* THE ANTHRAX FILES: Congratulations to FRONTLINE, ProPublica and McClatchy For Their Much Deserved Emmy Nomination For “Outstanding Investigative Journalism”

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* FRONTLINE, ProPublica and McClatchy Newspapers release photos of Ivins’ lab, office and equipment (lyophilizer), obtained from FOIA requests

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Last fall, FRONTLINE, ProPublica and McClatchy Newspapers raised a number of questions about the strength of the Justice Department’s case against microbiologist Dr. Bruce Ivins, whom they named as the killer after he committed suicide in 2008.

As part of our reporting, we filed more than 30 FOIA requests and recently received a CD from the FBI with a number of rarely seen photos of Ivins’ lab, including the machine the FBI claims he used to make the deadly attack anthrax powder.

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The lyophilizer, or freeze dryer, which the FBI says Ivins could have used to make the attack anthrax.

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Ivins' secured BSL-3 hot suite lab at USAMRIID

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Ivins' office

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Ivins’ secure BSL-3 hot suite lab at USAMRIID

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/anthrax-files/exclusive-new-photos-of-anthax-suspects-lab/

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* Laurie Garrett … the FRONTLINE program has convinced me that Dr. Bruce Ivins is innocent of the 2001 anthrax mailings

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Laurie Garrett writes for the Council on Foreign Relations (10/13/11) …

• FRONTLINE, the Public Broadcasting System’s premiere documentary program, aired “The Anthrax Letters” this week. It is a breakthrough piece of journalism
• Their primary take-home message …

the FBI blew the Amerithrax investigation,

and Dr. Bruce Ivins was most likely innocent of the crime.

• According to the FBI a flask of wet slurry containing anthrax bacteria was the source of all of the spores mailed in 2001.
• The FBI claimed that Ivins lied about the flask, deliberately deceived investigators by sending different anthrax samples for genetic analysis, and used these wet bacteria, through an elaborate set of drying and processing procedures, to produce the fatal spores.

But FRONTLINE discovered that

Ivins had provided RMR-1029 samples properly

on more than one occasion prior to his apparent error

in giving the FBI a sample from a different flask.

• The FBI also used time cards to demonstrate that Ivins worked unusually long hours inside his lab on the very September 2001 dates when  the agency believes the wet slurry of bacteria were dried and converted to the toxic spore form, then stuffed into envelopes.
• The implication was that Ivins performed all these homicidal activities inside his USAMRID lab during those specific hours.
• But USAMRIID did not have the sort of drying equipment Ivins would need,
• not a single spore has ever been found on any of the lab equipment,
• and Ivins’ work habits that September were not in the least bit unusual.

The revelation in the FRONTLINE program is

that the FBI focused on time in/out logs for just one location

… The reporting team obtained records for all the facilities Ivins worked in,

demonstrating that such long nighttime work hours were his norm,

and there was nothing unusual in his September 2001 schedule.

• I was never convinced Ivins was a serial killer. Thanks to this brilliant reporting effort

I am prepared to declare Dr. Bruce Ivins

innocent of the 2001 anthrax mailings.

read the entire article at … http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-attacks/anthrax-letters/p26175

 

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* watch FRONTLINE’s ANTHRAX PROGRAM NOW !!!

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/

* Intern who opened anthrax letter describes experience to Frontline

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Watch the Grant Leslie full episode.

Watch FRONTLINE TUES OCT 11 at 9:00 pm

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For the first time, Grant Leslie tells Frontline what happened when she opened a letter addressed to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) on October 15, 2001 and white powder “poured onto her lap, her shoes and the floor.”

For years, she hid her strange place in American history. “I didn’t want to be known as Grant Leslie, the girl who got anthrax.”

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/10/10/the_intern_who_opened_an_anthrax_letter.html

 

* Baltimore Sun/Frontline … if Ivins was not the person who sent the anthrax, then that killer is still on the loose … and we are left with an FBI that not only failed to solve such a huge case, but overstated and maybe lied about what it did accomplish.

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Is it possible that Director Mueller, an intelligent man, doesn't know the FBI has failed to make its case against Dr. Ivins? And what does it mean if he knows but won't admit it?

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“The Anthrax Files’ premieres at 9 p.m. Tuesday October 11, 2011.

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David Zurawik writes in The Baltimore Sun (10/9/11) …

• Nobody does investigative journalism on TV like Public Television’s “Frontline”
• And Tuesday night at 9, the venerable series revisits Ft. Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, and the case of anthrax researcher Bruce Ivins who killed himself in 2008 as the FBI zeroed in on him as its prime suspect in the case of deadly envelopes of anthrax sent through the mail.
• According to this hard-edged report done in partnership with McClatchy Newspapers and Propublica, the FBI did more than zero in.
• Under tremendous pressure to solve the case that started in 2001 with anthrax mailed to U.S. senators and network anchors, the agency squeezed Ivins hard — using every trick in the book to get a confession out of him even as he insisted on his innocence to the end.
• Ivins was a troubled guy with some distinctive kinks, the report acknowledges, but …

even FBI consultants in the case now admit

that the agency overstated its evidence

and never found a smoking gun to prove the researcher’s guilt.

• In fact, evidence was revealed last summer that shows…

Ivins did not have the equipment needed

to make the powdery kind of anthrax sent through the mail.

• That didn’t stop the FBI then — or now — in acting like it found its man.
• “The Anthrax Files” suggests that anyone with the psychological issues Ivins had might have cracked under the weight of the FBI invading his privacy, exposing his secrets and ultimately getting him kicked out of the community of researchers that he called home at Ft. Detrick.
• This is a chilling report, because if Ivins was not the person who sent the anthrax, then that killer is still on the loose …

and we are left with an FBI that not only failed to solve such a huge case,

but overstated and maybe lied about what it did accomplish.

read the entire story at … http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/z-on-tv-blog/bal-frontline-anthrax-files–fbi-suicide-fort-detrick-scientist-20111009,0,4090742.story

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LMW COMMENT … 

I have long held that the FBI’s publicly presented case against Dr. Ivins is clearly bogus: no evidence, no witnesses, an impossible timeline, science that proves innocence instead of guilt. So what really happened? And why doesn’t the FBI offer America a credible story?

As regular readers of this blog well know, I can imagine only 3 possible “actual” scenarios …

1. The FBI has more evidence against Dr. Ivins but is, for some undisclosed reason, withholding that evidence … POSSIBLE BUT NOT SO LIKELY
2. The FBI, despite the most expensive and extensive investigation in its history, has not solved the case and has no idea who prepared and mailed the anthrax letters that killed 5 Americans in 2001 … EVEN LESS LIKELY
3. The FBI knows who did it (not Dr. Ivins) but is covering up the actual perpetrators, for undisclosed reasons …THE MOST LIKELY SCENARIO

When I first heard the FBI/DOJ August 2008 press conference, I was infuriated. It was obvious to me even then that the FBI had no case, or at least no case they chose to make publicly known. Since I’m a novelist, I focused my anger and wrote CASE CLOSED, a fictional account of what might have happened in the anthrax attacks and subsequent FBI investigation. The novel has been published and is available at amazon …

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* buy CASE CLOSED at amazon *

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Here is the first scene in CASE CLOSED, where I have the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) institute its own re-examination of the FBI’s obviously flawed investigation …

this is the opening scene of Lew Weinstein's novel CASE CLOSED

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* buy CASE CLOSED at amazon *

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* Frontline 7/27 FOIA re samples

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* Frontline 4/28 FOIA request for lab notebooks

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In a May 24, 2011 letter, Frontline limited its FOIA Request to USAMRIID for key card access from January 1, 2001 – December 31, 2001

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