying the bottle when they spoke.)
The Krauszer’s is no longer there but Mitchell noted as we stood on its former site that vehicles now, as well as in December 1998, could legally park in front of that building. He also pointed up Elm Street toward Park Street, where Jovin lived; he said in 1998 the strip was “dangerous,” with at least one boarded-up building.
Mitchell noted these facts because it was long his theory that Jovin was randomly abducted by several people in a vehicle in that area. He had theorized they were seeking money or sex, became enraged when she resisted, stabbed her repeatedly and dumped her body on East Rock Road.
But as we walked up Elm Street last week, Mitchell told me his random abduction theory, although still possible, is “now less possible.”
Over the past several years, Mitchell and several other citizen investigators have been looking into the possibility that Jovin was killed by a mentally disturbed Yale School of Architecture student.
As I reported in December 2012, Gilles Carter, an East Rock resident who knew that troubled man at Princeton, reported to authorities his concerns after conferring with two other Princeton alumni.
This group compared the man’s college yearbook photo with a police sketch police released based on the description of a female motorist who on the night of Jovin’s slaying saw a man running wildly on Whitney Avenue, close to the crime scene. Carter and his friends said the “running man” closely resembled that troubled graduate student, who had been a runner in school and often wore a green jacket, as did the runner on Whitney Avenue.
Moreover, Carter said that one day in October 2011, the man showed up at his doorstep in a “hyper-agitated state” and told him, “I am obsessed with the murder of Suzanne Jovin.”
Whenever that man felt a woman had rejected him, Carter said, he flew into a rage.
A year after that conversation, the young man died in what appeared to be a suicide.
Mitchell told me he wants to be clear there is no evidence Jovin knew that man; Mitchell admits this man could have nothing to do with her death. But he said that person “fills in a lot of holes” in the puzzle.
Mitchell recently emailed Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, who oversees the cold case unit investigating the Jovin homicide and many others. Mitchell asked to be shown a photo of the murder weapon to see from the knife’s tip if it’s an X-Acto, the type used by architecture students.
Mitchell, who told me he has spoken with many of the witnesses in the Jovin case, added, “I know as much as anybody anywhere about it, outside of the police.”
DXer said
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-seek-new-info-in-1998-killing-of-yale-student/
At the time of the killing, several witnesses said they heard a man and a woman having a heated argument outside the Eli Whitney Luxury Apartments about 20 minutes before the 911 call reporting that Jovin had been stabbed, Jack Edwards, chief investigator on the case for the Connecticut Chief State’s Attorney, told 48 Hours’ Crimesider.
Another couple was seen leaving the building and walking past them, Edwards said.
According to witnesses, the argument lasted several minutes and took place about 200 yards from where Jovin was found, Edwards said.
DXer said
Fascinating stuff.
http://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Tips-in-1998-slaying-of-Yale-student-Suzanne-11530105.php
Tips in 1998 slaying of Yale student Suzanne Jovin focus on mentally disturbed grad student
Randall Beach, Register Staff
Published 12:00 am, Saturday, December 8, 2012
Suzanne Jovin\
But even if this man were the one police have long sought, he could never be arrested nor put on trial: he died earlier this year in a bizarre way on Interstate 95 in what could have been a suicide.
Because the man was never charged in the Jovin slaying nor named by police as a suspect, the Register will not reveal his name. We will simply call him “Billy.”
Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, whose office is directing the Jovin investigation jointly with New Haven State’s Attorney Michael Dearington and the four-member Jovin Task Force, said: “We’ve looked into this lead, as we have with other leads.”
“We have not made any connection that would warrant any action by us,” Kane added.
But the men who provided investigators with the tip and related documents about Billy are concerned that not enough has been done to check out the information.
One of these men, Gilles Carter, thinks police are still too focused on James Van de Velde, the only person ever named by police as being in the “pool of suspects.” Van de Velde, who was one of Jovin’s Yale instructors and her adviser, has never been charged and now works and lives in the Washington, D.C., area. He has maintained he was not involved in her death.
Jovin, 21, was found lying near the corner of Edgehill and East Rock roads the night of Dec. 4, 1998. She had been stabbed 17 times.
Carter, a documentary filmmaker, lives on a corner of Edgehill Avenue, just one block away from where Jovin was slain. He recalled the day in October 2011 when Billy, whom Carter knew and had tried to help for years, showed up at his front door in a “hyper-agitated state.”
“I think he had overdosed on his meds or was off the meds,” Carter said. “He started yelling about how angry he was with his parents, who he was estranged from. I said, ‘Let’s go for a walk.'”
As they entered nearby Edgerton Park, Carter recalled, “He turned to me and said: ‘There is something I have to tell you, I am obsessed with the murder of Suzanne Jovin.'”
Carter said Billy then recalled that shortly after the slaying, his roommate at their Chapel Street apartment was watching a TV news report on the case. And Billy remembered saying to his roommate: “They’ll never catch me.”
Billy told Carter it was a “joke” in very poor taste. But Billy was convinced this “joke” led to police trying to trap him into confessing to the crime.
“He almost started to cry, was breaking up and telling me how totally, utterly unhappy he was and that his obsession prevented him from ever having a relationship with a woman,” Carter said.
“He didn’t know how to deal with women on an emotional level,” Carter added. “It was his lifelong story.”
“I think he had a hard time being in a room with a woman. But he was really drawn to them,” he said.
And when Billy felt rejected, Carter noted, he flew into a rage.
Carter and another man who knew Billy, attorney Alan Rosner, were told by two women in a salsa class that when a female in the group declined to dance with Billy, he screamed at her: “What’s the matter with me?”
Jay Pottenger, a Yale Law School professor, said he had Billy in one of his law school clinic classes in 1999, although Billy was at the Yale School of Architecture. Pottenger said, “It was clear he had mental health issues. When he was working in an architectural firm office, he drove women there crazy. He just couldn’t function.”
Carter showed the Register a New Haven police report dated from 2011 in which a woman complained Billy was harassing her.
“She stated she went on one date with him and it didn’t work out and has since been calling her place of work and writing emails,” the officer wrote.
According to the report, Billy then came to the police station where the officer “explained to him his behavior is creepy and (the complainant) does not want anything to do with him. He (Billy) stated he has mental issues.”
The officer noted Billy wanted to add that he had been very depressed and “does not have a good relationship with his mother and that any time he has an issue, his family isn’t there for him and they tell him to seek help from his psychiatrist.”
Carter, Rosner and Jeff Mitchell, a longtime friend of Van de Velde’s who has spent many years trying to clear him, assembled an 11-page summation of why they believe Billy should be seriously investigated — and how it should be done.
According to that document, on the afternoon of the day he died, Billy called Rosner. He had a legal question: Could he transfer title of his condo to his niece by means of a will?
Rosner asked Billy why he, at such a young age, was suddenly so worried about making a will. Billy hesitated, then said, “They’re out to get me, they’re closing in.”
Billy tried to reassure Rosner he wouldn’t “hurt” himself.
Carter said a police source told him Billy did make out a will that day and had it witnessed by neighbors.
According to police, shortly after 9 p.m., Billy was driving on I-95 when he hit a jersey barrier, exited the car and walked into the travel area of the highway.
He was struck by a vehicle and pronounced dead on the scene with a head injury.
The police source told Carter that after Billy got out of his car, he began running in the left-hand lane, grabbed onto the side of a white pickup truck and hauled himself into the back. Then he jumped in front of an oncoming car.
“It’s crystal clear it was a suicide,” Carter said.
Carter said when he and Rosner attended Billy’s funeral, they started discussing all the troubling behavior they had observed. According to Carter, that’s when they realized police needed to check out Billy as a suspect in Jovin’s death.
Shortly after the funeral, Carter called Billy’s mother to discuss his concerns. According to Carter, she said she was deleting Billy’s emails and disabling his computer’s hard drive “for closure.”
“I asked her not to do that because he could be linked to a crime,” he recalled. “She said, ‘Oh! Jovin!’ So she knew he had this obsession.”
“She told me, ‘He couldn’t possibly have done this. He would have told us.'”
Later that night, according to Carter, she called him back. Carter said she told him she wanted to “allay your suspicions.” Then she told him that during their final conversation, her son stated: “I’ve never been in trouble with the police and I’ve never killed anybody.”
Within the next week, Carter and Rosner met with the Jovin Task Force and showed them some of their documents. These included a March 2, 2012, email from Billy in which he said: “I believe I was under investigation for the Jovin murder, which I had nothing to do with, and ironically, became paranoid about 13 years ago.”
The documents also include a 30-page diary Billy wrote, describing his nightmarish experience when he was confined to a psychiatric hospital in summer 2011.
Amid great detail about his trouble with women and his parents, he reported participating in a workshop “perhaps performed to have me confess to the unsolved crime for which I thought I might have been investigated when paranoid and depressed 13 years earlier.”
Billy wrote: “I was a prisoner of incorrect medication, of poor doctors, of a terrible hospital, of inscrutable law enforcement and of an unsupportive network of family and friends.”
In their 11-page summation, Carter and the others compare Billy’s college yearbook photo with a police sketch the task force released based on the description provided by a female motorist the night of Jovin’s slaying. She said she saw a man running wildly on Whitney Avenue after coming down from Huntington Street, close to the crime scene.
Carter and his associates pointed out the resemblance between Billy and the running man. They also note he was an avid runner. Moreover, the witness said the runner was wearing a “loose fitting, greenish jacket”; Billy often wore such a jacket.
Their summation also notes architectural students tend to carry X-Acto knives with them and that at least one of Jovin’s wounds could be consistent with that type of blade.
The summation concludes with a series of specific steps they believe police should undertake to see if Billy might have killed Jovin. These include comparing the tip of the murder weapon found in Jovin’s skull with the tip of an X-Acto blade; and comparing the partial palm print found on the Fresca bottle found beside her body with that of Billy. (Carter said police have Billy’s blood and thus his DNA because a sample was taken after he died. Carter also believes Billy’s car was impounded and his prints should be there.)
When asked about these suggestions, Kane said, “I won’t discuss any specific things we’ve done or not done.”
And asked if Billy is still being looked at, Kane replied, “I can’t say.”
Kane added, “We appreciate any lead” and he said people with any information whatsoever should call the Jovin tip line at 203-676-1575.
When Jovin’s sister, Ellen Jovin, was asked if she had anything to say about Billy, she deferred all comment to her father and stepmother, Thomas and Donna Jovin. They did not respond to an email message.
Carter said he went public with the Billy material because “I’d like the information to be aired.” He said that Billy “is someone police need to pursue really diligently.”
DXer said
Wow wow wow. Consider the parallels between the Jovin case involving the brutal 1998 murder of a Yale coed and Amerithrax.
You have Vandevelde, who coincidentally worked on Fall 2001 anthrax mailings for the DIA in 2002 in the role of Hatfill, and upon reading further about recent developments in the case, you have the former Yale Architecture Student in the role of Bruce Ivins. And then because of missteps in the difficult investigation, you are left to wonder whether the architecture student (and Bruce Ivins), both of whom committed suicide, were really guilty.
I now understand that the documentary film makers with the alternate theory are the ones who were pursuing the FOIA request, a parallel to DIllon’s pending FOIA request (and lawsuit). The difference is that the FBI closed Amerithrax and so the FBI in Amerithrax does not have the exemption under FOIA available. (Though as to aspects of Lambert’s memo, the FBI has many exemptions available, to include both national security and privacy and others).
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/12/04/jovin-99-remembered/
Yale is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case, in addition to $50,000 offered by the state of Connecticut. Of the 48 cold cases currently under investigation statewide, Russotto said, the Jovin case is one of the more active ones.
Over the years, the investigation has drawn extensive criticism, most forcefully from Cameron, who said fixating on Van de Velde early on skewed the search. Charles Hill, a diplomat-in-residence and lecturer in the Political Science Department who advised Jovin’s international studies thesis, called the investigative and forensic work done in the case “astonishingly incompetent.”
Jovin’s parents said the investigation was botched from the beginning. They said police failed to secure the crime scene right away: investigators did not run tests on all the available forensic evidence and a lab technician contaminated crucial DNA evidence from the scene.
Jovin’s parents said it is their understanding that Van de Velde remains under consideration as a potential suspect, though Michael Dearington, the state’s attorney for the New Haven district, told the News this summer that the former political science lecturer and dean of Saybrook College was no longer a suspect in the case.
Van de Velde, who now works as an analyst for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, did not return multiple requests for comment. Grudberg said the settlement this summer of a lawsuit Van de Velde had filed against the University and the New Haven Police Department for allegedly leaking news of his being a suspect to the media — a settlement that involved both the University and the city compensating Van de Velde financially — gave his client the vindication he deserved.
“The police wrongly fixated on an innocent person from the beginning of their investigation, and 15 years later all they have to show for it is a settlement payment and an unsolved murder,” Grudberg said.
AN ALTERNATE THEORY
Gilles Carter, a documentary filmmaker living in East Rock, has a theory about a different man who lived in the area at the time. In a Monday interview, Carter said he and two others — attorney Alan Rosner and Yale Law School professor J.L. Pottenger LAW ’75 — have rigorously linked a now-deceased student at the Yale School of Architecture to Jovin’s murder.
DXer said
The CT police chief should have obtained the architecture student’s hard drive and emails and recovered the data deleted by his mom after his suicide.
DXer said
Peter Corbin Kohn, 38, of Madison and New Haven, passed away March 18, 2012.
What was Peter Kohn doing in 1998? Studying for the GRE while living in New Haven? Ms. Jovin was on her way to retrieve GRE books from someone she had loaned them
If they don’t already know, the police should subpoena the records showing the date he took the GRE. The police can subpoena College Board — or they can subpoena Yale School of Architecture. (though I am not sure that either would keep the records from 19 years ago).
Mr. Kohn’s family and friends would be able to figure it out.
“All applicants, including international students, are required to take the General Test (verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing) of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) of the Educational Testing Service.”
http://architecture.yale.edu/admissions/application-process-march-and-med-programs
Yale University 1999 – 2001
MA, Architecture
Princeton University 1992 – 1996
BA, Architecture
Peter Kohn
Greater New York City Area
Owner and Architect at Peter Kohn Architect
Architecture & Planning
Education:
Yale University 1999 – 2001
MA, Architecture
Princeton University 1992 – 1996
BA, Architecture
Experience:
Peter Kohn Architect 2008 – Present
Centerbrook Architects 2005 – 2008
Peter Kohn Architect 2004 – 2005
Arquitectonica International 2003 – 2004
Allan Greenberg Architect 2001 – 2003
DXer said
Applications for programs beginning in the 2018–2019 academic year must be submitted no later than January 2, 2018.
So let’s guess that the application deadline for the 1999-2000 school year was early January 1999.
Although I don’t have any experience with when people take the GRE, beginning with the 1997/1998 testing year, the GRE was given in computer format and quickly graded and submitted to schools.
“In case of the computer-based General Test examinees have the option either to cancel or see their scores at the end of the test. Official score reports will be mailed to examinees and to designated institutions 10 to 15 days after the test date.”
http://www.bibl.u-szeged.hu/afik/grew.html
Suzanne Jovin set out to retrieve the GRE books on December 4, 1998. So was the person to whom she had loaned the GRE books planning on entering graduate school the Fall of 1999, which is when Mr. Kohn entered graduate school?
Was she going to meet Mr. Kohn to retrieve the books? If so, where would she have made her acquaintance? Running? Church? Best Buddies?
DXer said
If someone tells me where Peter Corbin Kohn lived in December 1998, I’ll give them a free pie from Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. I see four possible addresses (in addition to Olive St.) but they seem south of where she was walking — I believe they are saying she was proceeding northward on College St from Phelps Gate and had not yet reached Elm St. when she was last seen. His New Haven residences tended over time to be about .8 miles away from the College St. & Elm St. intersection, but in a southerly direction.
I went to Pepe’s, near a couple of his residences, recently after touring the Peabody museum for its fossils.
If I had borrowed GRE books, I wouldn’t make them come to my residence, I would meet them someplace convenient to them. I mean, she returned the car. I haven’t mastered the timeline like these reporters and true crime hobbyists or official investigators, but was there a time by which the car had to be returned? If she had far to go, might she just have chosen to drive to where the GRE books were located? Maybe she was going to meet the person where the person was going to be.
An astute and fair-minded correspondent has emphasized to me that there is no known connection between Suzanne Jovin and Peter Corbin Kohn. Did she ever make his acquaintance somewhere? Running? Best Buddies?
DXer said
A correspondent advises me that Mr. Kohn at the time lived at 199 Wooster. If Mr. Kohn lived at 199 Wooster at the time, that was 2.4 miles from 703 Whitney Ave where the man and woman were arguing. Maybe Mr. Kohn, if he was the one seen by the witness (who got a good look), was just out for a jog. People do that, I’ve heard, for exercise (and he was a runner).
But that makes the matter even more tragic if Vandevelde came to be suspected just because he looked similar to a jogger who himself was not involved. I believe there is going to be a documentary that airs in January, so maybe we will learn more.
FWIW, I am advised that Mr. Kohn spoke German, as did Ms. Jovin, who was from Germany. I’m still confused on the GRE books issue.
DXer said
JV lived at 305 St Ronan, above the church.
DXer said
As this fascinating post by Jeffrey Mitchell notes, the Princeton alumni that contacted the Task Force recognized that being paranoid about being investigated for a murder is a far cry from being guilty of it. The parallels with the Amerithrax investigation are uncanny.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=29263089
DXer said
FBI reversal: Bureau will release more Clinton investigation docs
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/14/fbi-will-release-more-clinton-investigation-docs/
By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Thursday, September 14, 2017
Weeks after saying there wasn’t enough public interest in Hillary Clinton’s email case, the FBI’s decision has been modified, and the bureau will publicly release more details of its obstruction of justice probe into the former secretary of state.
The Justice Department confirmed the new position in a letter Thursday to Ty Clevenger, a lawyer who’d filed an open-records request for the information.
The FBI had initially told him there wasn’t enough public interest to outweigh Mrs. Clinton’s privacy concerns, but he appealed to the Justice Department, which said it was “modifying the FBI’s response.”
Justice Department official Sean R. O’Neill said after speaking with Mr. Clevenger, they have concluded that the records in question are part of the Clinton email investigation file, which he said they’re already making public in installments.
“Any records concerning the FBI’s investigation of obstruction of justice are currently being processed by the FBI along with the remainder of the Clinton email investigation file. The FBI is publicly posting all releasable records on a rolling basis,” he said.
The records are being posted at the FBI’s “vault,” a section of the bureau’s website, under the heading “Hillary R. Clinton.”
DXer said
CIA Director Mike Pompeo says: “I want to make sure the world gets to see [the Bin Laden documents seized from Bin Laden] so that we can have lots of hands touching them and making good judgments about how to make sure that we don’t have a 9/11, that we don’t have this kind of risk again.”
People can disagree with the Director’s religion and politics, but I think this stated view of helping people to get on the same page so as to be able to make good judgments about how to make sure we don’t have a 9/11 is commendable. It may contribute to the Director being recorded in history as a good director.
I hope he applies the same point of view to the Table of Contents (relating to AQ) of the Amerithrax Interim Case Management Summary — and the text of the section on Bruce Ivins — sought by Ken Dillon under FOIA. Specifically, there is nothing at all classified (or that should be classified) from the section on Ivins.
And there is nothing that should be classified — all these years later — in the Table of Contents relating to an Al Qaeda theory.
For example, Porton Down could be now identified as the second lab visited by Rauf Ahmad.
And Ali Al-Timimi could be identified as sharing a suite with a leading Ames anthrax bioweaponeer (Alibek) and having full access to the ATCC culture collection (at which the lead FBI scientist JB spinning an Ivins Theory had been bacteriology collection scientist).
Aafia Siddiqui maybe could be revealed to have visited Houston at the time of the Tropical Storm Alison, and to have visited her alma mater, to include the building with newly upgraded and unlocked B3 lab with the virulent anthrax.
And Adnan El-Shukrijumah could be revealed to have crossed paths with anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat at KSM’s house on 9/11 (from where he called his Mom on or about 9/11 to tell her he was coming to the US).
If a major city is ever attacked in a mass aerosol attack, Director Pompeo will have stood on the side of the angels who did his best to keep our country safe.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo Says Osama Bin Laden’s Porn Stash Won’t Be Released
By Jack Moore On 9/12/17 at 6:08 AM
http://www.newsweek.com/cia-director-mike-pompeo-bin-laden-documents-special-forces-raid-released-663288
Michael Flynn, former chief of staff for President Donald Trump and ex-U.S. intelligence chief, revealed in 2016 that laptops seized from jihadists were filled with as much as 80 percent pornography, alongside videos of beheadings and other gruesome footage.
British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in 2015 famously called male fighters from the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) “porn driven losers,” men who have “low self-esteem and are unsuccessful with women.”
One man, the founder of online jock news site BroBible, even petitioned the CIA to release the information under a Freedom of Information Act request in 2015. The CIA quickly shut him down. “We are not going to release these materials due to the nature of their contents,” Jeffrey Anchukaitis, a spokesman for then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said at the time.
Pompeo instead said on Monday that it was imperative for the American public see the documents that matter to national security, in order to prevent another plot of the likes of 9/11, the worst attacks in U.S. history, leaving almost 3,000 people dead.
Once we are sure that there’s not classified material and that there’s not things that we can’t release, I want to make sure the world gets to see them so that we can have lots of hands touching them and making good judgments about how to make sure that we don’t have a 9/11, that we don’t have this kind of risk again,” he said.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Greater transparency would do much to debunk the suggestion (which otherwise will go down in history as unresolved) that the CIA was responsible for the anthrax mailings.
CYA, not the CIA, seems to remain at the center of the missteps in the investigation.
DXer said
If there is a stronger case for award of fees for the FBI’s withholding of the contemporaneous notes from Bruce Ivins Laboratory Notebook 4282 — or what Richard Lambert wrote about Bruce Ivins in 2006 — I haven’t seen it.
FOIA Group That Got Al-Awlaki Memos Wins Fees In 9th Circ.
Law360 (subscription)-Aug 25, 2017
https://www.law360.com/articles/957920
Law360, New York (August 25, 2017, 6:37 PM EDT) — An open-government group that sued under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain legal memos about the U.S.’ targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki won legal fees Friday, when Ninth Circuit judges concluded for different reasons that the lower court applied the wrong standard to deny fees.
_______________
KC2VDX
DXer said
The CIA release of documents presents an interesting opportunity to put an AQ anthrax theory to the test. If other notes show operational plans, shouldn’t there be some corroboration of an AQ anthrax theory?
The CIA has long known that the bio program was kept closer to the vest than the chemical weapons planning. The bio program was more strictly compartmentalized. (See James V.’s presentation at the conference organized by Ken and moderated by Lew; James worked for the CIA and had his public remarks vetted).
Chem was overseen by Abu Khabab. Bio was overseen by Zawahiri who reported to Atef. Atef was promptly killed in a bombing shortly after the second mailing.
But no matter how closely compartmentalized, would you expect something in Bin Laden’s materials that was corroborative?
The Taliban and forbidden Bin Laden from launching an attack from Afghanistan soil. And Bin Laden accordingly denied 9/11 initially — until it was beyond reasonable dispute.
There was no reason for him similarly to not deny the anthrax mailings (even assuming AQ was responsible) because there was not such public proof as there was in the case of 9/11.
But after all these years — and given that these were Bin Laden’s papers kept over the course of years — if CIA is in fact transparent in the forthcoming disclosures, shouldn’t there be some sort of corroboration?
And if all the materials are declassified, won’t the absence of such corroboration be a factor weighing against Ken’s (and my alternative) AQ theory?
(Ken thinks Jdey was the anthrax mailer and I think Shukrijumah was the mailer).
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
CIA: ‘We will not be releasing Bin Laden’s porn collection’
Pompeo added that “there’s some pornography, there’s some copyrighted material — and everything other than those items will be released in the weeks ahead.”
https://www.buzz.ie/weird/cia-will-not-releasing-bin-ladens-porn-collection-253768
DXer said
Anthrax attacks and the ‘Disease Detectives’: Something’s Killing Me explores horror which left five dead
10th September 2017 by April Neale
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/anthrax-attacks-and-the-disease-detectives-somethings-killing-me-explores-horror-which-left-five-dead/
A still from the Something’s Killing Me episode which looks at the CDC’s ‘Disease Detectives’
Something’s Killing Me on HLN tonight delves into the deadly spate of Anthrax attacks which terrorized the nation back in 2001.
The ‘Amerithrax’ attacks, which started a week after 9/11, saw patients in Florida, New York, and Washington, D.C., being admitted to hospitals with mysterious and sometimes fatal bacterial infections.
It came after letters containing Anthrax spores were mailed to a string of media outlets across the country.
The first person to die was Robert Stevens, a British photo editor for the National Enquirer and the Sun supermarket tabloid.
Four others were also killed, and 17 more people became infected.
As the cases started to appear across the country, the CDC had to mobilize in a bid to find out what was causing the deaths and to trace the origins.
Scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins became the main suspect after the crimes were investigated by the FBI. In 2008, prior to indictment, he killed himself.
Tonight HLN looks at the work of the CDC’s “Disease Detectives”, who are the front line for domestic terrorism attacks involving pathogens.
Something’s Killing Me will show how a medical investigation ramped up into a criminal case and the subsequent frantic search for a suspect.
Hosted by Emmy nominee BD Wong, the episode looks at the hard and methodical work the responders do to prevent and to mitigate these attacks.
Something’s Killing Me splices interviews with journalists, and those who were there at the time.
The victims, their families, and the attending doctors’ recollections are woven into real event re-enactments which take us on a chilling look back in time.
Comment:
I know BD Wong from watching the tv show “Law and Order”. Last night I was disturbed to find that Captain Donald “Don” Cragen had been arrested for the murder of a sex trafficker that SVU had been investigating. He was set up. I think that if BD Wong’s character had appeared in that episode he would been in Cragen’s corner.
It would be a real honor if BD Wong ever appeared at Syracuse Stage — where over the years quite a few Law and Order actors have appeared (to include the actor who played DA Jack McCoy).
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
I believe the show will air again tonight at 10pm ET There is also a link on “YouTube” posted by “rosi” but I don’t recommend clicking on the link.
Background of show:
Exclusive trailer: BD Wong follows bizarre medical mysteries on HLN’s Something’s Killing Me
13th August 2017 by April Neale
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/smallscreen/exclusive-trailer-bd-wong-follows-bizarre-medical-mysteries-on-hlns-somethings-killing-me/
HLN’s chilling new documentary series Something’s Killing Me starts tonight — with Mr. Robot star BD Wong guiding us through six episodes delving into life or death medical mysteries.
The series opens tonight with a puzzling disease. In the episode, titled Hope, we see a grieving husband and caring community rally around a young mother stricken with cancer.
As the family must make arrangements for a funeral, doctors discover a shocking secret.
Each of the six episodes will explore lesser known medical conditions that result in near-death struggles.
Thematically, each of the episodes will involve the race against time to figure out what the ailment actually is, and the backstory of how the patient found help.
Also, human malfeasance and criminal behavior are woven into the narratives.
Something’s Killing Me uses interviews with the victims, families, and doctors combined with scene-setting reenactments produced by the CNN Original Series Development team.
They interviewed doctors, scientists, and even, in some of the episodes, federal investigators, who work in tandem as “medical sleuths to solve the mystery” to save a life.
HLN’s Something’s Killing Me will air in six parts, each with a different story
B.D. Wong said he found the series “fascinating”. He added: “It’s unlike anything else on television. It combines captivating life or death mysteries with a high standard of journalistic integrity. I’m really excited to be part of it…the stories are mind-blowing.”
After tonight’s Hope episode, next week’s episode will be The Strange Case of Dr. Gilmer (Airdate: August 20, 9pm ET/PT) where criminal doings are afoot in a small town, and a doctor with a strange disorder is at the center of it.
Following are Into Madness (Airdate: August 27, 9pm ET/PT) where a mysterious mental disorder that mimics schizophrenia befalls a young girl.
Disease Detectives (Airdate: September 10, 9pm ET/PT) is the story of CDC disease detectives hunting the source of fatal bacterial infections with a criminal twist.
Family Curse (Airdate: September 17, 9pm ET/PT) reveals a bizarre genetic disease that prevents sleep.
The final episode is Angel of Death (Airdate: September 24, 9pm ET/PT) where after patients begin dying, an investigation turns up a surprise.
Something’s Killing Me is the latest in a string of CNN Original Series, following How It Really Happened with Hill Harper, and Beyond Reasonable Doubt.
Another, Inside Secret Places with Chris Cuomo, is slated to premiere in Fall 2017 along with the second season of How It Really Happened with Hill Harper, which will feature recounts of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Casey Anthony trial, Gianni Versace murder and more.
Something’s Killing Me airs Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on HLN following The Hunt with John Walsh at 8pm. Episodes will additionally replay on HLN the following Mondays at 10pm ET and Saturdays at 10pm.
DXer said
When Lew is not living or jet-setting abroad, he lives in Key West. We will hope for the best for him and his loved ones.
Maybe in his next novel, he could include a hurricane set centuries ago.
Or maybe he could write a heist novel where the perps take advantage during a mass evacuation, to include movement of master paintings.
Steve Kurkjian addresses the Isabella Gardner heist yesterday. The show also discusses forgeries.
Off-topic:
Mysteries In The Museum: Crime And Deception In Art
By Lucy Nalpathanchil & Carmen Baskauf • 19 hours ago
http://wnpr.org/post/mysteries-museum-crime-and-deception-art
DXer said
A de Kooning, a Theft and an Enduring Mystery – The New York Times
Comment:
It would make total sense to me if the wife, at age 24, was the model for the painting in New York City.
If the son has mental difficulties, he’ll probably come forward with an explanation when he’s feeling better. It would make a fun movie so perhaps someone will approach him about rights to the story. (This is all assuming it is not a forgery and part of a con).
DXer said
There are 16 pages of text in the IMCS chapter on Ivins being sought — and the table of contents (re AQ) is 22 pages for a total of 38 pages that were hoped would be produced before the first EMP.
With the US government so slow in doing really basic tasks like pulling documents, do you really imagine that this country is safe from a major catastrophe? Everyone in government would have to majorly step up in their game.
Not being able to rely on the US government, it would cost you next to nothing to prepare an EMP box (using an old microwave). You can pick up a mobile CB radio for about $35 on Amazon.
DXer said
DOJ only provided this email to Mara Linscott because I specifically identified it. Who at the DOJ or FBI pulled the emails to and from Patricia Fellows and Mara Linscott in September and October 2001. They should be provided so that they can be uploaded to the thousands of emails processed and uploaded at the USAMRMC Electronic Reading Room. They should never have been culled.
DOJ For 4 Years Withheld This Email (Message 0438) Written By Bruce Ivins On The Date Of Alleged Mailing Of Deadly Anthrax ; GAO Should Obtain A Full Set Of Emails From DOJ, Including Those That DOJ Has Still Failed To Produce
Posted on March 1, 2012
DXer said
Below is an example of one of the September 15, 2001 emails the FBI has failed to produce. Dillon asked for all documents showing how he spent his time in September and October 2001 and the FBI withheld all of his emails — even emails they quoted in spinning the FBI’s “Ivins Theory.”
September 15, 2001,
“I am incredibly sad and angry at what happened, now that it has sunk in. Sad for all of the victims, their families, their friends.
And angry. Very angry. Angry at those who did this, who support them, who coddle them, and who excuse them.”
DXer said
Here is a post on the issue from June 2016:
* Ivins/Amerithrax-Notebook 4282 FOIA follow-up by DXer
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 13, 2016
Re Ivins/Amerithrax-Notebook 4282
Sandra and Joseph,
Did Medcom inquire of DOJ about Notebook 4282? If Medcom inquired of DOJ, did Medcom get a reply?
The notebook has an entry on the date of the first mailing of anthrax in 2001 that murdered 5 people. I am informed and believe that it also has entries on 9/14/2001 and 9/15/2001, the date that the FBI theorized Ivins prepared the anthrax.
The FBI claims Ivins had no legitimate reason to be in the lab. In contrast, I think the notebook will evidence a virulence study that shows Ivins was responsible for the nighttime and weekend animal checks. (According to lab tech Mara Linscott, such checks were a one-person job and took a couple hours, such as what was observed).
I have suggested instead that an Al Qaeda operative Adnan El-Shukrijumah from Florida was responsible — was the mailer. He was an associate of Mohamed Atta who met with Atta in a Sarasota residence. Adnan told his mother on or about September 11, 2001 that he was coming back into the country. Adnan was staying with Al Qaeda’s #3 KSM. KSM was getting briefed by Al Qaeda’s lab director Yazid Sufaat, who I have interviewed. Sufaat does not deny responsibility for the anthrax mailings and instead pled the Fifth.
The Army and FBI has not treated the issue with the expedition warranted under the FOIPA statute.
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.
Background:
Under the animal protocols, there would be 3X’s checks (including a night check) and daily check for bacteremia and determination of serum antibody levels; for a subcutaneous challenge done in Building 1425, Dr. Ivins would do the bacteremia study in Rm. 313.
Posted on November 8, 2011
DXer said
Do the notebook pages that the FBI has wrongfully failed to return to USAMRIID all these years provide detail relating to Dr. Ivins’ scheduled night guinea pig and mouse checks?
Dr. Bruce Ivins calendar for September and October of 2001
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 9, 2010
The claim that Dr. Ivins had no reason to be in the lab on those nights and weekends was simply a malicious lie.
DXer said
According to Mara Linscott, nights and animal checks typically took a couple hours and were a one-person job.
He recorded an average of a couple hours from August 31 through September 16.
Thus, his time in Bacteriology and in Suite B3 are confirmed by his time records.
Given the spinning the FBI did about what Ivins was doing in the month of September 2001, it is outrageous that the FBI withheld the lab notebook containing the contemporaneous notes.
If the federal judge finds that the withholding was in bad faith, the statute contemplates that a Special Counsel determine the officer or employee “primarily responsible” for the withholding.
Did AUSA Lieber instruct the FBI to withhold the notes? She is the one who failed to disclose his work with the small animals. She is the one who spun an Ivins Theory to FBI Director Mueller.
Or was it someone in the FBI Laboratory. Was it Vahid Majidi?
Internet posters were glad to fill the void with their speculation.
For example, one internet poster wrote:
“On the 14th, 15th and 16th, Dr. Ivins again worked long unexplained evening hours in his lab. He evidently completed his preparation of the media anthrax powders on the 16th. The media letters were mailed on the evening of September 17th. On that evening, Dr. Ivins was in Building 1425 for 13 minutes, from 7:00 to 7:13 PM, but didn’t enter the Bacteriology Division. He had a 11 hour, 50 minute “window” to drive to New Jersey to mail the letters before he logged back into Building 1425 at 7:03 AM on the morning of the 18th.”
Of course, the guy never bothered to note that it was confirmed that Dr. Ivins had attended his group the evening of September 17. Oops.
Nor did he ever express any interest in the lab notebooks showing what Ivins was doing on September 14th and 15th.
“Bad faith” includes willful ignorance.
DXer said
With Patricia Fellows not talking, Stephen Little, who like the numerous other USAMRIID scientists is very helpful (and thinks Ivins is innocent), can explain about animal protocols regarding subcutaneous challenges of mice, guinea pigs and rabbits in Building 1425. Then when Notebook 4282 is produced, he may be able to walk reporters through it.
USAMRIID today has provided a copy of the September 2001 passive mouse protocol
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 23, 2011
The Passive Mouse Protocol Produced Today Under FOIA Confirms Dr. Ivins Was The Scientist Who Vaccinated And Then Challenged The Mice Under BSL-3 Level Conditions
Under The Mouse Protocol (As Under The Rabbit Protocol), Dr. Ivins Was Tasked With Taking Part In Immunization, Bleeding, Challenge And Observation Of The Animals
Posted on January 1, 2012
Bruce Ivins’ co-authors can explain the rabbit and other animal protocols that applied to the subcutaneous challenges in B3 in Building 1425 conducted in September and October 2001.
Posted on November 9, 2011
DXer said
Dr. Little would typically set up the animal protocol. Then post-1992 he would rely on Dr. Ivins to do the work in the B3 biocontainment laboratory.
Click to access LittleDeposition.pdf
He explained at civil deposition that he didn’t think Ivins was responsible — lacking the equipment and the know-how.
But if the Lab Notebook 4282 is shared with Pat Fellows and records the passive mouse experiment from September 2001, he would be an excellent go-to person at interpreting the notes, as he appears to have one of the investigators on the protocol.
Q Where was your office relative to Dr. Ivins?
A Around the corner.
Q Okay. Within twenty feet?
A Never measured it but possibly.
Q Okay. So you would see him daily during work hours?
A Yes. (p. 25)
Q Outside of work did you have any relationship with Dr. Ivins socially?
A Only on TDY.
Q And TDY was?
A Temporary duty. We went on a business trip.
Q Like going to —
A Bioport.
Q — a conference? Bioport, okay.
A Or a conference.
Q So you would see him daily during a workweek and then these occasional trips that were taken; was it just you and Dr. Ivins or were there other people customarily on these trips?
A Other people would probably go to these trips too.
Q Okay. How often would they occur?
A Once a year. Bioport [in Michigan] was more frequently for a period of time.
Q Would Pat Fellows go with you on these trips?
A On occasion.
Q How about Dr. Welkos?
A Yes.
Q How about — I always want to say — Mara Linscott, would she go with you?
A I, I don’t recall. I don’t recall her on a trip.
Q And was your relationship with Dr. Ivins strictly business or would you consider him a friend?
A A friend.
Q Besides the, seeing him daily at business and going on these business trips with him [to Michigan], would you,
what type of socialization would you have with Dr. Ivins?
A Very, very infrequent.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
On September 10, for example, Bruce Ivins arrived for his night check of the animals at 8 p.m. and left at 10:50 p.m.
Click to access 20011018_AccessRosters.pdf
The day before he arrived about the same 8 p.m. time, but spent almost an hour more.
The day before, he arrived about 7 p.m. for his animal check but he only spent about an hour and a half.
With the typical range varying from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2, the more interesting correlation would have been with the number of animals that had died that day.
But did the FBI Agent, whose last assignment had been a retail undercover drug buy, even look at the corresponding notebook so as to know what Ivins was doing in the lab? (No).
Later, after Ivins’ suicide, was he worried that he would be blamed for Ivins’ death like he had been blamed for the death of a witness in the drug case? (Yes).
So people never bothered to check their work or correct their mistakes because no one wanted to be criticized for the Ivins Theory like agents had been criticized for The Hatfill Theory.
Majidi referred things to the NAS while forbidding the NAS to address Ivins’ guilt or innocence — thus alibi evidence was not even allowed to be considered.
With the challenge two weeks prior, the time Ivins spent on September 14 and 15 was totally normal and to be expected. Indeed, it was mandated under the animal protocol. And it was to be expected that the series of those night checks ended.
Any qualified lab person reviewing the lab entries would have known that.
FBI WMD Director Vahid Majidi’s comments at the press conference about the two person rule demonstrate that he was not qualified to review or understand the time entries relating to Ivins access to the B3 laboratory.
The idea that Ivins was preparing the mailings even before 9/11 is especially stupid.
On September 17, 2001, by the way, Ivins provably took leave to address an issue with one of the children at school. The work with small animals and the reason for leave was explained by Ivins’ lawyer to AUSA Lieber.
AUSA Lieber had already gotten in trouble for visiting the jihadi in jail — after superiors directed that a deal had been cut and that it was forbidden. She didn’t want to get in trouble for the mischaracterizing in her memo of why Ivins was in the B3 Laboratory. That was why she never disclosed Ivins’ work with the small animals and the FBI, to this day, has refused to produce the relevant documents.
DXer said
Attorney Paul Kemp, in a conference moderated by Lew and organized by Ken Dillon and an organization at UCLA, confirms that he explained the small animal experiments when he met with the AUSAs/agents in late July 2008.
Now imagine what the lucid Attorney Kemp could have done had the FBI returned his notebook 4282 showing his work with animals and reason for being in the lab (which was seized in 2007)? Or the documents seized in 2007 showing the rabbit challenge in early October 2001? AUSA Lieber did not even mention the rabbits in her lengthy memorandum summarizing the matter (The Amerithrax Investigation Summary).
DXer summarizes the documentary evidence relating to Dr. Ivins work with rabbits (nowhere mentioned by the DOJ) which demolishes the FBI’s claim that Dr. Ivins had no reason to be in the lab
Posted by Lew Weinstein on July 3, 2012
DXer said
The Passive Mouse Study Involved Up To 320 Mice And Required Observation For 14 Days ; It Seems That The Prosecutor and Investigators Did Not Understand This
Posted by Lew Weinstein on December 24, 2011
“PROTOCOL TITLE: Passive protection of CBA/J mice from Bacillus anthraces infection with specific antiserum”
I. NON-TECHNICAL SYNOPSIS: For several years, research efforts at USAMRIID have focused on development of improved vaccines against anthrax. Investigators have also sought to demonstrate a correlate for specific, vaccine-induced immunity. Therefore, we propose to passively vaccinate mice with anti-PA serum to protect them against a challenge with spores of either the Vollum 1B, Ames or Sterne strains of B. anthraces. These isolates were chosen for challenge because they vary with respect to virulence and the goal of this study is to passively protect mice form challenge with an isolate of high virulence. We hope to demonstrate that mice can be protected against an anthrax spore challenge by antibody acquired via passive immunization.”
DXer said
FBI interview statement: If someone came in off hours it was to work on the animal experiments – this could take approximately two hours and was usually a one-person job.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 1, 2012
Dr. Mara Linscott told the FBI that she needed to see her lab notebooks to refresh her recollection of details, but that checking on the animals would take approximately two hours and was usually a one-person job; the FBI provided the one publication on which she worked involving the former Zawahiri associate but she notes that USAMRIID was a military institution and thus not all of the projects would be published.
Posted on November 27, 2011
The DOJ Civil Division Notes That It Is Not In Genuine Dispute That After 2001, A Short-lived Two Person Rule (Implemented Early 2002) Prevented The Same Pattern Of Hours That AUSA Rachel Lieber Mistakenly Relied Upon As Proof Of Ivins’ Guilt
Posted on November 28, 2011
The scientist who made the large amount of virulent Ames that is missing, who was thanked by the former Zawahiri associate for providing technical assistance re the Ames, is the person who could explain about the rabbits [and mice] ; but she’s not talking.
Posted on November 9, 2011
DXer said
DXer said
Although the bloodhounds did not alert to Bruce Ivins, the bloodhounds DID alert to Patricia Fellows, the lab technician spinning things against Ivins. (Willman, p. 200).
I have previously discussed (as did Scott Shane in an important NYT article) that there is no reason to credit the reliability of this “scientific” method used of the anthrax-smelling Lulu and Tinkerbelle. But it is another illustration how the FBI simply pick and chose what rationalizations to pull out.
Take polygraphing as an example. (Relatedly, the scientist who refused to take a polygraph (was it PF?) was on pretty sound ground in questioning the reliability of polygraphing.) When Ivins passed his polygraph with flying colors, the FBI brought in a new expert who reinterpreted things and reasoned that he was just a really good liar.
Where supposed science is involved, that’s a bullshit approach.
Like Hatfill and Berry, Ivins just represented a vulnerable target that was thought amenable to such spin. If the FBI hadn’t staffed Amerithrax with first-year agents who were compartmentalized (see lead investigator’s Lambert’s public criticisms), the public might credit the FBI’s proposed solution.
The FBI sought to pressurize Ivins to find out what he knew. But then when he committed suicide, things went into a strictly CYA mode.
Where Taylor and Majidi and AUSA Lieber said Ivins had no reason to be in the lab, it was incumbent on them to show the contemporaneous labs reflecting what he was doing.
It was — and IS — highly immoral — to continue to withhold them.
Key FBI Lab people (to include Majidi and Hassell, as I recall) then went to work for the Army in biodefense — and were in a position to make sure that an Ivins Theory wasn’t debunked.
For example, they limited the review after the Dugway debacle (where virulent Ames was mistakenly sent to dozens of labs worldwide) to post-2002.
Including 2001 would have shown that their entire process-of-elimination approach was crock.
But there was to be no picking up of the scent absent following the rule of law represented by FOIA.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
The suggestion by internet poster Ed that the animals were not in B3 — which remained the premise of his reasoning throughout his dozens of posts in 2011 on the subject — was extremely clueless and uninformed. (see his webpage detailing his train wrecks in 2011 on this issue).
Before that, he says he was confused about where the keypad readers which he acknowledges led to “hundreds of mistakes” on his part. (His argument was premised on his specious claim that the animals were not in the BSL-3 Laboratory).
Moreover, it never occurred to him to ask the FBI for a copy of the lab notebook relating to the animal experiments — because he only was interested in bloviating and speculating about guilt for murder rather than actually reconstructing how Bruce Ivins spent his time in the B3 in September 2001 based on the contemporaneous documents (rather than a prosecutor’s or investigator’s CYA assertions).
A real analyst knows what information is needed to form a conclusion, and goes about obtaining it. A real analyst relies on evidence rather than conjecture.
The FBI has failed to produce the pages relating to an Ivins Theory from the Lambert memo — a subject of Dillon’s federal court lawsuit. (CIA review, by the way, is not needed for review of those pages relating to an Ivins Theory; the FBI is the originating agency).
Relatedly, the FBI refused to provide the documents reflecting his time on his computer during those hours he was there.
A record of Ivins surfing on the internet would have doomed AUSA Lieber’s cotton candy Ivins Theory — just as his work with the small animals in the B3 does.
FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) agents set up a work area in 2004 in Bruce Ivins office to copy his electronic files created September 2001 and October 2001 but the FBI has refused to provide the documents obtained by FBI’s CART agents in response to Ken Dillon’s FOIA request
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 23, 2016
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
The stupidest thing ever written about Amerithrax? That would be the theory of internet poster Ed who argued for years that the animals were not in the B3 and that Ivins did not perform the scheduled animal checks.
Ed’s theory of the case? “His wife ran a day care center at the time of the attacks, Ivins had many contacts with children, and the facts indicate that a child of about 6 was used to do the actual writing on the anthrax letters.”
Of course, the theory proved useful given that the FBI expert concluded that Ivins probably did not write the anthrax letters.
DXer said
It is important to understand how outrageous it is that the FBI is withholding contemporaneous evidence showing Bruce Ivins whereabouts and activities in September and October 2001.
For example, the whereabouts of individual discussed at pages 13-14 of Amerithrax Part 28 of 59 was unaccounted for the 15 hour window the first mailing.
Time-line First Mailing (4:30 p.m. 09/17/2001 through 11:30 a.m., 09/18/2001)
and 22 hours during the window of the second mailing.
Time-line Second Mailing (4:30 p.m., 10/06/2001 through 11:30 a.m., 10/09/2001)
https://vault.fbi.gov/Amerithrax/Amerithrax%20Part%2028%20of%2059/view
Many of us would not be able to establish our activities months or years earlier on a particular day.
The individual refused to take a polygraph. The individual was excluded upon a meeting with the AUSA, however, because the AUSA chose to exclude the person. (Okay.)
Rather than relying on an analysis of the contemporaraneous evidence, the process of elimination relied upon by the FBI was not based on evidence, but just based on the assertion — the conclusion — of the prosecutor.
In the case of Bruce Ivins, however, at the time the prosecutors asserted he was guilty, they had not yet even obtained the relevant contemporaneous evidence! Their conclusion and assertion then was CONTRADICTED by the documentary and other evidence obtained.
For example, the FBI did not obtain the evidence he attended his group therapy session on the evening of September 17 and October 8 until well AFTER the FBI publicly claimed that he was the mailer. The FBI had speciously claimed that everyone else in the world could be excluded whereas Bruce Ivins could not.
from DXer … Dr. Bruce Ivins had group therapy sessions [for addiction to pain meds from his leg problems] scheduled on both September 17, 2001 and on October 8, 2001, the same dates the FBI says he was mailing the anthrax letters
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 9, 2010
It was especially baseless because US Attorney falsely claimed that the genetically matching Ames was only ever kept in Building 1425 when numerous scientists and the documentary evidence have established that the genetically matching was long kept in numerous places in Building 1412 also — allowing 100s of additional others to have access. The fact that hundreds more had access — and that was just at USAMRIID — required hundreds more be eliminated.
Ha! The FBI never even knew where Al Qaeda operative Adnan El-Shukrijumah was during those windows of mailing. They just knew that he was travelling from KSM’s house, where the AQ anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat had been staying, to the US.
(Well, actually, most of the FBI Agents and Postal Inspectors did not know that — because the investigation was highly compartmentalized. Those in compartmented stovepipes had no business making conclusions at all.
DXer said
Why hasn’t the Army uploaded Bruce Ivins’ Lab Notebook #4010 relating to his distribution of the Ames b. anthracis genetically matching the mailed anthrax spores that killed 5 people?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on September 20, 2015
Is the answer that the FBI took the only copy and that the Army leadership is too ineffectual too ineffectual to get it back?
19950124_LabNotebook 3716(redacted) (18811 KB) — Posted: 08/24/2012
19950618_LabNotebook4103(redacted) (107678 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
19960903_LabNotebook3919(redacted) (2993 KB) — Posted: 05/10/2011
19980106_LabNotebook4000(redacted) (155721 KB) — Posted: 06/21/2011
19981202_LabNotebook3745(redacted) (32444 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
20000114_LabNotebook4237(redacted) (16714 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
20000216_LabNotebook 4240(redacted) (7698 KB) — Posted: 08/24/2012
20000216_LabNotebook 4241_B01-11(redacted) (6173 KB) — Posted: 08/24/2012
20000303_LabNotebook3921(redacted) (22150 KB) — Posted: 06/02/2011
20000608_LabNotebook4281(redacted) (6568 KB) — Posted: 05/13/2011
20000828_LabNotebook4306(redacted) (4286 KB) — Posted: 05/03/2011
20010809_LabNotebook4383(redacted) (28822 KB) — Posted: 04/29/2011
Notebook 3655 redacted.pdf (19003 KB) — Posted: 04/28/2016
Notebook 3945 redacted.pdf (12176 KB) — Posted: 04/28/2016
Notes and Sample Anaylsis from Notebook 3268 (19684 KB) — Posted: 01/05/2012