(Rep. D )Holt wants answers from FBI on anthrax

[IChing]

Source: Asbury Park Press


04/11/07
PRINCETON — Nearly six years after letters laced with anthrax spooked a nation freshly worried about terrorist attacks, a federal lawmaker and postal workers gathered Tuesday to call for the FBI to explain the progress of its investigation and why the case has never been solved.

Standing down the street from the drop-box where the first anthrax-tainted letter was mailed, Rep. Rush D. Holt, D-N.J., continued to ask the FBI to brief Congress on the status of the investigation of the origin of the 2001 letters that killed five people and left sick many who came into contact with the bacterium.

Holt said he was "stonewalled" from being briefed on the investigation by the FBI last September, when a formal request was made seeking an update on the case. Holt said he has begun to wonder if the refusal for a briefing is because the FBI is "embarrassed about their slow progress and the failures so far of the investigation."

"If they are making more progress, I'd like to know it," Holt said.

A response letter from the FBI last year declined a classified briefing on the case but said "significant progress" had been made in the investigation, calling it "one of the largest and most complex investigations ever conducted."

Read more: http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070411/NEWS03/704110314/1007

[soothsayer]

1. 100% chance they aren't even looking, esp if one of the leads was

to that Israeli scientist dude.

[wakeme2008]

2. What Israeli scientist dude

any links

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. I don't think it was an Israeli!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

12. I thought they figured out the Ames strain could be gotten to by about six people, total.

[depakid]

3. 6 years later- no Bin Laden and no anthrax suspects

Maybe we should put one of the fired US attorneys on the case.

[youngdem]

5. Seems pretty clear it was a CIA black op to assist in jamming down the Patriot Act & Iraw War on us

Thought they figured out that the strain was highly weaponized and was the Ames strain from a US base in Iowa, then the case went cold and they tried to pin it on the whistleblower (Hatfield) in typical Rovian fashion.

As soon as the Patriot Act was passed, the story was of no further use to the administration so they ignore it to this day.

Based on who got the letters, it seems very obvious it was a domestic source, and screams black op to me. I think the CIA or similar did it to scare us more in order to make us compliant with all of the horrible legislation they were ready to start using to begin the looting and destruction of America.

There was never a credible foreign claim of responsibility (that I ever heard of or could find today by Google), which also seems a little odd.

[MasonJar]

6. Now that is a spectacular plan. They might dig right in, especially

Lam. She seems like a top-notch winner to me.

[Old and In the Way]

7. This post a few days ago might be relevant....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=614208&mesg_id=614208

Who were ABC's 4 highly placed sources implicating Iraq? Can you say, "Niger forgeries/Valerie Plame outing"?

[tanyev]

9. Yeah, at least one of those 4 might know a lot more than they're telling.

[LiberalFighter]

8. Careful Mr Holt... FBI might send you some anthrax -- Don't trust the FBI

[bklyncowgirl]

10. They better not anthrax my Congressman.

I finally get in a district with a Congressman I can really like and admire and you're talking about the FBI sending him anthrax!

At any rate good for Rush for looking into this--everybody else has sort of let it go down the old memory hole--makes you wonder.

[annabanana]

11. k&r . . . . . . n/t

[xchrom]

13. god i HOPE there is some kind of investigative report on why

the fbi has failed SO miserably in this case.

[donkeyotay]

14. And not just in this case

The name Sibel Edmonds springs to mind. Larry Franklin. I wonder what happened to the FBI investigation into the Cunningham angle of organized crime. With both Lam and the FBI head gone, I guess that investigation goes nowhere either. Is Delay getting his day in court? Abramoff, Scanlon, Rudy...lots of cooperation, but...they can never move up the food chain.

[xchrom]

16. my fear is that this endemic to the status quo and merely relegated republick

party offenses.

then indeed this all goes nowhere.

[gratuitous]

15. Gee, actual follow-through on a request?

That never happened when the Republicans were in charge!

I hope Mr. Holt keeps pressing this; the failure of the FBI to make an arrest in this matter, and its complete disappearance from any major media coverage, is a national embarrassment.

That is, if the failure is one of neglect and not intent.