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When the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it had cracked the long-unsolved anthrax case, the turning point cited by the bureau was its identification of a laboratory flask as the source of the anthrax. The dots, or in this case more than a thousand separate anthrax samples, were connected with the help of a group of scientists working secretly for some seven years. They succeeded by using a combination of new techniques not even invented in late 2001 when the anthrax-laced letters were sent, and that most old-fashioned attribute of expert scientists and detectives: a trained eye. Now, in their...

Staff members at two campaign offices for White House hopeful John McCain were quarantined Thursday after threatening letters containing a suspicious powder substance were received, officials said. The first letter arrived at the Republican's campaign headquarters in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. A second letter was later reported at a McCain office in Manchester, New Hampshire. Both buildings were evacuated and staff members sent to medical facilities for treatment under quarantine while FBI and Secret Service agents joined hazardous materials experts at both scenes. Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren told AFP that the envelope received in Centennial, a Denver suburb...

Breaking on Fox News....develpoing

John McCain’s Denver campaign office received an envelope containing white powder and a threatening note Thursday afternoon. Spokesman Jeff Sadosky told FOX News the office has been evacuated and the campaign notified federal and local law enforcement, who are taking all precautions.

Envelope with white powder and a death threat received at Denver campaign HQ

Breaking news from Fox News

FBI Assistant Director Vahid Majidi said Monday the initial anthrax sample that Ivins took from his Army lab in February 2002 and gave investigators did not meet court-ordered conditions for its preparation and collection. In a briefing for reporters, Majidi said the sample kept at the FBI lab was destroyed because the bureau believed it might not have been allowed as evidence at trial. "Looking at hindsight, obviously we would do things differently today," Majidi said. He gave investigators a second sample of anthrax from his lab in April 2002 to comply with standards in a subpoena issued in the...

WASHINGTON — ...F.B.I officials say they are confident that their scientific evidence against Dr. Ivins, who killed himself last month as the Justice Department was preparing an indictment against him, will withstand scrutiny, and they plan to present their findings for review by leading scientists. But the scrutiny may only raise fresh questions. The bureau presented forensics information to Congressional and government officials this week in a closed-door briefing, but a number of listeners said the briefing left them less convinced that the F.B.I. had the right man, and they said some of the government’s public statements appeared incomplete or...

WASHINGTON -- As federal authorities pursued the wrong suspect in the deadly anthrax mailings of 2001, they ignored or overlooked a series of early clues that pointed to Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins, a review of investigative records by the Los Angeles Times shows. ...* Genetic analysis by outside scientists published in May 2002 reported that anthrax powder recovered from the mailings most likely came from Ft. Detrick, or it was grown from a sample that originated there. "I would have felt very confident at the time that the top place to look was at Ft. Detrick," said Jonathan A....

Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee announced it would call FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to appear at an oversight hearing Sept. 17, when he is likely to be asked about the strength of the government's case against Ivins. A spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R- Iowa, a vocal FBI critic, said he would demand more information about how authorities narrowed their search. The House Judiciary panel, meanwhile, is negotiating to host a separate oversight hearing in September with bureau officials, in a session that could mark the first public occasion where Mueller faces questions about the FBI's handling of...

SYDNEY, Aug. 13 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Sections of New Zealand Parliament were evacuated Wednesday, following the discovery of an envelope containing unidentified white powder, local media reported. The envelope, addressed to Prime Minister Helen Clark's office, was opened by a staff member on the eighth floor, who subsequently raised the alarm, the New Zealand Press Association said. -snip-

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — The Army scientist suspected in the anthrax attacks was remembered for his humor, intelligence and compassion at a memorial service Saturday.

Frederick officials welcomed the announcement Friday of an Army review of security measures at Fort Detrick, while a local peace activist called it a charade. A team of military and civilian experts is being formed in the wake of accusations by the FBI that former Fort Detrick microbiologist Bruce Ivins was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five and injured 17. Ivins died of an apparent suicide July 29. Army Secretary Pete Geren has asked at least a dozen military and civilian officials to scrutinize safety procedures, quality controls and other policies and practices at the United States Army...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that Steven Hatfill was not involved in anthrax mailings for which he was listed six years ago as a person of interest. The Justice Department agreed in June to pay $4.6 million to settle Hatfill's lawsuit against the government, but until Friday the government had not exonerated him, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported. "We have concluded, based on laboratory access records, witness accounts and other information, that Dr. Hatfill did not have access to the particular anthrax used in the attacks, and that he was not involved in...

Report finds lax Fort Detrick procedures Just seven months after the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people, the U.S. Army laboratory in Maryland where the accused killer, microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins, worked was described in a government report as a "rat's nest" that was contaminated with anthrax bacteria. The highly redacted report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, said Suite B-3 in Building 1425 at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick not only was contaminated with anthrax in three locations but the bacteria had escaped from secure areas in...

Actions to Aid Probe Appear Now As Cover-UpWASHINGTON -- One night in autumn 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the worst act of bioterrorism in its history, Bruce Ivins was alone in his cluttered Fort Detrick, Md., office, scrubbing phones, walls and furniture. ...... Dr. Ivins, his colleagues said, argued that al Qaeda was responsible. "He was very passionate about this," former boss Jeffrey Adamovicz said. "He was very agitated." In these conversations, Dr. Ivins dwelled at one point on a purported link between Florida victim Robert Stevens, a photographer for American Media, and an apartment rented to 9/11 ringleader...

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley today began asking tough questions of the Department of Justice and the FBI following the release of documents implicating Dr. Bruce Ivins as the only suspect in the Amerithrax investigation. “This has been a long investigation full of missteps and mistakes. There’s been too much secrecy up to this point and it deserves a full and thorough vetting,” Grassley said. “There are clearly a lot of unanswered questions and it’s time to start a dialogue so we can get answers.” Here is a copy of the text of Grassley’s letter. The Honorable Michael B. Mukasey...

Technical Intelligence in Retrospect: The 2001 Anthrax Letters Powder ------------------------------------------------- Authors: Dany Shoham; Stuart M. Jacobsen --------------------------------------------------- Published in: International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 20, Issue 1 March 2007 , pages 79 - 105 -------------------------------------------- (Weblink : http://newsdetails.blogspot.com/2007/05/technical-intelligence-in-retrospect.html ) -------------------------------------------- EXCERPTS (...) Naturally, the U.S. Intelligence Community first tried to profile the SSP by technically comparing it with past weaponized anthrax powders made by the U.S. Army. But, while the dehydration-based forming of dry powder, weapon-grade, biological material conducted by William Patrick in the U.S. Army during the 1950s relied on freeze drying, and then grinding down the...

August 7, 2008 · The FBI says that, with scientist Bruce Ivins' suicide, the case against him is effectively closed. Doubts are emerging, however, as to whether he really was the 2001 anthrax killer. His handwriting does not match up and he could not have possibly done it all alone, fellow scientists say. FBI Details Case Against Anthrax SuspectThe Justice Department on Wednesday said Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins was "the only person responsible" for the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. Justice officials unsealed 14 search warrants and affidavits, outlining a damning but still largely circumstantial case against Ivins, who committed suicide...

Casting further doubt on the FBI's anthrax case, accused government scientist Bruce Ivins passed two polygraph tests and a handwriting analysis comparing samples of his handwriting to writing contained in the anthrax letters, U.S. officials familiar with the investigation say. The Justice Department yesterday closed the case, announcing the late "Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks."

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday outlined a pattern of bizarre and deceptive conduct by Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist who killed himself last week, presenting a sweeping but circumstantial case that he was solely responsible for mailing the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people in 2001. After nearly seven years of a troubled investigation, officials of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department declared that the case had been solved. Jeffrey A. Taylor, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said the authorities believed “that based on the evidence we had collected, we...

“It Was Ivins, With a Flask, 200 Miles from the Site of the Crime” By: emptywheel Wednesday August 6, 2008 1:28 pm 11 diggs digg it I just finished watching the DOJ/FBI press conference on the anthrax investigation, and our crack DOJ wants us to believe that, by providing a lot of circumstantial evidence that places Bruce Ivins in the same room as a flask full of anthrax used in the attack, they've proven not only that Ivins was involved in the crime, but that he was the only one involved in the crime. In other words, they haven't solved...

Army scientist Bruce Ivins had custody of highly purified anthrax spores with "certain genetic mutations identical" to the poison that killed five and rattled the nation in 2001, according to documents unsealed Wednesday in the government's investigation. Also, Ivins was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks, and he apparently sought to mislead investigators on the case, according to an affidavit filed by one government investigator.

<p>WASHINGTON - Army scientist Bruce Ivins had custody of highly purified anthrax spores with "certain genetic mutations identical" to the poison that killed five and rattled the nation in 2001, according to documents unsealed Wednesday in the government's investigation.</p> <p>Also, Ivins was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks, and he apparently sought to mislead investigators on the case, according to an affidavit filed by one government investigator.</p>

WASHINGTON - Before killing himself last week, Army scientist Bruce Ivins told friends that government agents had stalked him and his family for months, offered his son $2.5 million to rat him out and tried to turn his hospitalized daughter against him with photographs of dead anthrax victims. The pressure on Ivins was extreme, a high-risk strategy that has failed the FBI before. The government was determined to find the villain in the 2001 anthrax attacks; it was too many years without a solution to the case that shocked and terrified a post-9/11 nation. The last thing the FBI needed...

While the FBI waits to formally release its evidence against Bruce E. Ivins, the microbiologist it claims to have linked to the anthrax mailings seven years ago, who killed himself on July 29, the public is getting a sneak peek — by way of federal leaks to the media. The leaks are piling up almost too fast to keep track of. Some seem damning, others perplexing, but the pause is creating a strange void — in which leaks are followed by rebuttals from Ivins' colleagues and his attorney (who steadfastly denies that his client had any role in the attacks)...

WASHINGTON -- Authorities investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks will begin meeting with victims' families Wednesday to discuss the case, family members said, an indication that some lingering questions in the investigation may soon be answered. The government is expected to declare the case solved but will keep it open for now, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. Several legal and investigatory matters need to be wrapped up before the case can officially be closed, they said. Army scientist Bruce Ivins committed suicide last week as prosecutors prepared to charge him...

Jean Duley testified that she was "scared to death" of Bruce Ivins after he left her a string of harassing phone messages, according to an audio recording taken during a July 24 peace order hearing. Duley, 45, told Judge Milnor Roberts that Ivins planned to "go out in a blaze of glory," had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun and planned to kill his co-workers. The audio recording was obtained by The Frederick News-Post on Monday. Duley told the court she got to know Ivins while running group and individual counseling sessions at the Comprehensive Counseling Associates in Frederick...

We have forgotten so much about the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that many people may not remember the deadly anthrax spores that were mailed to various prominent people in politics and in the media during that time. None of the intended victims was killed by the anthrax but five other people were, including two postal workers, who apparently became victims because they handled the mail containing anthrax spores. In the instant search for someone to blame, biologist Steven J. Hatfill was publicly named as "a person of interest" in the case by government officials. He...

<p>"WASHINGTON (AP) -- His decades-long obsession with a college sorority may link a former Army biowarfare scientist to four anthrax-laced letters dropped off at a New Jersey mailbox in 2001, authorities said Monday in the latest twist of one of the most bizarre unsolved crimes in FBI history.</p>

Its origins pointed to one conclusion: that only the government scientist could be behind the 2001 attacks. Federal investigators cinched their case against alleged anthrax mailer Bruce E. Ivins after sophisticated genetic tests by a California firm helped them trace a signature mixture of anthrax spores, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Well before the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings, Ivins, through his work as a government scientist, had combined anthrax spores obtained from at least one outside laboratory, people familiar with the evidence said. With the help of leading outside geneticists and a fresh look at the evidence by a...

Over the past week the media was gripped by the news that the FBI was about to charge Bruce Ivins, a leading anthrax expert, as the man responsible for the anthrax letter attacks in September/October 2001. But despite the seemingly powerful narrative that Ivins committed suicide because investigators were closing in, this is still far from a shut case. The FBI needs to explain why it zeroed in on Ivins, how he could have made the anthrax mailed to lawmakers and the media, and how he (or anyone else) could have pulled off the attacks, acting alone. I believe this...

WASHINGTON — After four years of painstaking scientific research, the F.B.I. by 2005 had traced the anthrax in the poisoned letters of 2001 to a single flask of the bacteria at the Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., according to government scientists and bureau officials. But at least 10 scientists had regular access to the laboratory and its anthrax stock — and possibly quite a few more, counting visitors from other institutions, and workers at laboratories in Ohio and New Mexico that had received anthrax samples from the flask at the Army laboratory. To get that far, the Federal...

The FBI removed computer records from the C. Burr Artz Library this week, a library official confirmed Saturday. Darrell Batson, director of Frederick County Public Libraries, said two FBI employees came to the downtown Frederick library either Wednesday or Thursday. The agents removed two public computers from the library's second floor. They told him they were taking the units back to their office in Washington, D.C., Batson said. Batson expected the computers would be returned early this week, he said. Debbie Weierman, spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office, would not comment Saturday on whether the agency had removed records...

While counselor Jean Duley said the late Bruce E. Ivins expressed homicidal intentions, threatened her and said he "would go out in a blaze of glory" in the face of a pending FBI indictment, as least one former colleague believes the Fort Detrick scientist is being used as a scapegoat in the high profile anthrax poisoning case that paralyzed the nation -- again -- shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Arthur O. Anderson, a medical doctor and scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, said Duley's description of Ivins doesn't...

For nearly seven years, scientist Bruce E. Ivins and a small circle of fellow anthrax specialists at Fort Detrick's Army medical lab lived in a curious limbo: They served as occasional consultants for the FBI in the investigation of the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, yet they were all potential suspects. Over lunch in the bacteriology division, nervous scientists would share stories about their latest unpleasant encounters with the FBI and ponder whether they should hire criminal defense lawyers, according to one of Ivins's former supervisors. In tactics that the researchers considered heavy-handed and often threatening, they were interviewed and polygraphed...

<p>WASHINGTON - Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, whose office was a target of the anthrax attacks in 2001, said Sunday the suicide of the government's main suspect does not mean the case is over.</p> <p>Daschle said the FBI has not given him any new updates. He also raised questions about the quality of the investigation, noting that the government recently paid out almost $6 million to a former Army scientist, Steven Hatfill, who accused authorities of unfairly targeting him in the anthrax case.</p>

WASHINGTON — After four years pursuing one former Army scientist on a costly false trail, F.B.I. agents investigating the deadly anthrax letters of 2001 finally zeroed in last year on a different suspect: another Army scientist from the same biodefense research center at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md. /snip The other puzzle involved the skills necessary to produce the high-quality aerosol powder contained in the letters addressed to the senators, Tom Daschle .. and .. Patrick J. Leahy. Scientists familiar with germ warfare said there was no evidence that Dr. Ivins, though a vaccine expert with easy access to the...

Bruce E. Ivins, the government biodefense scientist linked to the deadly anthrax mailings of 2001, stood to gain financially from the huge federal spending in the fear-filled aftermath of those killings, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Ivins is listed as a co-inventor on two patents for a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine, federal records show. Separately, Ivins is also listed as a co-inventor on an application to patent an additive for various biodefense vaccines. Ivins, 62, died Tuesday, apparently in a suicide. Federal authorities had informed his lawyer that criminal charges related to the mailings would be filed. As a...

This is not an excerpt but a synopsis. The Feds are considering closing down the investigation of the Oct. 2001 Anthrax attacks due to Dr.Ivins suicide.

(From newspaper local to Fort Detrick) In 2003, the Defense Department gave Bruce Ivins its highest civilian honor for his work on an anthrax vaccine. Friday, the government had little to say about him, following his apparent suicide and media reports that the FBI was preparing to charge him with the 2001 anthrax mailings. Ivins was a Frederick resident who worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, was a member of St. John Evangelical Catholic Church and a volunteer with the American Red Cross. He once said he taught himself to juggle to correct his nature...

FREDERICK — During a two-week period in April four years ago, officials at the Army’s lead biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick discovered anthrax spores had escaped carefully guarded suites into the building’s unprotected areas. The breach called into question the ability of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to keep its deadly agents within laboratory walls seven months after the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax mailings that autumn. The 2002 incident was considered a containment breach because anthrax was found outside a containment suite, which is a group of laboratories and administrative rooms....

Earlier today, we noted the suicide of Bruce Ivins, a biodefense researcher who the DOJ was close to filing criminal charges against. Ivins, 62, was a leading military anthrax researcher who worked for the past 18 years at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Ivins had reportedly been told of the impending prosecution. For their part, the prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty against Ivins. This afternoon, Ivins’ attorneys at Venable, Paul F. Kemp (pictured) and Thomas M. DeGonia, released the following statement: For more than a year, we have been privileged to represent Dr. Bruce...

<p>FREDERICK, Md. - Bruce E. Ivins was a juggler, a gardener, a church musician, a Red Cross volunteer — and a suspected multiple murderer, according to federal authorities.</p> <p>Some people who knew him scoffed at the government’s assertion that Ivins sent the anthrax letters that killed five people and sickened 17 in the fall of 2001. But court documents indicate the outwardly mild-mannered Ivins had a menacing side.</p>

AUGUST 1--The government biodefense researcher who committed suicide as federal prosecutors reportedly prepared to indict him in connection with the 2001 anthrax attacks was committed to a Maryland psychiatric hospital last month after making death threats against a counselor, according to court records. Bruce Ivins, 62, who died Tuesday of a drug overdose, had been scheduled to appear yesterday in a Frederick County court in connection with a protective order application filed by Jean Duley, program director of Comprehensive Counseling Associates. In her July 24 petition, a copy of which you'll find below, Duley referred to Ivins as a "client"...

Scientist reportedly commits suicide as FBI closes in on 2001 anthrax

One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned.Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said.Ivins’ name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case that disrupted mail service...

Current Biological Threat The risk of a large-scale biological attack on the Nation is significant. We know that our terrorist enemies have sought to use biological agents as instruments of their warfare, and we believe that capability is within their reach. I know many here today recall the anthrax attacks of 2001. As you know, Mr. Chairman, certain buildings occupied by Members of the Legislative Branch were temporarily closed while they were decontaminated. The magnitude of that terrorist attack is miniscule compared to the larger, anthrax release envisioned by our enemies. It is nonetheless exemplary of the potential health and...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

Dr Bruce Budowle has been in the FBI for over 20 years, heading one of its forensic laboratories. He looks back to the mysterious and still unsolved case of the anthrax envelopes which followed 9/11 and which moved bioterrorism combat to a new level. *** Robyn Williams: The shape of sleuthing to come, Angela van Daal at Bond University in Southern Queensland. She has been looking after Bruce Budowle, an FBI veteran of 20 years who's head of their lab in Virginia and is sometimes called the FBI's top scientist. He's not only involved in forensics but also in the...