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http://my.firedoglake.com/jimwhite/2010 ... stigation/Rush Holt Blasts FBI for Withholding Documents from Outside Review of Scientific Work in Anthrax Investigation
By: Jim White Friday December 10, 2010 5:07 am
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The infamous RMR-1029 flask genetically linked to the anthrax attack material.
[Ed. note: Link to Rep. Holt's statement and letter have been added below.]
Both the New York Times and McClatchy report that Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) has written a letter to the FBI, blasting them for requesting a delay in the release of the final report from the National Academy of Sciences panel that has been reviewing the scientific analyses used in the FBI’s Amerithrax Investigation of the 2001 Anthrax mailings. It appears that in requesting the National Academies to delay release of its final report, the FBI has released an additional 500 pages of documents to the panel, but only after having seen the draft final report from the panel.
Here is McClatchy discussing Holt’s letter (which I don’t see posted on Holt’s website; I will call and request a copy Link to PDF letter here):
Holt, a scientist and the chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said the academy recently shared with the bureau its draft report on the “Amerithrax” investigation, a narrow scientific review that the FBI requested in 2008 in an effort to quell controversy over its findings that a disgruntled government scientist was behind the attacks.
“This week I was informed by the NAS that the FBI would be releasing an additional 500 pages of previously undisclosed investigative material from the Amerithrax investigation to the NAS,” he wrote. Holt said he understands that the “document dump . . . is intended to contest and challenge the independent NAS panel’s draft findings.”
“If these new documents were relevant to the NAS’ review, why were they previously undisclosed and withheld?” Holt wrote. He requested a meeting with the FBI director.
In the Times, Scott Shane reports that the National Academy has agreed to extend its study:
E. William Colglazier, the academy’s executive officer, said the F.B.I.’s request was a surprise and came after the bureau saw the panel’s peer-reviewed final report, which was scheduled for release in November. He said that the committee’s 15 members, top scientists who serve as volunteers, were “exhausted,” but that the panel had agreed to extend the study and consider revising the report in return for an additional fee, probably about $50,000, beyond the $879,550 the F.B.I. has already paid for the study.
Dr. Colglazier declined to say if the report was critical of the F.B.I.’s work but said it was “very direct.” The report sticks to science and does not offer an opinion on whether Dr. Ivins carried out the anthrax attacks, he said.
The McClatchy article also quotes Holt as saying of the FBI that it “consistently botched and bungled this case from the beginning.” In addition to the early focus on Steven Hatfill as the primary suspect, followed by a settlement of more than $4 million paid to Hatfill after he was cleared of involvement, several aspects of the FBI case do not appear to withstand scientific scrutiny.
In this diary, I pointed out that the amount of highly purified anthrax material that was used in the mailings would have been very difficult, if not impossible for Bruce Ivins, whom the FBI stated was solely responsible for the attacks, to have produced at his government laboratory without arousing the suspicion of his coworkers. The small shake flasks that Ivins would have used produce very little material, so he would have had to grow anthrax in a very large number (over 35 or so) of the cultures he normally grew.
On the other hand, a single production of spores from a fermenter of at least 70 liters would have produced enough anthrax spore material to account for what was used in the attacks. Further, in this diary, I point out that the abnormal silicon content of the spores used in the attack can be accounted for by the presence of an agent called “antifoam”, that is added to microbial cultures when they are grown in large fermenters, again suggesting that the attack material was produced in a fermenter to which Ivins did not have access.
I had been monitoring the website for the National Academies investigation regularly since the project’s slated termination in late October, looking for their final report. It appears now that we all will have to wait a bit longer before we see that report. My only hope is that Rush Holt is making sure that David Margolis is not allowed anywhere near the report before it is made final.
(h/t to @jaraparilla for alerting me to the Times article and to Retired Military Patriot for finding the McClatchy article)
comment on this27 Comments Recommend
Tags: Amerithrax, Bruce Ivins, anthrax attacks, FBI, National Academy of Sciences, Robert Hatfill, shake flask, House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, fermenter, Alice Gast, anthrax spore silicon content, antifoam
27 Responses to Rush Holt Blasts FBI for Withholding Documents from Outside Review of Scientific Work in Anthrax Investigation
1.
Ruth Calvo December 10th, 2010 at 6:51 am «
Thanks for this, and for keeping an eye on it. It’s interesting, also, that the anthrax attacks are consistently omitted when supporters of the previous administration insist that only 911 happened on their watch.
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Margaret December 10th, 2010 at 7:58 am «
Half the time they insist that was actually Clinton’s fault or don;t mention it at all. This has got to be some of the most transparent whitewash bullshit I’ve ever seen since Clayton Hartwig and the Iowa turret explosion.
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2.
eCAHNomics December 10th, 2010 at 8:00 am «
“quotes Holt as saying of the FBI that it “consistently botched and bungled this case from the beginning.” ”
Federal Bureau of Incompetence.
It’ll probably be a shorter list to name the investigations it hasn’t botched & bungled. And the botching & bungling are prolly intentional for the most part. Who wants to know the truth when the public can be deluded by falsehoods.
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Marion in Savannah December 10th, 2010 at 8:11 am «
“Federal Bureau of Incompetence”
Or, as they were called by Walther Matthau in the movie “Hopscotch,” Fucking Ballbusting Incompetents.
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3.
PeasantParty December 10th, 2010 at 8:01 am «
Cheney did it.
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ghostof911 December 10th, 2010 at 8:17 am «
He was responsible for a few other minor things as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amzBk38_ ... ather=True Reply
4.
DWBartoo December 10th, 2010 at 8:12 am «
Are we really surprised?
Seems to me, if the ole memory serves, that you, Jim, were on top of this incompetent and omission-laden “investigation” from the very beginning …
So, I’m gonna say what I said way back when: Thank you, Jim, for the education you’ve consistently provided me – and anyone else with neurons sufficient to synapse with.
DW
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5.
ghostof911 December 10th, 2010 at 8:13 am «
Thank you Jim. While Assange and Wiki are putting the heat on, the responsibility for the rest of the world’s respectable journalists is to step forward and expose everything that needs to be exposed.
The assignment is huge. Let’s get it on.
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6.
cbl December 10th, 2010 at 8:22 am «
o/t Breaking:
Assange’s lawyer telling ABC News – U.S. Indictment for Assange under Espionage Act “imminent”
ayfkm ?
DOJ Site hacked in 5…4…3…2
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lsls December 10th, 2010 at 8:24 am «
Yikes!!!
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o
lsls December 10th, 2010 at 8:26 am «
Oh…indictment not extradition..yet..If he ends up over here he’s probably gonna be toast..
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7.
lsls December 10th, 2010 at 8:28 am «
The anthrax attacks were surely an inside job…look who got them..Leahy etal.
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8.
Jeff Kaye December 10th, 2010 at 8:29 am «
Thanks for sticking with this story. Incompetence is only one possibility, sabotage is another. The withholding of some 500 pages of new material is quite odd, speaks to bad faith. Or maybe this is just a delay tactic, to keep the report from coming out as long as possible.
This government is not square with the American people, and has much to hide.
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Jim White December 10th, 2010 at 8:36 am «
Indeed. And here is the letter from Holt to Meuller:
http://holt.house.gov/index.php?option= ... &Itemid=18 Note that Holt is insisting on a meeting with him this week. Holt knows he has no time to waste in the short remaining time he will chair the intelligence oversight committee before it goes into Republican hands.
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DWBartoo December 10th, 2010 at 9:19 am «
At a certain “point”, “incompetence” or sabotage becomes … treason.
DW
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tjbs December 10th, 2010 at 11:23 am «
That train left the station a while ago.
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9.
Bobster33 December 10th, 2010 at 8:37 am «
Keep in mind that at the time of the investigation, the FBI was not allowed to even access the internet as Mueller did not believe in the technology. If I remember, it was not until after 2003, that the FBI started to get unrestricted access.
If you were to spend about 8 hours on the internet and retrace the facts and speak with retired biological experts, I suspect you would get a better answer than the entire 10 years of B.S. the FBI has supplied.
Because of TV, we like to believe that the FBI is only best agents and can solve any crime in 60 minutes. The FBI like any large organizations has its good agents, the bad ones and the ugly.
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eCAHNomics December 10th, 2010 at 9:15 am «
Hey, why be fair when we can scapegoat? Just because we’re bleeding heart libruls, does that mean we have to be fair to the FBI too? Isn’t that a line too far? *g*
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DWBartoo December 10th, 2010 at 9:29 am «
Hoi paloi must always be consistently fair AND obsequiously polite to those who would cynically, to their own aggrandizement and benefit, destroy the viability of society …
DW
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tjbs December 10th, 2010 at 11:25 am «
Didn’t they solve the 9-11 hijackering in 24 hours ? Yuk, yuk, yuk,
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10.
Ann in AZ December 10th, 2010 at 8:45 am «
David Dayen has a fresh cross-post up: Payroll Tax Cut Would Mean Higher Tax Rates for the Working Poor
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11.
Ymhotep December 10th, 2010 at 8:49 am «
Who remembers the “open air” germ tests conducted by the US government between 1950 and 1969 when the military sprayed serratia bacteria and other biological agents onto San Francisco and into New York subways? The government was finally forced to renounce the use of germ warfare weapons on US cities in 1972. Or how about the cholera-infested clams the US government dropped from planes into North Korea near a water purification plant in the 50′s? Or the American F-82 fighter planes which dropped voles (a rat like animal) infested with germ-ridden fleas on China on an April night in 1952? The US track record on keeping the public informed on these matters is very bad. And we wonder why people mistrust and dislike us? Peace
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12.
Watchmaker December 10th, 2010 at 8:59 am «
Jim, who has followed the silicon story, may be interested to know that a new book “Microbial Foresnsics” edited by the FBI’s Amerithrax team, actually admits for the first time that the silicon content cannot be naturally occurring. This is a huge 180 from their longstanding position that it was all just an accident. The book can be perused for free at Amazon by doing a search for keywords like “silicon”.
page 513
“Thus if the estimates silicon concentrations in the Amerithrax spores are correct, they are not consistent with our current understanding of silica deposition or those materials must have indeed been produced under an unusual set of conditions. If the latter were true, the silica evidence might provide a significant bound on the credible growth and production scenarios that would be consistent with the prosecution narrative in this case.”
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http://www.amazon.com/reader/0123820065 ... 0123820065 page 516:
“In the years after this was written, it became apparent that there were in fact, fundamental issues in inferential validation of sample matching protocols for biological agents. This concern arose from the National Research Council’s report on bullet lead analysis…….”
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Jim White December 10th, 2010 at 9:09 am «
Thanks for that. I was unaware of the book.
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13.
revisionist December 10th, 2010 at 9:39 am «
The Anthrax needs to be in the news every freaking day.
Someone attacked and killed Americans with Anthrax. The person or persons is still out there and could have MORE anthrax. These people were not in Afghanistan ….. or Iraq…. But right here.
I am not going to get into all the details of the case(s)but I find it very very very VERY odd that this fell out of the news so quickly and Bush and Co never seemed concerned. I mean we invaded Afghanistan to get one fucking guy. Its nearly like it didnt even happen. Which is doubly odd since congress and media figures were targeted.
The entire thing doesnt add up. But I guess its ok that someone could still have a bunch of military grade anthrax to use or sell or culture.
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14.
Mason December 10th, 2010 at 9:49 am «
I believe we can safely presume that the NAS Report criticized the competence and professionalism of the FBI Crime Laboratory’s forensic work and the conclusions reported by its forensic examiners. I also suspect, Jim, that they reached the same conclusion that you reached regarding the substantial likelihood that the perpetrator or perpetrators used a fermenter to mass produce, so to speak, enough anthrax spores to mail out to the intended victims. The presence of the silicon in the powder containing the anthrax spores appears to conclusively resolve that issue.
Now, I’m wondering about what kind of information is contained in the 500 pages of additional documents and why didn’t the FBI provide them to the NAS in the first place? Since the NAS inquiry is specifically focused on the forensic work, I’m guessing the additional documents may contain all of the benchnotes and computer printouts of the spectrographic examinations. I can’t imagine why the FBI Crime Lab would not have turned that over in the first place. I suggest that may have happened because I’ve run into that problem with them in the past in cases that I’ve handled. They like to turn over conclusory reports without the underlying data and a lawyer has to fight like a banshee to get anything more out of them. They get away with it because most lawyers don’t know enough to ask, but that certainly wouldn’t be the case with the NAS. On the other hand, I don’t understand why the NAS wouldn’t have immediately noticed missing benchnotes and requested them before conducting their review.
I regard this as an unexpected and startling development in this long drawn-out and shameful investigation. There simply is no excuse whatsoever for the FBI Crime Lab to have withheld any reports. Looks to me like the FBI Crime Lab still hasn’t cleaned up its act since Fred Whitehurst’s whistleblowing revelations in the mid nineties and the lab’s incredibly incompetent mistaken identification of the innocent Portland lawyer’s fingerprint on bombing materials recovered from the scene of the train station bombing in Madrid.
I’m going to make an educated guess and predict that the material contained in these additional documents isn’t going to resolve the NAS concerns and may even further muddy the waters.
