* URGENT -PENDING LITIGATION – FBI’s Dave Hardy should also produce the requested Notebook 4010 and 4037
Posted by DXer on December 14, 2017
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Posted by DXer on December 14, 2017
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks?
DXer said
Update: The Joint Scheduling Report is due to be filed tomorrow. The Interim Major Case Summary (IMCS) written by Richard Lambert is the major investigative report of the Fall 2001 anthrax attacks. Ken Dillon’s current request focuses on 59 pages, including the outline of the document and the text of the Ivins section..
This material contains what DOJ call “equities” from eights OGAs. All eight received consultation referral packages in June 2016. The DOJ reports that three are still pending; five have responded. The FBI has followed up with those 3 OGAs.
Meaning, Ken won’t be opening the pages for Christmas. No need to have NORAD track Santa.
Moreover, worse yet, I was mistaken that Notebook 4010 and 4037 were being processed. (Notebook 4282, as has been discussed, has been uploaded a while ago in response to Ken Dillon’s and his counsel’s good work).
Unfortunately, we need FOIA counsel Scott Hodes’ excellent help in obtaining Notebook 4010 and 4037 also. Notebook 4010 relates to the so-called “murder weapon.” Ken Dillon, as linked, has exhausted his administrative remedies under FOIA.
DXer said
The DOJ has found the notebooks (i.e., Notebook 4010 and 4037) and are consulting. In an efficient bureaucracy, they would be emailed to the USAMRMC FOIA Officer, and then processed the same day and uploaded within a day, as soon as the webmaster is able. But the way it may work in the real world is it goes up the food chain at DOJ to Dave Hardy who then will forward it to some fellow at the Army (Mr. W., who asked for them years ago)…. who eventually takes it from the Army FOIA office queue and then forwards to the USAMRMC FOIA Officer and then two weeks later it — it gets uploaded to the reading room. In the meantime, of course, Korea may launch an ICBM testing to see if the (possibly) genetically matching Ames silanized anthrax is burned up upon re-entry into the atmosphere. This notebook will show that Ivins did not use silica in growing Flask 1029.
There is no way the USG can keep our country safe, it sometimes seems to me, because large bureaucracies are too inefficient to act quickly. The left hand often doesn’t know what the right hand is doing — the thumb often doesn’t even know what the pinky is doing.
DXer said
In his recent book, Recounting the Anthrax Attacks, Scott Decker talks about Bruce Ivins drives. He reports that AUSA Lieber imagined that it fit an established pattern that could be admitted as evidence and thus preventing an alibi. In other words, everyone had an alibi for this and that activity during the day — and ALSO when they were home at night. But AUSA Lieber, faced with Ivins alibi at night (work, church, purchases, emails etc. ) — and then early morning when he showed up at 7 a.m. or s — was forced to imagine Bruce Ivins taking a round trip 7 hour trip in the dead of night. She imagined that he could leave unnoticed with three adults in the small house and then arrive back shortly before then turning around and going to work at 7ish. If Bruce’s son would just agree to a filmed interview, her wild speculation perhaps could be put to rest.
(Bruce did once travel to Ithaca when his wife and kids were out of town to leave treats on a fair maiden’s doorstep; I used to travel further to Ithaca from Boston once a month — romantic pining will do much to fuel long road trips).
But Scott Decker, in discussing alibi, somehow curiously fails to introduce the documentary evidence than what AUSA Lieber (incorrectly) imagined would be admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. The Rules of Evidence aside, if his intention and mission is to be evidence-based, Scott Decker should have provided the documentary evidence and then relegated AUSA Lieber’s bullshit speculation to a footnote. [ Stanley and the profilers, if they knew the background, would have a field day in profiling why Lieber did not like Ivins after learning Bruce handed a blindfolded Mara a sex toy at a Georgetown sex shop (alongside Pat Fellows). (It may have been juvenile but these folks did that — for example, Pat ruined Bruce’s glasses by using a green magic marker on them.) ]
On each of the nights that Bruce Ivins travelled to Princeton, he had group therapy. And the FBI never bothered to obtain the therapist’s computer records before Ivins suicide and the FBI’s press conference announcing an Ivins Theory. If they had done their job and collected such centrally important evidence on a timely basis (and had their computer people retrieve the info from the crashed computer), maybe Ivins would still be alive today and Amerithrax would have been solved. But they were not looking for exculpatory evidence. They had a theory. And anything that didn’t fit their theory — fueled by a desire to declare victory and get promoted — was like the silica that needed to be swept under the rug.
DXer said
Now, let’s see. Where did Scott Decker in his recent book RECOUNTING THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS disclose the centrally important “Silicon Signature” that was the focus of so many weekly AMX Science Weekly Updates — in which it was found that Ivins’ Flask 1029 tested negative. Huh? A centrally important forensic signature — pointing AWAY from Flask 1029 as the source. And the issue is not discussed and its implications explained? As John Kiel established in experiments done at the Air Force lab, where the anthrax is grown in a silanizing solution, the anthrax does not float any better but it does serve a purpose. As the article by Hirota cited by Dr. Decker indirectly attests, one function is that it resists destruction by sunlight.
Dr. Decker oversaw experiments involving the testing of different samples using silicon. It was a key to his group’s science effort. Yet suddenly the issue is swept under the carpet like so much dust when it comes to rationalize and justify the reasonableness of an Ivins Theory.
Notebook 4010, if the FBI ever ends its concealment, would show that Ivins did not use silicon or a silanizing solution to grow his Ames.
.
DXer said
Now does anyone see Meglumine and Diatrizoate mentioned ANYWHERE in Scott Decker’s new book?!
If you want to see a staggering amount of exculpatory information being withheld, look no further than Scott’s attempt to spin his decision-making in Amerithrax.
Pray tell, Scott, why didn’t the issue deserve discussion in light of your claims? At the same time, the FBI is wrongfully withholding Notebook 4010 — after Scott took the only copy from USAMRIID in late November 2007 and did not return it. Scott, even your own public library requires you return books. At the least, when you accuse some fellow of murder it is basic fair play that he has the documents in order to defend himself. The FBI should be ordered to return Ivins’ notebooks to the USAMRIID library via the FOIA officer. They are all contained on a single CD, according to the USAMRIID librarian (as recounted by the USAMRMC FOIA Officer).
April 26, 2012 FBI Quantico Publication: The Detection of Meglumine and Diatrizoate In No Way Pointed To Bruce Ivins As The Perpetrator Or Involved At All; Meglumine and Diatrizoate were both detected in the USAMRIID RMR 1029 sample — but Meglumine and Diatrizoate were NOT detected in the 2001 letter spore evidence
Posted by Lew Weinstein on May 9, 2012
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/april-2012-fbi-quantico-publication-the-detection-of-meglumine-and-diatrizoate-in-the-mailed-anthrax-in-no-way-pointed-to-bruce-ivins-as-the-perpetrator-or-involved-at-all-meglumine-and-diatrizo/
DXer said
FBI’s Hardy frequently (bizarrely) claims that there is no public interest in production of this or that. All the while the New York Times’ Scott Shane requested Notebook 4010 over 7 years ago (on December 22, 2010) and FBI Agents keep writing books on the subject — in exchange for money — that expressly and selectively refer to the documents.
The job of the FBI is to comply with FOIA — not make it so that only FBI Agents can be paid for books and movie rights — while promotinge their own idiosyncratic and unproven theory of the whodunnit where the deceased is not able to defend himself.
DXer said
In the first sentence of his forthcoming book, Scott Decker thanks Ed L.! Bwahaha! You remember. The guy who for many years posted fake nude pictures of women without their permission. Ed thinks a First Grader wrote the Fall 2001 anthrax letters, and thinks that the writing is not Bruce Ivins’ handwriting. (He’s right at least that it is not Bruce Ivins’ handwriting).
DXer said
I am including below the Table of Contents of this book on Amerithrax. Now I want you to compare his Table of Contents to the 22 page Table of Contents from Richard Lambert’s 2006 memorandum to Robert Mueller.
1, Beyond Ground Zero
2. Second Wave
3. Under Attack
4. Denial
5. A Zillion Spores
6. Floating through Air
7. Assault on Brentwood
8. The Springfield Operation
9. Persons of Interest
10. A Forensic Strategy
11. Collecting Ames
12. Many Directions
13. The Ponds
14. Genetics
15. Consent to Search
16. American Eagle
17. Discrepancy
18. Midnight Access
19. US Secret Service
20. Change of Command
21. Increased Scrutiny
22. Inconsistency and Contradiction
23. Final Resolution
DXer said
It’s really rude that former FBI Agent Scott Decker would use “inconsistency and contradiction” as claimed evidence of Bruce Ivins’ guilt when HE is the one responsible for taking Bruce Ivins’ notebooks from him — and keeping the only copy. (And this withholding and concealment continues to this day). This HAS INCLUDED the notebook to Flask 1029, which Decker mistakenly conceived (and insisted) was the so-called “murder weapon” at the same time that his own testing on the Silicon Signature, time studies, and other scientific studies proved that it wasn’t. Ivins repeatedly complained that the FBI had not returned the notebooks he needed.
As Martin Hugh-Jones wrote to me as recently as today: “Remember that the GAO proved that the letters spores did not come from flask 1029.”
And how did you like Scott’s treatment of the samples from the Afghanistan lab?! Ha!
Now consider the opinion of the scientists doing the work for the FBI:
FBI genetics expert Claire Fraser-Liggett … I think that the (FBI’s use of the) evidence on science probably was misleading … I have no way to know whether or not Bruce Ivins was really the perpetrator
Posted on October 13, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/fbi-genetics-expert-claire-fraser-liggett-this-is-not-an-airtight-case-by-any-means/
Deposition Excerpt of Patricia Worsham in Stevens v. United States: Product Could Not Have Been Made At USAMRIID With Equipment She Has Seen At USAMRIID
Posted on July 16, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/deposition-excerpt-of-patricia-worsham-in-stevens-v-united-states-product-could-not-have-been-made-at-usamriid-with-equipment-she-has-seen-at-usamriid/
[You’ll see Dr. Worsham appearing frequently in reports in the AMX Weekly Science updates.]
Dr. Ivins’ assistant, who helped the FBI with the Fall 2001 anthrax letters and incoming samples, thinks Dr. Ivins is innocent
Posted by Lew Weinstein on March 2, 2014
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2014/03/02/dr-ivins-assistant-who-helped-the-fbi-with-the-fall-2001-anthrax-letters-and-incoming-samples-thinks-dr-ivins-is-innocent/
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
As Hugh-Jones could explain:
“What the GAO did was to quantify the four different strains of Ames spores in the a letter and in the flask. The genetics of the stains matched but the relative quantities were very different.
Therefore the letter spores could not have been cultured from Flask 1029, as claimed by the FBI, but had to come from another source, ?Dugway.”
As for my personal theory, I think Al Qaeda infiltrated a DARPA project [there are numerous possibilities], got the Ames, Yazid Sufaat did the heavy lifting, and handed off the anthrax to Adnan El-Shukrijumah at a meeting at KSM’s house on or about 9/11 for mailing in the US.
But I’m mainly just the “go-get-the-documents” guy.
Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat is actually very amiable. I would much prefer to read a book by him, so that we might learn something.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
In his recent book, former FBI Agent Scott Decker, writes of a FOIA request he made to the FBI about their supposedly anthrax-smelling bloodhounds.
“On November 6, 2015, I submitted a request pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act for any documents relating to human scent canines in Amerithrax. The FBI’s Records Management Division denied the request. An appeal was filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on January 14, 2016. Inexplicably, the appeal was also denied, the reason being, “the FBI could locate no indexed references to human-scent canines within the Amerithrax investigation records.” Thus, all information cited in the text is from my memory and could not be corroborated with documentation; some of which I drafted during my tenure on Amerithrax.”
I have to say, now I feel bad about taking such a strident tone toward a fellow who is clearly smart, well-intentioned and acting in good faith. (And I’m sorry about the health issues). He believes what he believes. If he’s been on the receiving end of an inexplicable denial of a FOIA request from the FBI, he’s all right in my book. If ever he is in town, I’m buying drinks. If I’m testy tonight, it’s because UofM admission decisions come out at 3 p.m. on Wednesday. And, truth be told, I envy the guy his storied career. Whitey Bulger, bank robbers, lions and tigers, oh my. I have a nephew who studied molecular biology (he is doing cancer research) who similarly is thinking that he would prefer more action, on a shorter time-frame.
But Scott, now that we’re drinking buddies, and I’ll provide the drambui, understand that Dr. Ayman Zawahiri was behind the anthrax attacks and in the compartmentalized investigation you weren’t privy to key information. Only Lambert saw everything.
DXer said
Former FBI Agent Scott Decker writes in his $38 book (thank you for the review copy) about Joseph Farchaus in connection with the Princeton NJ mailings::
“After a thorough investigation, no evidence was found to associate Joseph Farchaus with any of the anthrax letters, and his name was removed from the persons of interest list.” (p. 220)
Go ahead. Google. I dare ya.
DXer said
In his 200+ page book, by an FBI scientist who accuses Bruce Ivins of being a murderer, you would think that he would have bothered to disclose the FBI expert’s handwriting expert’s opinion that concluded that Bruce Ivins probably did not write Fall 2001 anthrax letters. Do you think Scott Decker’s responses maybe are misleading and his omission intended to mislead?
In the formal handwriting examination conducted in the Amerithrax investigation, it was concluded that “Bruce E. Ivins probably did not write the writings appearing on the ‘anthrax’ envelopes and letters.” The Assistant US Attorney did not disclose that fact in the Amerithrax Investigative Summary.
Posted on August 13, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/in-the-formal-handwriting-examination-conducted-in-the-amerithrax-investigation-it-was-concluded-that-bruce-e-ivins-probably-did-not-write-the-writings-appearing-on-the-anthrax-envelopes-and/
The List Of Comparisons Done By FBI’s Handwriting Analyst Who Found Ivins Probably DId Not Write The Anthrax Letters Is 22 Pages Long; The FBI Advises DXer That No Comparison Of Mohammed Atta’s Handwriting Is Among The Many Dozens Listed That Were Provided The Amerithrax Task Force
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 28, 2014
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/the-list-of-comparisons-done-by-fbis-handwriting-analyst-who-found-ivins-probably-did-not-write-the-anthrax-letters-is-22-pages-long-the-fbi-advises-dxer-that-no-comparison-of-mohammed-attas-h/
The USG Has Denied FOIA Requests For Atta’s Handwriting Since The Fall 2001 Anthrax Mailings On Grounds It Could Interfere With Enforcement Proceedings
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 1, 2013
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/the-usg-has-denied-foia-requests-for-attas-handwriting-since-the-fall-2001-anthrax-mailings-on-grounds-it-could-interfere-with-enforcement-proceedings/
Here is another handwriting sample of Bruce Ivins — this one discussing the planned visit by the former Zawahiri associate being supplied virulent Ames in early May 1998
Posted by Lew Weinstein on April 7, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/here-is-another-handwriting-sample-of-bruce-ivins-this-one-discussing-the-planned-visit-by-the-former-zawahiri-associate-being-supplied-virulent-ames-in-early-may-1998/
DXer said
If Jared Kushner is indicted this week, the President is going to be very upset and, I suspect, looking for ways to demonstrate FBI Director Mueller doesn’t always get his analysis right. The best, most principled way, to test the correctness of FBI Director Mueller’s resolution of the Amerithrax investigation is to direct the FBI — when he visits today — to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. That statute embodies the rule of law. And regardless of our partisan emotions, most all of us can embrace the rule of law.
DXer said
For example, consider the revelation in the memo that Ames was detected in Afghanistan at Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab. Isn’t this what Vice President Pence urged be explored years ago?
The December 16, 2004 AMX Weekly Report stated:
“Analysis of samples collected OCONUS, for the presence of Bacillus anthracis
An OCONUS mission was conducted by FBI personnel from the WFO, HMRU, and partners from other intelligence agencies in May 2004. Numerous samples were taken from several sites including buildings, wells, and buried latrines. The samples were transported CONUS and were accessioned and processed by the BFAC. Three samples tested positive for the presence of Bacillus anthracis by PCR.
Further strain typing results from these samples revealed that these samples contain DNA from the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis, consistent with the evidence.”
DXer said
It turns out that both FBI and CIA testing detected the Ames in Afghanistan
The March 25, 2005 AMX Weekly Science Update explained:
“Separately obtained samples from the same OCONUS location by another US Government agency were strain-typed at Northern Arizona University. These samples were obtained prior to the May, 2004 sampling mission. These results are consistent with the earlier strain typing results described above.”
DXer said
FBI FOIA head David Hardy previously has released a declassified statement (to the NAS) that “The positive results were noted in one swab taken from the outside of an unopened medicine dropper package, …; one swab taken from a sink … and one swab from a drain hose.”
DXer said
The next deadline is Dec. 21 for a joint schedule. The lawsuit targets the 16 pages on Ivins and the 22 pages of the table of contents of a memorandum summarizing the investigation written by former lead investigator Richard Lambert to FBI Director Mueller. Those passages should take, what, about 20 minutes to make some minor (b)(6) redactions?
And the requested emails between Ivins and his technicians, Linscott and Fellows, should take about 5 minutes to process. Many thousands of emails have been uploaded at the USAMRIID website — these are the very ones that the DOJ relied upon and quoted in support in their “Ivins Theory” — they simply were culled, preventing them from being put in context.
Bottom-line: the requested production should be made tomorrow or next week, and then the parties can report that the requested production has been made.
DXer said
Kristie Friend, in her civil deposition, said that sometimes Bruce Ivins would email his technician, Mara, three times a day. Mara, who later came to be an MD, was very smart and a skilled laboratory technician. As Ms. Firend would explain, she could do math in her head. Pat and Mara worked in the B3 lab with the visiting University of Michigan researchers and Pat would accompany Bruce on travel to Michigan.
The FBI withheld for a half decade an email written on the date of mailing. Such emails are useful in constructing a timeline — and providing alibi evidence for Ivins.
Moreover, given that his technicians were the ones growing the virulent Ames, it is helpful in tracing the supply of Ames to other researchers, such as the virulent Ames that was supplied the University of Michigan researchers.
DOJ withheld — culled — emails to and from Ivins and Fellows/Linscott from August and September 2001 but then relied upon them, even quoted excerpts from them, in in spinning the DOJ’s “Ivins Theory.”
The Fellows/Linscott correspondence with Bruce Ivins should be produced. The Army has uploaded thousands of emails in their USAMRIID Electronic Reading Room. Emails are no less produceable just because they are relevant to the closed Amerithrax case.
The FBI has failed to produce the emails from Bruce Ivins to Mara Linscott (e.g., dated 9/15/2001 and 9/26/2001) that have times that would confirm her statement that he would go to the B3 to use the internet; she would know – he was emailing her.
Posted on November 30, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/the-fbi-has-failed-to-produce-the-emails-from-bruce-ivins-to-mara-linscott-e-g-dated-9152001-and-9262001-that-have-times-that-would-confirm-her-statement-that-he-would-go-to-the-b3-to-use-th/
The work with virulent Ames was done under Biolevel-3 and the University of Michigan researchers working with Dr. Ivins, Fellows and Linscott were required to receive anthrax and plague vaccinations in advance of the BL-3 work.
Posted by Lew Weinstein on November 14, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/the-work-with-virulent-ames-was-done-under-biolevel-3-and-the-university-of-michigan-researchers-working-with-dr-ivins-fellows-and-linscott-were-required-to-receive-anthrax-and-plague-vaccinations/
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 by Lew Weinstein on November 27, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/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/
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 by Lew Weinstein on March 1, 2012
DXer said
In the Science squad’s notes produced to the NAS, you’ll see that the FBI suspected the Silicon Signature related to having Silicon in the growth medium. (The incorporation of silicon was a notable forensic signature).
And, relatedly, we now see — upon the production of Notebook 4282 — that Ivins’ Flask 1030 had been used up years prior to the mailing and thus would not have been the source of mailed anthrax.
Given the lack of silicon being used in Ivins lab — as reflected by the recently produced Notebook 4282 — and given that Flask 1030 was long since used up…
it raises the importance of finding information about the laboratory technician’s notes that went missing about the “Biological Warfare Decontamination Efficacy Study.”
This is so especially given that Notebook 4282 shows that there WERE in fact small animal challenges that totally explain Dr. Ivins’ spike in hours in August 2001. (He was in charge of night and weekend animal checks). Kristin Friend included time of death summaries that showed the same pattern as the animal challenge the first week of October 2001.
Patricia Fellows and Mara Linscott’s emails — if a district court orders them produced — might point to the one of them participating in the biological warfare decontamination study for which the laboratory notes went missing.
The DOJ shredded their civil deposition. Did they also destroy their emails? (That would constitute wrongful spoliation of evidence).
Was antifoam used used for the “Biological Warfare Decontamination Efficacy Study” for which the laboratory technician’s documents went missing?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on January 11, 2012
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/was-antifoam-used-used-for-the-biological-warfare-decontamination-efficacy-study-for-which-the-laboratory-technicians-documents-went-missing/
What happened in Amerithrax is Pat and Mara could not explain what happened to the Ames anthrax they made. When Ivins committed suicide upon the finding of the second bag of semen-stained panties, his suicide left him to be the fall guy — with a cotton candy, bullshit, theory about how his time checking the animals in August and September 2001 was when he grew the anthrax used in the mailings and made it into a dried powder.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
DXer said
A federal undercover did the above graphic.
DXer said
Senator Leahy, briefed by FBI Director Mueller, said he doesn’t believe an Ivins Theory for a minute. He says the case is not closed.
But despite Senator Leahy’s good sources (Mueller was responsive to him privately on questions), Amerithrax is in fact closed for the purpose of FOIA.
Thus, there is no exemption that can be claimed on the grounds of a pending criminal investigation.
Now as to why a federal undercover was doing this blog’s graphics for years, I have no idea.
I was having too much fun for me to bother to ask.
In any event, my conscience is clear — is former FBI Agent Scott Decker’s conscience clear given he and Majidi never bothered to obtain the laboratory notes from the decontamination study? Shouldn’t he have put aside his bias and made it a point to get the notes?
Sen. Leahy on anthrax case: ‘It’s not closed’
Posted by Lew Weinstein on February 16, 2011
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/sen-leahy-on-anthrax-case-its-not-closed/
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
And this was FBI Director Mueller’s biggest case. If the FBI is to be understood to stand for the rule of law, this notebook should be produced without further delay.
Dillon has exhausted his administrative appeal. In a June 16, 2015 FOIA Appeal, Dillon argued: “FBI needs to release Notebook 4010 regarding Ivins’s Flask 1029 …”
Ken Dillon’s June 19, 2015 FOIA Appeal relating to Amerithrax documents from September-October 2001
Posted by Lew Weinstein on July 1, 2015
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/ken-dillons-june-19-2015-foia-appeal-relating-to-amerithrax-documents-from-september-october-2001/
Similarly, in his Freedom of Information Act Appeal dated June 6, 2016, Ken Dillon sought, among other things:
“Laboratory Notebooks: FBI needs to release the remaining pages of Notebook 4010 regarding Ivins’s Flask 1029 …”
Posted by Lew Weinstein on June 6, 2016
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/dr-ken-dillon-appeals-fbis-wrongful-stonewalling-of-documents-from-the-september-october-2001-time-period-of-the-anthrax-mailings/
The title of the Notebook that the FBI has so steadfastly failed to produce is titled “Anthrax Spores.” It was first created 5-12-97. Ivins’ handwriting appears on the cover and throughout. The notebook is at least 98 pages. (I’ve seen a page numbered 98.)
As the former lead Amerithrax investigator Richard Lambert told the New York Times and Fox News, the FBI is withholding a staggering amount of information exculpatory of Bruce Ivins.
I obtained 30 pages of the 98+ page notebook from a submission that the FBI made to the National Academies. It was the only Ivins notebook that the FBI thought relevant to provide to the NAS excepts — and so its relevance cannot be understated. It relates to what the FBI fancifully imagines to be the “murder weapon.”
Turning to the 30 page excerpt provided the NAS,
in an entry in Notebook 4010 dated 3-17-98, Ivins reports that:
“I am going to run some tests on the RMR 1029 Ames spores. I have less than 1 ml of RMR 1030 Ames spores (used in the F97-08 rabbit challenge” for use as a control.”
This is significant. Flask 1030 was genetically similar to the anthrax used in the mailings — but from this entry, we see that it had been used up in the animal challenge prior to March 17, 1998. This is hugely exculpatory.
In this 3-17-98 entry in Notebook 4010 — one of the few that has escaped to see the light of day — Ivins writes:
“The RMR 1029 spores have been stored … in the B3 cold room (walk in).
The 2 tubes of spores will be irradiated to kill the spores.”
In an entry 3/18/98, in another one of the few entries has escaped to see the light of day — Ivins writes:
“Aliquots of a …. dilution of RMR 1029 spores were spread onto 10 plates of 5% sheep blood agar (in Difco blood agar base) and 8 plates of capsule agar. The plates were inoculated overnight at 37 [degrees] in B304.”
Of course, where Ames was — and when — is of key relevance to analysis of the distribution of the Ames. Thus, the FBI’s withholding of the vast majority of Notebook 4010 is not just unreasonable, it is outrageous.
At page 82 of Notebook 4010, in an entry in early April 1998 — in another rare entry that has escaped to see the light of day — Ivins included a copy of an email he had written April 2, 1998:
“Remember the many shipments of Ames spores from Dugway that ____ and I purified in Renografin? These are “GLP” Ames spores (30 trillion total, 1000 ml at 30 billion per ml). They are (presumably) to be used in experiments for support of the AVA relicensure effort. We have tested them in several ways, and they look very good…”
At page 84, he identifies the name of the person at the Michigan Biologic Product Institute who asked him to make some B. anthracis Vollum 1B spores for him on agar media. In a June 1, 2000 entry, he identifies the individual at Bioport Corporation to which he shipped the Vollum 1B spores. And then at 96-97 he includes documents from the RUSSIAN FEDERATION, Ministry of Health, State Research Center of Applied Microbiology.
The FBI was in serious violation of FOIA when it did not return a copy of the CD with Ivins’ notebooks to the USAMRMC, when USAMRMC FOIPA Sandra Rogers first requested it. I first sought the notebook under FOIA from USAMRIID and the FBI many years ago.
As the originating agency, it is the USAMRMC/USAMRIID has the expertise to redact it pursuant to the statute. So FBI should provide the notebook to the Army for processing.
Moving forward, with DOJ counsel involved that understands FOIA, things should be set on the proper course and Notebook 4010 should be provided without further delay.
The rule of law requires no less. Lip service to the rule of law is easy. But actions speak louder than words.