Justice Department Filing Casts Doubt on Guilt of Bruce Ivins, Accused in Anthrax Case

[EFerrari]

By Mike Wiser, PBS FRONTLINE, Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers, and Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica July 18, 2011, 8:03 p.m.


WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has called into question a key pillar of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of mailing the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized Congress a decade ago.

Shortly after Ivins committed suicide in 2008, federal investigators announced that they had identified him as the mass murderer who sent the letters to members of Congress and the media. The case was circumstantial, with federal officials arguing that the scientist had the means, motive and opportunity to make the deadly powder at a U.S. Army research facility at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Md.

On July 15, however, Justice Department lawyers acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab -- the so-called hot suite -- did not contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001.

The government said it continues to believe that Ivins was “more likely than not” the killer. But the filing in a Florida court did not explain where or how Ivins could have made the powder, saying only that the lab “did not have the specialized equipment’’ in Ivins' secure lab “that would be required to prepare the dried spore preparations that were used in the letters.”

http://www.propublica.org/article/justice-department-filing-casts-doubt-on-guilt-of-bruce-ivins-accused-in-an

But Mueller said the science was going to MAKE their case, over and over.

[fascisthunter]

1. so, who was the FBI trying to Frame Ivins for?

[EFerrari]

2. Qui bono?

It was such an obvious frame up and nobody challenged them, not even Leahy when Mueller lied to his face in an open hearing.

[fascisthunter]

3. yup... it was open and shut

I remember very well how they seemed to be in a rush. As if...

[EFerrari]

4. Remember the array of character assassinating stories

that turned out to be mostly bullshit. Remember they had him in Princeton and in Frederick at the same time the day of the first mailing. Remember that from the very start, his co-workers said he didn't have the expertise or the equipment to do it -- and they were threatened with their jobs to shut up.

Remember the unreported spill that was reported. Remember the testimony of the therapist that wasn't a therapist. Remember the yearlong stalking of his family, the trotting out of his mentally ill brother to slander him. Remember the hundreds of people who showed up to his memorial anyway, because the Army can't fire you for going to church.

What was that all for?

[fascisthunter]

5. I remember very well how quickly the media was to accepting the narrative

that it was him. Anybody with half a brain and a smidgen of honesty could come away from this story and not think something was wrong in Kansas.

[EFerrari]

6. The FBI drove this man to suicide and he was innocent.

And they put his family through that, his wife and his two kids. And the whole Fort Detrick community.

And what about the families who lost people in that attack? What about them? And why aren't Ton Dashle and Pat Leahy in the least bit interested in this case?

It stinks to high heaven.

[suffragette]

10. It certainly does stink

And all very good questions you ask here.

Good job on keeping on this.

[EFerrari]

12. Notice, this article is by ProPublica, Frontline and McClatchy

Not the AP, the NYTs or the WaHo.

[suffragette]

13. Hmm - info found by reporter working on documentary

Good news they're doing that and that it is this group rather than the other ones, who would prefer the lid stay closed.
http://www.propublica.org/article/justice-department-filing-casts-doubt-on-guilt-of-bruce-ivins-accused-in-an

The court papers were uncovered by a reporter for the PBS program FRONTLINE which is working on a forthcoming documentary on the case with McClatchy Newspapers and ProPublica, the investigative newsroom.

You should send them the link and thread in which you noted your discovery of the hole in the story the FBI was trying to spread about the mailing of the letters along with how we went to the blogs to make others aware of that. It really was a major find by you and highlights the difference between the AP, NYT and WaHo reporting without question the FBI line (even when it completely contradicted the FBI's own PDF on the case) and the actual investigative work on this being done online.

[mistertrickster]

16. And given FBI/CIA history, "suicide" cannot be assumed either. nt

[Eddie Haskell]

11. Cheney!

He wanted the Congressional hearings squashed.

[Solly Mack]

7. K&R

[chill_wind]

8. K & R. Thank you for the updates EF

and for keeping this story alive over all these years. And the ProPublica link. It looks like they've compiled quite a lot on this over the years. Yes, stinks. (It's right up there with the Agency's investigation into the niger yellowcake forgeries, but in a much reversed way) His real friends in the scientific community have never given up hope that he will be vindicated yet.



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.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26044996/ns/us_news-security/t/fbi-said-have-stalked-ivins-family/

[EFerrari]

9. I just sent the link to Meryl Nass, who doesn't have it up on her blog yet.

That blog was a hub for the whole Ft. Detrich community and I got to know a few people there.

Where is Pat Leahy? What is going on here?

[krispos42]

14. And I think most DUers called bullshit on the DoJ

And that means that most DUers were right.

[leftstreet]

15. K&R

[mistertrickster]

17. K & r'd. Remember how the FBI had Steven Hatfill in their gun sights for 5 or 6 years?

They as much said he was guilty.

Fortunately, he didn't crack.

Obviously, what the FBI is not really looking at is who benefits from anthrax hysteria and the rush to war. They refuse to go there . . .

[Octafish]

18. The mailings contained WEAPONIZED anthrax.

The "Ames Strain," detailed by Patrick Martin of the WSWS at the time: US anthrax attacks linked to army biological weapons plant

So. Dr. Ivins did not have the capabilities to make weaponized anthrax.

Gee. So who did?