Anthrax: Source of Fishy, Shaggy Dog Stories Pleads Fifth

Anthrax: Source of Fishy, Shaggy Dog Stories Pleads Fifth December 20th, 2007 by Ross E. Getman

In October 2007, the former Criminal Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Daniel Seikaly, was deposed in the civil rights action by Steve Hatfill about whether he was the source of leaks relating to Steve Hatfill in connection with Newsweek and Washington Post stories about the use of bloodhounds and the draining of ponds in Frederick, Maryland. Attorney Seikaly pled the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination in connection with most substantive questions.

Attorney Seikaly has had a very distinguished career. In 2001, Mr. Seikaly went from being Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at the Central Intelligence Agency to Criminal Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. There he supervised eighty-five Assistant United States Attorneys involved in the prosecution of all federal offenses in the District of Columbia. He also served as a technical expert for U.S. Department of State funded rule of law programs in Croatia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, and Thailand. Before accepting the appointment to Criminal Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Daniel was Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at the Central Intelligence Agency. While with the CIA, a profile at his current law firm’s webpage explains, “he conducted and supervised numerous investigations concerning allegations of misconduct by employees, contractors and vendors involved in CIA programs. In that position, he routinely interacted with senior officials within the intelligence community, other executive branch agencies and Congress concerning intelligence investigations.” The profile continues: “From 1996 to 1998, Daniel served as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice and was Director of the Department’s Executive Office for National Security. There he was responsible for the coordination and oversight of the national security activities of the Department of Justice, including intelligence operations, international law enforcement, relations with foreign countries and the use of classified information. Reporting directly to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General and acting with their authority in national security matters, Daniel was a primary point of contact between the Department of Justice and other executive branch agencies with national security interests such as the National Security Council, the Department of State and the Department of Defense.”

“Q. … calls this article, quote ‘An exclusive look at the search for the perpetrator of America’s worst bioterror attack.” Did you tell Mr. Klaidman [of Newsweek] that you were giving him an exclusive on this information?

Q. Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that the FBI was acting on a tip when it searched the pond in Frederick? …

Q. Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that FBI agents had interviewed the acquaintance of Dr. Hatfill’s that was supposedly the tipster?

Q. Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that the acquaintance had told the FBI that Dr. Hatfill said toxic bacteria could be made in the woods and the evidence could be tossed in the lake?

Q. Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that the FBI might drain the entire pond the month after this report?

[Lawyer defending deposition] Mark, let me say something on the record so we all understand the assertion because the manner in which — or the type of questions you’re asking here. My client has been instructed to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege regardless of whether or not the answer to the question would be yes or no, because even if the answer were to be no, if he answered no to certain questions, I think an inference could be drawn from that as to what he does or doesn’t know.

So I just want to make sure you understand in terms of our Fifth Amendment assertion here is that he’s asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege to questions that may have a yes or no answer, and it’s not fair to assume that the answer to every one of these questions would be yes or no if he were to answer the questions. Does that make sense?

Q. It makes sense, but we will be seeking an adverse inference as to all questions where the fifth amendment is taken.

*** Q. Mr. Seikaly, do you deny any of the statements attributed to you by Mr. Klaidman with respect to the [Newsweek bloodhound story]

Q Is it actually even true whether the search of the pond was prompted by a tip?

Q. Are you aware of any information that might have been used as a predicate for the pond search having been obtained as the fruits of electronic surveillance?

Q Did you tell Mr. Klaidman that agents might be looking for a wet suit that could have been used to dispose of — that could have been used and disposed of by the anthrax attacker?

Q. Did you give Allan Lengel of The Washington Post any information reflected in this article?

Q. Mr. Lengel has testified that you told him the FBI search of the pond in Frederick was tied to Steven Hatfill and that it was triggered by a hypothetical statement Dr. Hatfill has made about anthrax; is that correct?

Q. How did you know that the FBI’s search of the pond in Frederick was tied to Steven Hatfill?

Q. Why did you decide to disclose information to Mr. Lengel about the pond search?

Q Did you tell Mr. Lengel that the items recovered from the pond up to that point included a clear box with holes that could accommodate gloves?

Q Did you tell Mr. Lengel that the items recovered from the pond up that point included vials wrapped in plastic?

Q. Do you specifically deny making any statement that Mr. Lengel has attributed to you?

Q. How did you know that tests for the presence of anthrax bacteria on the equipment were continuing after two rounds of tests produced conflicting results?

Q Did you tell Mr. Lengel that the search of the pond in Frederick netted nothing but a hodgepodge of items that did not appear to be linked to the case?

*** Q If we take the dates from Exhibits …, it appears that you disclosed investigative information to Mr. Lengel for articles that appeared in January 2003, May 2003, June 2003 and August 2003. Is that right?

*** Q. … Do you know whether you ever saw this e-mail before? A. I don’t believe I have. Q. Okay. Let’s look at the partially redacted paragraph. It says, quote, “WFO [Washington Field Office] has opened a leak investigation in an attempt to find out who spoke to Newsweek Magazine over the weekend about the bureau’s use of bloodhounds in the anthrax investigation,” closed quote. Do you see that? A. I do. Q. And the date of the email is August 5th, 2002. A. That’s correct. Q. The investigation that’s referenced here is about the story that you gave Mr. Klaidman, is it not? A. Assert my Fifth Amendment Privilege in response.

Q. Okay. In the bottom e-mail, when Blier begins, “here is a summary of my conversation with Glen about the anthrax leak investigation.” Now, Bill Blier worked for you, did he not? A. Yes. Q. Did you know what Mr. Blier was referring to when he referred to, quote, the anthrax leak investigation? A. I believe that it was an investigation involving the possible compromise of classified information is my understanding. I did know about an investigation in that. *** Q And do you know whether that had anything to do with bloodhounds or Newsweek? A I don’t believe it did but I don’t know. *** Q You were aware of an anthrax investigation, yes? A. I was — I was aware that there was a discussion of an investigation involving the compromise of classified information arising from the anthrax investigation, the Amerithrax investigation. I do recall knowing that we were — we and the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department were concerned about this and were seeking to find out who compromised the classified information.

Q. Did you think it remarkable in any way that bloodhounds could track a scent from anthrax letters that were ten months old to a Denny’s in Louisiana where someone had eaten the day before? [deponent invokes Fifth Amendment]

Moreover, the antiwar activists have been duped into supporting the Salafists.

Al-Timimi, for example, was staunchly against peace — he translated and agreed with the writing of the Egyptian deep thinker who opposed the Camp David Accord, adopting the blind sheik’s position that no peace with Israel is acceptable.

Invading Iraq, unfortunately, just played right into Zawahiri’s and al-Hawali’s PR. GMU microbiologist Al-Timimi arranged to have a letter from al-Hawali warning of the consequences of invading Iraq hand-delivered to every member of Congress on the first anniversary of the anthrax letters to Senator Daschle and Leahy. Mr. Seikaly would have received regular briefings on the investigation of GMU microbiologist Al-Timimi, who was in computational biology in the bioinformatics program there sponsored by the American Type Culture Collection.

In case I didn’t include it earlier, here is an article describing the claim that his sister-in-law’s work was biased and thus not entitled to government funding.

While I don’t know anything about Title IX, I suspect it was doing important work that was fully within the regulations. I’ve written Mrs. S today to ask her what she thinks of the anthrax coverage but she’s on holiday.

http://www.georgetownvoice.com/2005-11-03/news/ccas-called-biased

Let’s use the word radical instead so it isn’t as easy to poke fun at your argument. Lynne Stewart was a self-described radical. She was the blind sheik’s lawyer. The postal employee (her paralegal) and Abdel-Rahman used her to transmit messages from the blind sheik’s son, who was on the WMD committee. That son, Mohammed, spoke alongside Ali Al-Timimi at IANA conferences in 1993 and 1996. In 1996, in both July and December. The blind sheik, referring to Lynne Stewart said that “we’ll stop using doves when the government stops using secret evidence.” So I do agree with you that there are radicals in this country who support the Salafists. I just am too young to take the word “communist” seriously. It was Lynne Stewart’s partner, Stanley L. Cohen, who represented the former BIF-employee who is a listed author of the article in JAMA about how the first inhalational victim in New York died. I remember that firm’s defense of the folks who committed the armed robbery in which a guard was killed. I was clerking for the judge who heard the appeal. Funding the revolution, of course, did not strike me for as sufficient revolution to murder the innocent. So while I have great admiration for anti-war activists, I deplore those who would murder innocents such as those involved in sending the anthrax.

That former BIF employee, the Manhattan doctor, apparently lived next door to Ali Al-Timimi in Falls Church in 1999.

The question is: did Mrs. S know Al-Timimi? Although she taught statistics at GMU years ago, more recently she got a masters in sociology there.

Or did they study at the same time at GWU? Or know each other through outreach program? A senior person with that New Mexico institute lives and listed an address in Fairfax. That’s probably how Mrs. S came to be involved. Like Ali’s center, they focused on deen.

I’m not following you.

First, as for the news about Abdel-Sattar who worked at the Staten Island main branch, there was a Washington Post article, for example, in spring 2002 about how he was being investigated in connection with the letter that had been used to gain the two journalists access to kill Northern Alliance leader. He was in contact with the Vanguards of Conquest (EIJ) spokesman Al-Sirri, and Ayman or someone using his office computer had created a letter of introduction using the name of Al-Sirri’s London group. Abdel-Sattar was very high profile, giving interviews in the late 1990s to most major media outlets, to include a dramatic PBS interview. In the PBS interview, he explained that in the next attack, principles of cell security would be used — an operation might only involve 4 people — and so he wouldn’t necessarily know who was involved. But authorities definitely knew that a tree grew in Brooklyn. Sadat’s assassin’s brother, Mohammed Islambouli, was known to be in a cell with KSM planning the plane and other attacks. Being given safe haven in Qatar. See December 1998 PDB to Clinton. The August 2001 PDB to Bush basically was a rehash of that intel, which was based on what Ali Mohammed and Wadi al Hage, for example, were telling Fitzgerald.

But you do raise a factual issue of interest. The exact tape used. Are you saying it was a wide tape? Why doesn’t it show in the pictures? What do you think the purpose of the tape was? How wide was it? I guess there is a narrow tape and a wide tape for wrapping packages. Through the editor of Postal Mag I made inquiry of the Staten Island branch for someone who worked with Abdel-Sattar but got no takers. Perhaps you could find a co-worker who would share their recollection. I don’t see why you think it was a mistake for him to get a job. It’s not like it was the job that tipped the authorities off. Before working in the main branch, he delivered to nuclear facilities and no one paid attention. They began tapping his phone in late 1998.

The tape was placed on each envelope, end to end, front and back, for a very specific purpose ~ to keep the very fine grain anthrax particles from filtering out through the paper envelopes too soon.

These devices had clearly been designed with the understanding that the standard USPS envelopes sold in vending machines would not long hold the anthrax.

In short, it wasn't considered necessary for the envelopes to ever be delivered to be effective transmission devices.

As it turned out they were remarkably effective since the tape kept the anthrax from filtering except on the perimeter edges.

Obviously someone was involved in this attack who knew about filtering rates of anthrax, the quality of USPS embossed envelopes, the utility of packaging tape and whether or not its presence would draw undue early attention by postal employees.

These guys shut down the main postal facility serving the headquarters agencies of the United States government as well as Congress, with a handful of envelopes.

What they didn't count on is the vast capacity of the USPS ~ which simply started sending all the mail that'd gone to Brentwood to different buildings in the DC area. That right there tells me the enemy was probably foreign and thought of the postal system in terms of the rather modest establishment of his home country (USPS having over half the postal capacity in the world, it's easy for foreigners to "just not get it").

The addresses selected came right off the internet in a precise format that the attackers didn't change. That could be because they didn't read English and had little understanding of what the address elements meant.

If so, that pretty much excludes our boy at the Staten Island post office from being directly involved in the business of preparing and mailing the anthrax letters.

So, what was his part in this, if, in fact, he had a part? So far I haven't figured it out ~ which leads to a default answer that he probably needed the money.

And don't we all.

As far as co-workers at Staten Island, I didn't work there.

On September 10, a Canadian study issued re Dugway simulant — reporting on a study done after an anthrax threat was received in connection with Bin Laden’s farm manager in Sudan. It found that leakage occurred prior to opening and immediately dispersed. Only an estimated 16 people in the USG were aware of it at the time of the anthrax mailings. Al-Timimi shared a fax with famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Charles Bailey. If Seikaley were better informed, he would have realized that Hatfill was a crummy candidate. Sekaily’s brother and his wife (at the time he was leaking to the press) were publicly formally arguing that after 9/11, folks shouldn’t assume that Arabs are behind terrorism. Well, one would hope that it is the evidence, not Thanksgiving dinner table talk by self-described Palestinian nationalists such as his sister-in-law, that guides decisions in these matters. But given that he reports he didn’t read anything and briefings were all done orally, it’s a wonder any serious analysis was done at all.

A copy of the Canadian report was mailed by the Canadians to Bradley, head of the CDC investigation, but he says he didn’t open the email. He says it would not have had caused them to do anything differently, but some at Brentwood may disagree given that they object that the facility was not closed earlier. In the Canadian report, I believe reference was made to leaking from the corners, in addition to the pore size of the envelope (but I don’t have it in front of me).

“end to end, front and back”...

So do you mean along the outside edges of the rectangle?

Or was there a tape on where it sealed. The place where an envelope’s adhesive sometimes fails is at the corner.

Daschle somewhat ambiguously says it was not heavily taped, leaving it open that it was taped, just not heavily taped.

The envelope was made of recycled paper (and that was apparent from writing noting that on the envelope.

There's a description of the taping methodology on the net somewhere.

A Postal Inspector deduced that you could make a photo of the envelopes, front and back, (after they were sterilized) and see if the tape edges (at the tears) matched up.

He did the photos; matched all the tears; and concluded all the tape on all the envelopes came from the same roll.

The envelopes were taped front and back lengthwise (according to materials I read concerning the matter), leaving the "corners: and top edge (and maybe the bottom edge) exposed. Daschle is not an expert in taping but I believe that what he saw was a very carefully and methodically taped envelope that was designed to feed anthrax spores out into the environment as a steady rate beginning on a date certain.

Without going into the details, the terrorists appeared to believe USPS gives very good service to hand addressed single-piece rate First-Class letter mail dropped into corner collection boxes on Friday evening (after prayers).

Turns out USPS gives such mail just about the worst possible service. The consequence was the envelopes were transported to the wrong places. This screwed up the timing and made them all start shedding anthrax spores in vast quantities right in the first postal facilities where they were handled.

That wasn't their plan.

Oh, yeah, although this stuff would ordinarily go via air and thereby travel through BWI, or DIA or DCA (shutting them down), it ended up on trucks and went directly to Brentwood.

Air transportation in and out of Washington DC was NOT disturbed at all by this attack.

No doubt Ken was having irregular heart palpitations when he found out the envelopes were taped, and announced the idea that the way the anthrax spores were "weaponized" was by action of the mail processing equipment which had a shake and hammer effect on the envelopes (with the tape serving to enhance transmission of the blows from the outside of the envelopes to the inside where the anthrax was contained). Not that the Soviets would have come up with such an idea, but they probably did.

Someone else came up with it too.

In fact, it's an obvious application.

I think if you dig back through everything ever posted on the Anthrax Attack you'll find that I built on Ken's idea about mail processing equipment and noted that Saddam Hussein himself had LOOTED the main post office in Kuwait where several state of the art single position LSMs (letter sorting machines) had been put into operation. Those machines had been taken to Iraq along with the vast warehouse of Kuwait collectible stamps.

Saddam's guys had plenty of time practicing the use of LSMs to smack Anthrax spores inside taped letters and see if they could "weaponize" them.

Personally I think they succeeded. Doesn't mean they did this attack, but someone in Saddam's operations at the Baghdad main post office was probably an AlQaida informant.

The five purchase orders documenting the strains sent by the American Type Culture Collection in the mid-1980s did not include Ames, the strain used in the attacks. ATCC did not have Ames in its catalog.

Iraq’s attempt to get Ames a few years later after a British conference confirms that at the time they did not have Ames. (They had, for example, the second best, Vollum).

Iraq may very have obtained Ames. Alibek points out that a lead Russian scientist was helping them and he had access to Ames. Russia, Alibek says, had a spy at Ft. Detrick and would get all specimens and work within 6 months.

But given that all the evidence points to US-based supporters of Al Qaeda, and not Iraq, the more interesting question is whether ATCC had virulent Ames in its patent repository. ATCC sponsored Ali Al-Timimi’s program. A former ATCC employee says Ali had access to that patent repository. ATCC does not deny to me that its patent repository had virulent Ames — it just refuses to confirm that it did or not.

By “our stuff,” rather than referring to Ames, I meant that the Administration by December was of the view that the evidence pointed to a US biodefense insider.

There was a lot of confusion over the distribution of Ames, but the best view is that the FBI has identified 16 labs known to have had it — and perhaps the maximum number of labs that had it is 20-30. The FBI notes that in the case of some foreign labs, they are not in a position to know.

Ayman Zawahiri felt that the koran dictated that they use the weapons of their enemies.

Good propaganda too.

1960s : (NCPPF IS FOUNDED TO PROVIDE LEGAL SUPPORT FOR WEATHER UNDERGROUND, FALN & BLA -—— see Sami al Arian & al Amoudi’s AMC) The National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom, or NCPPF, was founded in the 1960s to provide legal support to New Left terrorists in the Weather Underground, the Puerto Rican FALN and the Black Liberation Army;[ it would be revived decades later to push for Islamist terrorist causes.] -”Undermining war on terror : Muslim groups weakening fed laws under guise of protecting civil liberties,” World Net Daily, March 10, 2003 via 24 posted on 11/01/2004 9:56:32 PM PST by piasa
***
Sami al-Arian & Abdurahman al-Amoudi : [Sami] Al-Arian is also chairman of the National Coalition for the Protection of Political Freedom (NCPPF), a legal-aid group based in New York for U.S. and foreign terrorist causes (see “Domestic Front in the War on Terror,” December 17, 2001). Alamoudi’s AMC is a leading member of the NCPPF.
— “Supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah File Suit Against Bush,” by Michael Waller, Insight on the News, July 17, 2002
23 posted on 11/01/2004 9:52:04 PM PST by piasa

Hmmmm - another remarkable coincidence emerges? Daniel Seikaly happens to have a daughter - who represented a jihadist called Al-Timini (jailed for 70 years for “sedition” - the guy worked next to Ken Alibek and had a security clearance). Daniel Seikaly, of course, is the guy who seems to be the orchestrator of the DOJ’s campaign against Hatfill. I wonder why his daughter was representing Al-Timini for free?

Daniel Seikaly was briefed by lead investigator Lambert (with Michael Mason, head of field office present). Has pled fifth about outrageous Hatfill leaks.

Daniel Seikaly would have presented any indictment brought. (No indictment was brought).

His daughter Kate Seikaly represented Ali-Al-Timimi pro bono.

Supporting sources:
See
(1) family tree
http://www.seikaly.org/family_tree.html

Ali Al-Timimi (1)
TERMINATED: 07/13/2005
represented by
Alan H. Yamamoto
Law Office of Alan Yamamoto
634 S. Washington St
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-684-4700
Fax: 703-684-6643
Email: yamamoto.law@verizon.net
LEAD ATTORNEY
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Designation: Retained

Edward B. MacMahon
107 East Washington St
Middleburg, VA 20118
(703) 589-1124
LEAD ATTORNEY
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Designation: Retained

James Patrick Vann
Martin F McMahan & Associates
1150 Connecticut Ave Nw
Suite 900
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 862-4343
TERMINATED: 10/22/2004
LEAD ATTORNEY
ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Designation: Retained

Katherine Joanne Seikaly
Bryan Cave LLP
700 13th St NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 508-6000
Fax: (202) 508-6200
Email: kate.seikaly@bryancave.com
LEAD ATTORNEY
Designation: Pro Bono

Alan H. Yamamoto's office was right there in Alexandria on a street that put him about 5 minutes driving time (outside of rush hour) from our former offices on US 1 and the Beltway (which were in the same building as Ken Abelik).

Hmmmmm ~ and now I remember al-Timini. When he was affiliated with Ken, in that building, a company in Alexandria that printed Islamic literature always sent over a truck driven by a middle-aged guy who had converted to Islam in prison.

Hmmmm ~ and even stickier, I think I can call up Yamamoto's face. Problem here is that Ken had more than his fair share of Khazakistani "wannabees" who'd come out of the woodwork to film him, etc. So, they were always around, and this Yamamoto kind of disappeared into the background. However, he would have been the not-Korean/not-Khazakh Asian guy ~ and that usually means he could be Japanese, so there he is, the Japanese guy.

He has no pictures on the Internet.

A Question: Did Ken rat out al Timini and did his own security detail pick up on Yamamoto?

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