Shortly after the attacks, media reports said the spores contained additives and had been subjected to sophisticated milling — both techniques used in anthrax-based weapons — to make them more lethal. Earlier this month, there were media reports that the FBI belatedly learned that those techniques were not used and the anthrax was not enhanced.
Someone tell this idiot Holt that "media reports" do not neccessarily have anything to do with reality. This goes double for anonymously sourced ones.
Although Holt and other members of Congress got updates and briefings in 2002 and 2003, Kalisch said the FBI and Justice Department decided to stop briefing members of Congress after sensitive investigative information was reported in the media citing congressional sources.
Someone needs to look up a gal named Rosenberg who was holding meetings with Senate staffers on the sly.
In an interview, Holt responded, "The inference that any member of the intelligence committee was the source of previous leaks is outrageous, irresponsible and without foundation."
Someone tell this idiot Holt to google "Rockefeller, Wyden and Durbin."
The case "clearly falls within the purview of the intelligence committee," Holt added. "Our job is to see that the government functions well
Someone please measure Holt's nose... I think it shot out a few inches.
Holt had written Mueller that the FBI's delay in determining what kind of anthrax was used meant that "resources were diverted and countless agents wasted their time investigating a small pool of suspects, instead of the broader search we now know was needed."
Well, they were investigating many more people than the media led us to believe. According to the press there was only one person of interest in spite of repeated assertions by the FBI that there were at minimum 20 persons of interest after many had been eliminated as suspect.
Holt asked Mueller to have Douglas Beecher, a scientist in the FBI's Hazardous Materials Response Unit, testify before the House Intelligence Committee. In April, Beecher wrote an article published in a scientific journal in August saying there was "a widely circulated misconception" that the anthrax spores were made using additives and sophisticated engineering akin to military weapons production.
I hope Beecher doesn't have ties to Cuba like most everyone else the Dems bring up.
Holt seems to be a good guy. Read his letter. He's also a scientist.