Posted on 08/14/2008 5:34:58 PM PDT by Shermy
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. Eisen, a UC Davis biologist and former colleague of the scientists at the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md.
* Ivins, who had been recruited to assist the FBI, failed in February 2002 to provide an anthrax sample, known as RMR-1029, as requested by a bureau agent. The FBI did not obtain the RMR-1029 from within the Ft. Detrick laboratory complex where Ivins worked until two years later when an agent took possession of a flask holding that material.
...Yet even as Ivins told the Army that he had erred, FBI officials continued to rely on him for scientific assistance in their investigation of the mailings. And for several more years, FBI supervisors ordered agents to stay locked on a different target, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a former Army researcher who had never handled anthrax.
..."Of course I think it was a cover-up," said the officer, who did not want to be identified because external reviews are pending. "He was trying to clean up the material" that may have been used in the anthrax mailings.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
High quality rumor-mongering from the Los Angeles Times again. Same author who the FBI fed with the “break” in the story, incl. the brother who said Ivins could have done it. The reporter failed to mention the brother hadn’t spoken to Ivins in 23 years.
"Of course I think it was a cover-up," said the officer, who did not want to be identified because external reviews are pending. "He was trying to clean up the material" that may have been used in the anthrax mailings.Sharp eyes are needed to catch the "that may have been used in the anthrax mailings" are the reporter's creation. Never said by any unnamed, as usual, source, never charged by the FBI.
The swabbing and spill by Ivins occurred in December, not September.
“By contrast, authorities waited until last November to conduct their first searches of Ivins’ vehicles and his home, in Frederick, Md. Taylor and other officials who addressed reporters with him declined to say if they knew whether Ivins had bleached any of his personal possessions in the six-year period between the anthrax mailings and the searches, which found no spores.”
I think I know how this transpired.
Secret source: Ask me if we knew whether Ivins bleached his personal possessions.
Reporter: Do you know whether Ivins bleached his personal possessions?
Secret source: I decline to say at this time. (purses lips, makes a zipper-like gesture with his hand across them)
________________________________
The revealing answer would be, “No, we found no bleached out spots on his car rug, house carpets, clothing. In fact, if he was trailing anthrax, it would be all over those. You know what, truthfully that doesn’t exonerate him, or anybody else. But we used the fact that we searched these items to make him sound ominous, now people are expecting a CSI-like answer for failing to find spores on them. So how about some innuendo about immersing every thing he owned with bleach?”
Posted on 11/30/01 9:51 PM Pacific by right_to_defend
If you have been follwing my posts for the past month you will see that I have been an advocate of the anthrax coming froma foreign source.
Tonight, I had a meeting with an ex-government officer who worked for an agency I do not want to give right now.
I was told that the US Government has determined that the strain of anthrax released in the U.S. came directly from a U.S. weapons lab. This has been confirmed by detailed DNA analylsis of the Ames strain of the anthrax discovered. Apparently the analysis has now narrowed down the source not only to the lab but the section of the lab from where it came.
This now means that an arrest is imminent of a U.S. scientist working on this project.
Thank you for the ping.
Gunny Bob, says the man died of the cyanide in Denver.
850koa.com
Shermy, but doesn’t seem that if he came home for dinner on 9/17, we would have heard about it by now from the family lawyer?
The Post article also contains more leaked information:
Investigators now believe that Ivins waited until evening to make the drive to Princeton on Sept. 17, 2001. He showed up at work that day and stayed briefly, then took several hours of administrative leave from the lab, according to partial work logs. Based on information from receipts and interviews, authorities say Ivins filled up his car’s gas tank, attended a meeting outside of the office in the late afternoon, and returned to the lab for a few minutes that evening before moving off the radar screen and presumably driving overnight to Princeton. The letters were postmarked Sept. 18.
If it is confirmed that he always came home for dinner but didn’t on that one night, that would be very notable, wouldn’t it?
“Shermy, but doesn’t seem that if he came home for dinner on 9/17, we would have heard about it by now from the family lawyer?”
I don’t know. Can he fairly claim in 2006 what he was doing that night five years previous?
“If it is confirmed that he always came home for dinner but didn’t on that one night, that would be very notable, wouldn’t it?”
Where is that?
“Investigators now believe that Ivins waited until evening to make the drive to Princeton on Sept. 17, 2001. He showed up at work that day and stayed briefly, then took several hours of administrative leave from the lab, according to partial work logs. Based on information from receipts and interviews, authorities say Ivins filled up his car’s gas tank, attended a meeting outside of the office in the late afternoon, and returned to the lab for a few minutes that evening before moving off the radar screen and presumably driving overnight to Princeton. The letters were postmarked Sept. 18.”
BS detectors twitching heavily here. First, did he drive after work to NJ? Maybe, but then why is the earlier “administrative leave” relevant? It’s not, its just lawyer BS to spin an ominous picture. I bet they know what that “leave” was and I bet it was psychiatric.
When did he “return in the evening?” Why didn’t the FBI state this time? 99.9% probable it hurts the driving to NJ Timeline.
BTW, it is reported he lives in walking distance of his job and he commonly went there to get away from home.
BTW, the Post article doesn’t mention dinner or not at home.
Did this come up in another printed story, I’ll link it.
No. I’m suggesting that it is material whether he had dinner at home as it would push the 7 hour period further out — into the night. But only the wife and kids and advise as to that.
From Frederick, MD to Princeton, NJ -- 195 miles, 3:29 travel time (Mapquest). Inclusive of doing the deed, figure 8 hours round trip.
Wonder why he'd do the overnight run rather than do it on the weekend...
“Wonder why he’d do the overnight run rather than do it on the weekend...”
That’s a darn good point.
“For instance, the Justice Department said earlier this month in unsealing court records against Dr. Ivins that he had tried to mislead investigators in 2002 by giving them an anthrax sample that did not appear to have come from his laboratory.
But F.B.I. officials acknowledged at the closed-door briefing, according to people who were there, that the sample Dr. Ivins gave them in 2002 did in fact come from the same strain used in the attacks, but, because of limitations in the bureau’s testing methods and Dr. Ivins’s failure to provide the sample in the format requested, the F.B.I. did not realize that it was a correct match until three years later.
In addition, people who were briefed by the F.B.I. said a batch of misprinted envelopes used in the anthrax attacks — another piece of evidence used to link Dr. Ivins to the attacks — could have been much more widely available than bureau officials had initially led them to believe.”
F.B.I. Will Present Scientific Evidence in Anthrax Case to Counter Doubts
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/washington/16anthrax.html?ref=us
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: August 15, 2008
Wrong man then
Wrong man now
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