Kill Game: The Path Of Destruction From The Amerithrax Investigation

"Have you no sense of decency, … at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" These prophetic words were spoken on June 9, 1954 by Joseph Welch, attorney for the United States Army, at the nadir of the shameful McCarthy hearings. It was a time of scurrilous persecution of all numbers and types of fellow humans, based mostly on sheer rumor, innuendo and manufactured evidence. The acts of a United States Government drenched in it’s own fears, drunk of it’s own hubris and looking for political scapegoats.

The result was an everlasting shame carried by a generation of Americans. To this day, the methods and tactics of the red baiting McCarthy investigators, and the hell they wrought on the ostracized and disavantaged targets, not to mention the devastation to their families, is taught to our children as a seminal lesson of the dark, malignant growth that can consume the American ethos when fear, ambition, unitary power and political malevolence intersect unchecked and unbalanced in the halls of power in Washington DC. It is a tragic intersection that seeks a target of convenience and finds it.

And so we advance fifty years to find our dark history repeating itself in the Amerithrax case. Once again we find a unified and unchecked power in the government fueled by, and fueling, fear and trolling for a target of convenience to scapegoat. This is now incontrovertible.

Sunday’s New York Times has an extended article, by William Broad and Scott Shane, on the hell that our Government hath wrought upon it’s citizenry in the Amerithrax investigation. It is chilling.

But along the way, scores of [individuals] — terrorists, foreigners, academic researchers, biowarfare specialists and an elite group of Army scientists working behind high fences and barbed wire — drew the interest of the investigators. For some of them the cost was high: lost jobs, canceled visas, broken marriages, frayed friendships.

The bureau began looking at biodefense insiders like Mr. Mikesell, an anthrax specialist who had worked in the 1980s and 1990s with Dr. Ivins at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, in Frederick. He had then joined Battelle, a military contractor in Columbus, Ohio, that became deeply involved in secret federal research on biological weapons.

In 2002, Mr. Mikesell came under F.B.I. scrutiny, officials familiar with the case said. He began drinking heavily — a fifth of hard liquor a day toward the end, a family member said.

“It was a shock that all of a sudden he’s a raging alcoholic,” recalled the relative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of family sensitivities.

By late October 2002, Mr. Mikesell, 54, was dead, his short obituary in The Columbus Dispatch making no mention of his work with anthrax or the investigation.

Another casualty was Kenneth M. Berry, an emergency room physician with a strong interest in bioterrorism threats. In August 2004, agents raided his colonial-style home and his former apartment in Wellsville, a village in western New York, as well as his parents’ beach house on the Jersey Shore.

In scenes replayed for days on local television stations, the authorities cordoned off streets as agents in protective suits emerged from the dwellings with computers and bags of papers, mail and books.

“He was devastated,” Dr. Berry’s lawyer at the time, Clifford E. Lazzaro, said in an interview. “They destroyed his marriage and destroyed him professionally for a time.”

The government has unequivocally admitted that it wrongfully targeted an individual, Steven Hatfill, for a period of six years with little to no basis in fact or evidence to do so. The result of that "most complex criminal case in bureau [FBI] history", and dedicated certainty by the Bush Department of Justice for six years, has been a lawsuit brought by Hatfill, a settlement with Hatfill, humiliation of the DOJ and, finally, a complete exoneration of Hatfill.

It is pretty clear that Hatfill would, in spite of all the evidence, still be the target of this persecution had he not fought back doggedly with every ounce of his being. The government relentlessly tried to get his civil case dismissed and to hide the ball. As with another infamous case of Bush Administration subterfuge, if not for the honesty and spine for justice on the part of Judge Reggie Walton, Hatfill would still be impaled on the tip of the government’s spear. But Hatfill was an unwilling dupe, and once he was lost as the solution the government claimed, and Congress and victims were rightfully wondering what exactly the government had accomplished, another sacrificial lamb was needed; this time a more unstable one and more susceptible to allegation. And this is true whether Ivins is guilty or not; either way, he is the new object on the government’s spear.

To the everlasting shame of the United States Government, Bruce Ivins is dead; maybe from his own devices, and maybe not. Either way, however, Ivins is dead as a result of a sick game being run on him by the government in the conduct of the Amerithrax investigation, and his death is the direct result of their malevolence. The government says it has been focused on Ivins since 2006. Notably, during almost the entire time period since then, the government publicly maintained it’s now admittedly baseless position that Hatfill was responsible. When the gig was finally up on Hatfill, here is what the government did to Ivins, and as in the red-baiting persecutions of half a century ago, his family:

In the current case, Ivins complained privately that FBI agents had offered his son, Andy, $2.5 million, plus “the sports car of his choice” late last year if he would turn over evidence implicating his father in the anthrax attacks, according to a former U.S. scientist who described himself as a friend of Ivins.

Ivins also said the FBI confronted Ivins’ daughter, Amanda, with photographs of victims of the anthrax attacks and told her, “This is what your father did,” according to the scientist, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because their conversation was confidential.

The scientist said Ivins was angered by the FBI’s alleged actions, which he said included following [and allegedly confronting] Ivins’ family on shopping trips.

Guilty or innocent, the government drove Ivins, a man they knew and considered mentally unstable, to suicide.

Dr. Byrne, who did not know of Dr. Ivins’s history of deep psychological problems that was disclosed by federal officials last week, said he could see signs of the growing stress Dr. Ivins was under as the investigation seemed to focus on him. One day, in March 2008, he showed up for a Sunday church service with a black eye.

“The F.B.I. been roughing you up?” Dr. Byrne recalled joking.

Last month, Dr. Ivins told an Army colleague that his experience of F.B.I. pressure was similar to what Mr. Mikesell went through.

“Perry drank himself to death,” the colleague recalled Dr. Ivins as saying some two weeks before he killed himself.

That is at best; assuming Mr. Ivins really did commit suicide. Since the government conveniently refused to perform a full autopsy, we will never know the myriad of clues and evidence on whether it really was a suicide. Having hounded and stalked Mr. Ivins to death, by whatever the means, the government seized the immediate, and I mean immediate, opportunity to dump the entire culpability for it’s entire pathetic Amerithrax investigation on him. How convenient.

We have spent the last week taking the government’s "rock solid" case apart at the seams. The dissection has been remarkably effective. That does not necessarily mean that Bruce Ivins did not commit, or participate in the commission, of the Amerithrax crimes, but it sure does mean that the government’s case is so full of holes that Swiss cheese looks like the Rock of Gibraltar in comparison. With each passing day, the case falls further apart. (See: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) It is already getting perilously close to the level of strength (read: weakness) of the case against Steven Hatfill, for which, again, millions of dollars and a complete exoneration were just handed out. The malicious actions of the United States government, as administered by Bush and Cheney, has turned this investigation, as they have so much else, into a craven and deadly game. A game in which some very well known actors, a lot higher up in the government than Bruce Ivins, have a far greater motive.

The Ivins family, and the public as a whole, deserve answers to the questions of how and why Bruce Ivins is dead and the investigation a septic dishonest mess. The Ivins family should follow the lead of Mr. Hatfill, for both themselves and the country, and demand the answers in a court of law. Thanks to the hideous actions of Nancy Grace, there is precedence for this very action for wrongful death, even from alleged suicide, of a suspect in a crime.

There are people with far better motive, and a lot better opportunity, for the commission of the Amerithrax crime. Instead of a competent and honest investigation, we have been spoon fed a disingenuous game by the Administration that has torn the lives and families of numerous innocent people apart. Some are dead as a direct result. Now we are told the game is over, in the face of all credulity. I wonder why that is. Has the United States government no sense of decency? Let’s hope the Ivins family, Congress, and a competent special prosecutor will help us all find out at long last.

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  1. LiberalHeart says:

    Here’s why I think the government settled with Hatfill: I’m betting the settlement forbids him from speaking out about the anthrax investigation or speaking ill of the investigators and their tactics. They probably know he could rip their investigation to shreds. He’s been totally quiet since the Ivins news came out, at least as far as I know.

  2. skdadl says:

    Splendid post, bmaz, very powerful. I was so shaken by the Times article, so hoping that someone would figure out how to gather up all that injustice and make it mean something. And so you have.

    • bmaz says:

      “They made me out to sound like a white-trash biker druggie,” Duley said.

      Yeah, I dunno; I kind of think she laid the basis for that all on her own. I am not sure at all that I buy her statement that

      “Everyone thinks I was complicit with the FBI,” Duley said in an interview Friday. “The FBI didn’t tell me anything.”

      Notice how this does not state that she had not had repetitive contact previously with the FBI or other government agents

      From her desk at Comprehensive Counseling Associates in Frederick, Duley called the Frederick Police Department to report Ivins’s threats. The scientist was taken into custody that afternoon and placed in a psychiatric hospital. A day later, the FBI showed up at Duley’s office for the first time.

      It only say it is the first time they showed up at her office. If they were trying to work her, they would not have breached her at the office, they would have done it where nobody else knew of the relationship.

      • LiberalHeart says:

        If the FBI didn’t tell her anything, how is it the things she said in that courtroom look like they’re lifted from the search warrant documents?

        I’d love to know who her new employer is — and how they’re feeling these days about hiring her.

        Interesting tidbit about her dad: a diplomat?

        • emptywheel says:

          Worse if they didn’t. That means she was swearing to the veracity of evidence she had heard from Ivins, which if you’re at the same time arguing he’s utterly instable, is not reliable.

          In other words, it’s one thing to say that he’s had revenge feelings going back years if you have worked with him for years and have evidence from him and other data. It’s another thing to take what someone who’s suicidal is saying over six months and accept that as fact.

  3. pdaly says:

    Nice post, bmaz.

    While the Feds remind us it is a crime to lie to a federal officer during an investigation of a crime, I wish someone would tell me the penalty for when a federal officer lies to us, We the People.

    The government derives its power from our collective free will to govern ourselves, so lying to us has to be the ultimate taboo.

    BTW, today is the anniversary of the Parisian revolutionaries storming the Tuilleries Palace, ending the French monarchy (well, until it was “restored” again in the 1800s).

  4. ohmercy says:

    OH. MY. GOD.

    Thanks so much bmaz.
    this is so powerfully written that I am sitting here stunned with my jaw resting on my knees.

    You put it together so beautifully.

    Does the Times etc print things like this as Op Ed’s or even letters to the editor.
    This piece should run in every major news paper in the country.

    I’m Speechless and that is saying something.

  5. Neil says:

    The F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, in his first public comments since the presentation of the evidence against Dr. Ivins on Wednesday, said Friday that he was proud of the inquiry.

    “I do not apologize for any aspect of the investigation,” he told reporters. It is erroneous, he added, “to say there were mistakes.”

    • bmaz says:

      Heh. That is a disturbingly Bushlike statement isn’t it? Yikes. No mistakes, er, except for that one we paid 6 mil out on and had to issue a formal exoneration; I guess that’s what he meant.

      Oh, and what LiberalHeart said too.

    • njr83 says:

      if it is erroneous to say there were mistakes,
      “I do not apologize for any aspect of the investigation,” he told reporters. It is erroneous, he added, “to say there were mistakes.”
      then all that has transpired is a matter of planning

      it’s all been intentional

      mission accomplished

  6. Muzzy says:

    There are clear questions about his death that could be clarified by an autopsy. From the Frederick News:

    “About 1:15 a.m. Sunday, Emergency Communications received a medical emergency call from Ivins’ Military Road home, said Lt. Shawn Martyak of the Frederick Police Department. Officials found Ivins unresponsive on the floor in a room in his home. At the time when officers were called to the home, there was nothing to indicate it was a suicide, he said. The department was notified Tuesday afternoon that Ivins had died by Frederick Memorial Hospital officials, Martyak said.”

    Frederick News

    -If he passed out due to complications from advanced liver failure, it would suggest he had overdosed so long before (several days) that codeine levels would be barely detectable and clearly not in a lethal range. This would be useful to know and could mean he endured being very sick for a prolonged time before finally passing out. Examination of liver enzyme levels with concomitatnt codeine levels would go a long way to help nail the timeline and sequence of events.

    -If he passed out due to codeine overdose with respiratory depression -and he lived until Tuesday, he should be alive today. Opiate overdose is a standard rule out in the field and administering Narcan would have immediately aroused him considering he was found with a heartbeat. It would also suggest he was found during the peak codeine level phase, which would correspond to the window when administering Mucomyst would have likely neutralized the acetaminophen and saved his liver. Even if they didn’t catch it in time, and his ingestion occurred Sunday, he would likely still be alive today albeit very sick.

    *

    Given these scenarios, it sure sounds like there is room for other causes of death to emerge with a thorough autopsy.

  7. LiberalHeart says:

    Was it Mueller who said they don’t like to step on anyone’s toes? I guess he forgot they drive over them.

  8. Neil says:

    When Duley’s restraining order against Ivins surfaced a few days after his death, the counselor left her home and went into hiding. In the breathless rush of media coverage, her life was scoured for details. News reports described her multiple DUI arrests and problems with addiction, including her current probation for her most recent DUI arrest in 2007.

    “They made me out to sound like a white-trash biker druggie,” Duley said.

    Duley spent her early childhood in Southeast Asia, where her father was a diplomat in several countries during the Vietnam War. The family returned to Chevy Chase, and Duley attended Walt Whitman High School before dropping out when she began using drugs. She earned her GED in 1984 and worked as a warranty manager at a car dealership, but a decade of her life was lost to alcohol and drugs, mostly cocaine.

    They were way off base calling Duley a white-trash biker.

    I believe she feared Ivins but I think she broke a professional code of ethics and maybe HIPAA law by making an official statement in filing for a protective order, possible an untrue statement at that, that Ivins was diagnosed as a sociopath.

    There’s no way the army has a sociopath handling anthrax… right?

    • LiberalHeart says:

      Well, she was a biker. She said so in another interview unrelated to the anthrax case. And she admitted to her drug use. I didn’t see anyone but Duley bring up white trash.

    • bmaz says:

      They didn’t call her that, or use those words, that was her synopsis. There is no way anybody in their right mind doesn’t act only through their employer and the employer’s legal counsel. No way. I am convinced she was being run and having her strings pulled on this.

      • Neil says:

        I think you’re right. She’s playing a victim card and characterizing her critics by putting those words in their mouths.

        By not runnnig the issue through her employer, she risked her job. Funny how she has a new one already and apparently the hiring manager had no concerns about her, in spite of the dust-up about her patient taking his own life, and her disclosing his personal health information in a protective order filing. That might be a thread worth following.

      • stryder says:

        If I had to manufacture a patsy I would want all the info I could get about the him.It was common knowledge that Ivans was on the edge and what better way to push him over it than through the person he confided in the most.She would be the ideal source of info and also the best person to manipulate him.
        Where did he get the script for the drugs?

    • emptywheel says:

      I don’t think anyone CALLED her a white trash biker druggie. I think people just pointed out that she had an extensive drug past, admitted to being a biker chick, and had been accused of domestic violence.

  9. PetePierce says:

    Nancy Grace is not the respected all victorious former prosecutor CNN (growing exponentially stupid) has tried to depcit. She is widely disrespected by the defense bar where she was practiced and the subject of the only two S. Ct. opinions in that state that raked an attorney over the coals for legal and ethical violations (witholding criticial evidence without the balls to reverse which is par for the course):

    Carr v. State, 267 Ga. 701, 482 S.E.2d 314 (1997).

    Hopefully the federal case against Grace in Florida will take a chunk of bucks out of the chunky and getting chunkier by the week Grace.

    The reason that we do not know much of the evidence in this case has nothing to do with “national security.” It has to do with a mindset where the DOJ has developed an attitude it has long held where it holds the American people in utter contempt, comporting with this administration’s attitude that DOJ knows best, and the rest of you are idiots.

    Open Questions on a Closed Case

    Books on this case? Probably a dozen before we see Jan. 1, 2010 and Obama’s first year in office.

    HJC, SJC on it like a tic or a flea on a bleedin’ dog? You betcha but those five minute questions will yield very little that’s substantive just as we have witnessed in the past couple years, because they won’t be bipartisan as in days of yore, they will be polarized gotcha contests among the two parties.

    But I doubt we’re ever going to get substantive evidence, particularly when there is no forum to cross examine and take on the bumbling inexperience (no significant litigation in a courtroom) Jeff Taylor who basically is where he is because he sucked up to Orin Hatch, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales in roles where he gained no courtroom experience.

    There should be a legal requirement that everyone who is a candidate for US Attorney have years of civil and criminal cases under their belt in a federal courtroom.

    There should be a legal requirement that everyone who is a candidate for the federal bench have years of civil and criminal cases under their belt in a federal courtroom.

    But there is not. As a result we have scroes of USAs and judges in key positions on the federal trial and appellate bench who have never touched a federal case as a litigator since graduating law school.

    In contrast, anyone who practices a subspecialty in medicine has had hundreds of cases in the area where they are practicing. It doesn’t by any means mean that care will be perfect,. or mistakes will not be made, or that doctors will have the requisite compassion and listening ability, but it does mandate that they get experience in the areas where they practice and often before they are cut loose to practice, they have to document and present those cases in surery subspecialty areas like OBGYN.

    And you get clusterfucks like the Antrhas clusterfucks, that have spawned a generation of blogosphere anthrax afficianados. It will be interesting to see how much the blogosphere contributes to the correct answers in this case, and I predict from what I’m seeing, it will be significant. But will the government listen?

    • bmaz says:

      I agree with experience being a good thing. Strongly agree with that. But I am pretty sure Taylor was an active AUSA for several years in the LA office; drug cases I think. Granted he is no Pat Fitz or John McKay or anything, but I think he did have some experience.

      Neil – I must have missed the bank info, where was it?

      • PetePierce says:

        If he handled litigation during his five years in LA, I stand corrected. You’re plugged in much better to things that happen out West. But as has been noted ad nauseam for a case of this magnitude, or for any murder case, their has been a ridiculous parody of real evidence by Taylor here, and we have a right to this evidence and it can be presented without jeapordizing national security I maintain (the anthrax’s genetic/microbiological “provenance” that they have to say it was Ivins and only Ivins).

        • bmaz says:

          I agree with that, and let’s be honest, it is almost worse in a way for a guy that has the knowledge and battle experience of a few years trial level work. That person should just know better. Now I’ve got no idea of what specific experience he really got, but here is his bio:

          Mr. Taylor served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California from 1995–1999, where he prosecuted a variety of criminal matters, including international drug trafficking organizations.

        • bmaz says:

          Ah, okay, that makes more sense. I thought you were saying there was some big account info somewhere which didn’t seem right. I use “being run” rather generically, too many years, seen too many people working for the cops. Most citizens acting in cooperation and/or collaboration with law enforcement are not paid. Instead, they get leniency or charges dropped, or are just citizens that get conned into climbing into the middle of a storm. It is possible she was compensated, but my guess is that is unlikely. But she had a recent criminal DWI that looks a little strange from the docket info we all discussed the other day. Were there ever other charges, like possession of a controlled substance, or anything that went by the wayside? Again, I have no reason to believe this, but a heck of a lot of questions to ask about her and her interaction with any and all law enforcement over the last six months to a year or so.

          Big Brother – Other than a routine blood toxicology screen, the official statements to date have been that there was no autopsy. See here.

      • emptywheel says:

        Yes, you are correct, he was an AUSA in San Diego for a period before joining Hatch in DC.

        Also, he was first appointed using the PATRIOT provision. But then the judges in DC District reappointed him. I’ve spoken to someone in the court house there who says he is quite well liked by the judges. (Note, the ultimate decision to reappoint him was, IIRC, Hogan’s, before Lamberth became Chief; but I believe that Hogan asked the other judges for their input, so it’s not just Hogan making the decision.)

        • PetePierce says:

          You raise an important question you’ve raised before. Was Duley just another snitch whose story might have been manipulated over a relatively short period of time by the government–for money and favors? It’s done all the time in federal criminal trials, and it’s one of the lynchpins in a circumstantial case.

          And as to Duley, it is significant as to who was handling her and how she was being handled. People with little or no experience except that they were previous (or current addicts) handle groups all the time. It’s a little like taking a bank robber, and making them chairman of the federal reserve and it probably goes on in a community near you, and often.

          Thanks actually to the Patriot Act, one of the little known provisions that keep cropping up, Taylor is there. And “liked by district court judges, many of whom have little or no litigation experience themselves” (I’m not parsing Hogan or Lamberth’s CV here, just a large percentage of them who didn’t come from the ranks of former AUSAs or USAs) Taylor who was valued more for being a loyal Bushie than legal skills was appointed.


          Will Judges Let Gonzales’ Picks Remain in Play?

          The March 2006 USA Patriot Reauthorization act stripped judges of the power to reappoint interim USAs, and Congress struck that provision, giving people like Taylor who is an interim, an 120 day half life and put it back in the hands of the chief judge in the DC District Court.

          There are 15 interim U.S. Attorneys currently serving, but 11 are holdovers, appointed by Gonzales before Congress changed the law. Some have served without Senate confirmation or court scrutiny for more than a year, inviting credibility questions.

          He’s characteristic of many of Bush’s end runs around the Congressional confirmation process, and many of the judges Bush did get confirmed were the result of legislative trading deals. While this occasionally happened previously, it has happened regularly with the Bush administration.

          • emptywheel says:

            I guess you and I differ in our assessment of the quality of judges at DC District–particularly Hogan and Lamberth. I may not agree with them, but they’re honest judges. Their judgment of Taylor does go some way for me. Not all the way, but I don’t see dismissing it out of hand. These are not local hack judges, after all.

  10. Neil says:

    Hell, maybe she doesn’t need a job. Check the bank account.

    If they did run her, she’s the weak link.

    • PetePierce says:

      The weakest link by far in this case is the anthrax evidence which purports to link the killins to Ivins. We have no clue as to how the FBI and their ultimate supervisors at DOJ arrived at the anthrax analysis to brand it evidence and literally scores of microbioligists with expertise in the area are parading into the print media to underscore this as with the NYT op ed yesterday by Dr. Gerry Andrews from the University of Wyoming.

  11. lllphd says:

    not at all convinced this was a suicide. the man wrote letters to the editor frequently, and the fbi supposedly found hundreds of unmailed letters in his house. and there was no suicide note?? i don’t think so.

    the death looks accidental, but it looks as if the fbi prefers to use the suicide angle to increase the speculation that he suicided because he was guilty of the anthrax murders.

    i do hope his family and their attorneys are taking copious and detailed notes.

    thanks bmaz; good on ya.

  12. yonodeler says:

    If there has been significant reluctance to hold intensive Senate and House hearings, reports of destructive FBI heavy-handedness and public reaction to the reports should blow away the reluctance, shouldn’t they? There may be a lot of wait-till-next-administration leanings, though.

    • PetePierce says:

      I predict the hearings that will certainly happen, because politicians love them as free TV publicity vehicles, will yield little substantive evidence.

      What is needed is the physical evidence and that’s being witheld, and if you’ve been watching HJC and SJC in action the past few years, it’s not going to be unearthed there.

  13. bigbrother says:

    BMAZ thanks for looking into this I expressed my hunch kast might things for Ivin don’t add up correctly. I the autopsy done in time? At all. The FOIA of the results.

    • PetePierce says:

      As far as we know there wasn’t an autopsy performed on Dr. Ivins, and as far as I know the details of all his med hx are being kept superficially sketchy.

      I forgot to see of course this could make a helluva movie and will, and right now I feel badly for so many people in this tableaux including the victims and their families because this is just one more unsolved series of murders in my book.

  14. yonodeler says:

    From a Matt Westmoreland article in The Daily Princetonian:

    Katherine Breckinridge, a Kappa alumna and adviser to the University’s chapter, told the AP on Monday that she had been interviewed by FBI investigators “over the last couple of years” regarding the case. She did not provide any details because she signed an FBI nondisclosure form but did say there was no indication any sorority members had anything to do with Ivins.

    “Nothing odd went on,” she told the AP.

    Wow. The FBI purportedly closes the investigation and persons interviewed in the investigation have nondisclosure agreements hanging over them. Some interviewees might find that convenient, but surely some would like to be forthcoming.

  15. PetePierce says:

    For Suspects, Anthrax Case Had Big Costs

    What If a Jury Heard the Anthrax Case

    There has been a lot of sturm and drang here over the qualifications Jean Duley had. Let me make it simple. She had next to none, and there are Duleys all over most states because many of these groups are about money for a psychologist and more rarely a psychiatrist who is the string puller but not involved in the actual “therapy.”

    While group therapy can be very beneficial when done by someone with training, most of these addiction groups are run by someone with next to no training and usually a current or former addict whose strings are pulled by the profiteer.

    More “Duleylore” fwiw:

    Duley is not a social worker; she’s an addiction cousnelor

    And as Stephen Colbert says, you can be one too. You can start tomorrow if you like. In my state, most of the groups are run purely for big profit. They are often instigated by psychologists where control is not near as stringent as for MDs who are no where near the groups, who sign on as “supervisors,” rake in the money and pay the Duleys very little who have no significant formal training in the dynamics that really need to be probed to treat addiction at all.

    There is no significant regulation in most states for “addiction counselors” and you can have a day job sweeping McDonald’s and an evening job as an “addiction counselor.”

    These groups tend to fold fast when the heat gets on them, but the FBI didn’t give a shit about the validity of the group or Duley’s qualifications–they were understandably interested in her allegatioins that reenforced some of the circumstantial evidence they had.

  16. ohmercy says:

    This bugs me.
    Mu understanding is she wasn’t his “therapist” for that long so I am wondering why/how she is saying this:

    In hastily scribbled handwriting, Duley wrote, “Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, actions, plans, threats & actions towards therapist.” Duley cited another psychiatrist who called Ivins “homicidal, sociopathic, with clear intentions.”

    He was going to go out in a blaze of glory that he was going to take everybody out with him,” Duley testified. “He is a revenge killer. When he feels he has been slighted, and especially towards women, he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings.”

    Dating to his graduate days?
    How does she know this?
    I guess it could be in his files or had come out in a session?

    and this:
    “he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings.”

    It just sounds so off. How does she know, why would she say this in this way and if it is true how did she find out and why was he free then… and all the other questions.
    for some reason this bothers me more than lots of other stuff.
    It sounds like she is just repeating what she was told.

    Actually tries?
    That would then be attempted murder.
    Does it make sense that if he has this history….

    Exactly.

    And what about the other people that were in the group session when he threatened to kill his co workers.
    Have they been questioned?
    I guess that confidentiality might be in play… or they’re scared to death to say anything about it! I haven’t seen anything come out about them corroborating these statements.

    And what about the family. Nothing is being said about the family that I have read.
    Granted I’m not pouring over the “papers” but you would think there would be something.

    Strange, very strange.

    Again bmaz.
    GREAT post.

    • Muzzy says:

      Regarding what Duley knew about his past, he likely signed a consent for release of information from prior treaters. She could have been parroting what she had read, but clearly she doesn’t have the background or training to make that kind of assessment.

      From the WaPo article that Pete Pierce linked to at 33, I have a hunch he overdosed on the 24th -the day he got discharged from Sheppard Pratt (probably before bed and slept off the codeine) and subsequently died from liver toxicity on the 29th. FBI monitoring him might not have been aware of any altered mental status if he did it just prior to sleep. No way to know for sure, unfortunately, but to me it fits.

      Based on the picture I’m getting of Ivins’ history and the events immediately preceding his death which included, I think, an involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, I can see how a para-suicidal act might have occurred at home with loss of consciousness and death occurring unexpectedly a few days after the fact. Having just been discharged from Sheppard Pratt, he was very likely in no frame of mind to go to the ER to get his liver checked and tell them why he might have concerns about his wellbeing.

      Regardless of his innocence or guilt, I feel badly for the way his last week of life unfolded and see that, in crisis, he could have looked very different to the casual observer than when he was doing his career work among friends.

      .

  17. EFerrari says:

    What we don’t see in the big pile of Bruce Ivins’ correspondence is any indication whatsoever that he imagined hurting other people.

  18. plunger says:

    From the WaPo article on Duley:

    Duley testified… “He is a revenge killer. When he feels he has been slighted, and especially towards women, he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings.”

    First, she is completely unqualified to make ANY characterization of what “type” of killer anyone is. Second, she had no evidence that he had killed anyone, and he never said that he had.

    There is no actual evidence that he is any kind of killer, let alone a “revenge killer.” If you were looking for a revenge killer behind the anthrax attack on the National Enquirer (one with a motive), you would look first at George W. Bush.

    She claimed that he “tries to carry out revenge killings.” Where is the evidence of that? If you or I saw that anyone had made an accusation against us in those words, in writing, in a court of law, how would we react? If someone had the actual goal to set you off, could they choose a more outrageous accusation?

    Of special interest was the fact that her father was a “diplomat” in several Asian countries during the Vietnam war. I’d say there’s a better than 70% chance that this “Diplomat” was also a CIA asset. Is that relevant? Maybe not, but certainly noteworthy. How many dark secrets and covert tricks did Duley’s father make her aware of? Was she carrying any baggage as a result of her father’s work? Does that serve to explain her lifelong addiction issues? Was she known to be paranoid herself?

    Was it a coincidence that Ivins wound up with Duley as his counselor? How did those two lives come to intersect? Why?

    Given his deteriorating condition, shouldn’t he have been in the care of an ACTUAL professional, rather than someone with her own issues? What role did Duley herself play in any provocation of Ivins during their sessions? Why was Ivins even in “Group” counseling? Did Duley ever have a responsibility to refer Ivins to an ACTUAL MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL?

    Where the actual anthrax attacks are concerned, whoever carried them out prepared to do so well prior to 9/11. This also lends itself in any number of ways to the theory that they knew 9/11 was coming. These events are related. The planning for both was a long process. Were they two parts of the same attack? Of course they were, just look how they were used.

    Think like a globalist criminal with no regard for human life. You have all of the resources of the United States Government at your fingertips. You completely control all signals intelligence (thanks to John Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness and the NSA). Your names are George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

    Means, Motive, Opportunity.

    • chrisc says:

      Of special interest was the fact that her father was a “diplomat” in several Asian countries during the Vietnam war. I’d say there’s a better than 70% chance that this “Diplomat” was also a CIA asset. Is that relevant? Maybe not, but certainly noteworthy. How many dark secrets and covert tricks did Duley’s father make her aware of? Was she carrying any baggage as a result of her father’s work? Does that serve to explain her lifelong addiction issues?

      Duley’s father, Robert S. Lindquist worked for the State Dept. He died in 1996 from Alzheimers according to his obit (subscription database)

      He retired from the U.S. State Department as a foreign service officer in 1975. He specialized in Southeast Asian affairs and served in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. He later worked for Chase Manhattan Bank in Hong Kong and Dow Banking Corp. in Hong Kong and Singapore, retiring in 1984.
      A graduate of the University of Michigan, he was a Marine Corps officer during World War II and the Korean War. He worked for the U.N. Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in China and the International Refugee Organization in Europe. He was a member of the Foreign Service Retirees Association of Florida, the Harvard Club and the Danish Club of Sarasota.

      I have no idea if he could have been CIA or not, but there is a story in the 12 June 1971 NYTimes (also subscription) that sadly highlights some of the “baggage” that his daughter Jean may have had to deal with.

      The article is a discusses the epidemic of drug cases that were afflicting the students at the International School in Bangkok. The students were mostly US military or State dept dependents. During the 71-72 school year, 125 ISB students were treated for psychiatric disorders and 60 were on heroin. Heroin was easily available. Thai police did not generally arrest American students and the US gov didn’t push the Thais to enforce drug laws for fear that the Thais might revoke the privilege of using their 5 bases. The US needed those bases to stage their air war against Viet Nam.

      In a sad bit of irony, Robert Lindquist is identified in the article as the “Embassy official whose jobs include supervising narcotics control.” His daughter Jean was born in 1963 according to the documents on the Maryland State database, so she would have been in Thailand most likely during her pre-teen years. The easy availability of drugs was only one factor cited for the high drug use of ISB students. The other was that the living conditions were stressful for families. There were a lot of unhappy mothers and alcoholic fathers.

      “A lot of wives are unhappy,” Major Kojak said. They live all over the city, there’s no community. The women have no role. They’ve been sabotaged.

      At home she is indespensable, she looks after the kids, she cooks and cleans the house. Here she is replaced by a maid for $50 a month.

      The men drink too much. We’re seeing alcoholics all the time. The Army encourages drinking. They make it cheap…Parents are running amuck. Husbands go out whoring and even bring whores home. The wife starts drinking and the kids get on drugs.”

      Ah, wars, they are so family friendly.

  19. plunger says:

    Duley is a “former” addict/alchoholic, whose only career option seems to be counseling others. She just received a DWI, which may also have included a possession charge (as mentioned above).

    This seems to be a career-ending violation…unless someone steps-in with a quid pro quo offer to save her career in return for a favor, like poking Ivins with a stick until he snaps, then phoning her handlers to have him involuntarily committed. Hard to believe he’d develop any hostility toward her after that (and God knows how many drugs they pumped him full of), right?

    Is her “new employer” funded by the US Government? Care to take any bets?

    Why does her role in this matter remind me of Linda Tripp’s in the Clinton/Lewinsky affair?

    • cinnamonape says:

      Duley is a “former” addict/alchoholic, whose only career option seems to be counseling others. She just received a DWI, which may also have included a possession charge (as mentioned above).

      Who “fell into” the job only because she ran flop houses for addicts and alcoholics while she was one herself. “When” she got straight (apparently that was a serially recidivist activity) she talked with those that were living with her. That “qualified” her to “counsel”??? I wonder if she was paid by some conservative Faith-based initiative.

      • wavpeac says:

        It is not legal for her to counsel in the state of MD per http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/bo…..ements.htm Maryland state laws. She could only counsel if she were licensed with a cac-ad. This means she was subject to the code of ethics and would also mean she has a legal liability in regard to the Ivins case. A man died, that is some heavy liability. Of course she MUST make him out to be a scary, killer at this point, because she broke the code of ethics and this leaves her wide open for legal recourse. She admits she violated confidentiality. She was practicing outside of her scope. And she herself was impaired as she was counseling. Gee, if someone died under my care while these things were going on, I would expect some legal trouble.

        • PetePierce says:

          There are hundereds of amatuer addictionologists whose only training is that they were addicted, and often poorly and unsuccessfully treated (recidivism is pandemic anyway) throughout the USA. They aren’t supervised by anyone–they are tools predominantly used by psychologists and sometimes by psychiatrists to get “groups” going and rake in money.

          Often federal agencies like the Administrative Office of Courts who run federal probation have been embarassed by their use. Sex with clients, and false claims about credentials are often the name of the game, and they are hired and fired regularly–but the important thing to the people behind them is that they keep the money machine going. Sometimes they have been busted with a trunk full of a gamut of drugs in January, looking at a “3rd strike conviction”, and given a walk after they offer up that they are addiction counselors a few months later.

          Often State Court judges and federal judges are zealous contributors to these schemes by allowing them to flourish.

          They threaten people regularly if they won’t play ball with the money scheme by referencing their federal stick.

          They disappear and collapse when they and their lack of credentials or training are exposed but most of their victims don’t have the knowledge or where withall to challenge them. When someone does they go down.

          • wavpeac says:

            That may be true, but some states have laws about this, and maryland has laws that protect the public from these folks. It wasn’t legal to practice using the term “alcohol counselor” in the state of MD and would be considered “fraud”.

            • wavpeac says:

              My point is that she better disappear then, because she is prosecutable for fraud if she didn’t have a license and she and her supervisor are prosecutable under MD laws for violating their licensure codes.

              • bmaz says:

                wavpeace – I wonder what the scoop is on the other kill game victim is? Perry Mickesell

                like Mr. Mikesell, an anthrax specialist who had worked in the 1980s and 1990s with Dr. Ivins at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, in Frederick. He had then joined Battelle, a military contractor in Columbus, Ohio, that became deeply involved in secret federal research on biological weapons.

                Is there any way to see if there is any scuttlebutt among psychs/therapists etc. on this guy? I am interested to what degree they ran the same “game” on him and we just don’t know about it.

  20. plunger says:

    The two biggest crimes in US history happen in the exact same general time frame.

    Both involve the overwhelming of US Government systems, procedures and protocols that have never previously been so overwhelmed.

    No arrests and no convictions are made in either case.

    No government employees are fired for failures on their part, and many whom you might think would logically have been fired were promoted, rewarded, or presented with the Medal Of Freedom.

    Is this really that hard to figure out? Consult Occam’s Razor.

  21. Boston1775 says:

    Where is Ms. Duley now?
    She’s safe.
    There simply MUST be some sort of follow up to her allegations.
    The idea that she plays this much of a public role in the outing of the supposed anthrax attacker, leading to his death, and then can carry on with her private practice at a new location is surreal.

    Who is legally qualified to investigate?

    • PetePierce says:

      He always has no trouble proliferating his bullshit in any forum except one that wants to examine his law breaking under oath, and with a transcript.

  22. Boston1775 says:

    There must be someone besides Congress who has legal standing to investigate this case. Even if it begins with Ms. Duley.
    Who made the decision that she was to be the therapist for a proposed mass murderer?
    What were her unique qualifications for this assignment?

  23. Boston1775 says:

    Who decided that group therapy was appropriate? Were other members of the group safe? How can medical ethics sanction group therapy when a member of the group has been identified by the FBI as a mass murderer?

  24. skdadl says:

    Re an autopsy: Does the family not have the right to demand one? I know this can be a fraught topic, but usually the other way ’round, when the state decides to do one over the wishes of the family. What is the law where the Ivins family is?

  25. yonodeler says:

    From an 08/03/08 FrederickNewsPost.com (via WTOPnews.com) report of the FBI seizure of local public library computers come the quoted passages below.

    Darrell Batson, director of Frederick County Public Libraries, said two FBI employees came to the downtown Frederick library either Wednesday or Thursday. …

    Someone should start marking important dates on a calendar, or writing them down somewhere.

    This was the third time in his 10 years with FCPL that the FBI has come to the library seeking records, Batson said. It was the first time they came without a court order.

    […]

    “They had an awful lot of information,” he [Batson] said, but he was not allowed to discuss specifics.

    “It was a decision I made on my experience and the information given to me,” he said.

    […]

    Batson said the agents made no mention of Bruce Ivins, anthrax or Fort Detrick.

    “Obviously it coincided with the events everyone is talking about,” he said.

    No warrant. No letter. I hope Batson, the library system director, at least checked ID, and maybe got a business card.

    • Muzzy says:

      People have raised doubt about Ivins’ cause of death by pointing out that there was no suicide note. But what if there was a suicide note and it was confiscated? Also, a suicide note might not have been put in writing at home, he could have sent some substantive emails from the library expressing his intent.

      Again, who was it, if anyone, that found him down and unresponsive at home? Who called for EMS? Was it someone who simply found him down, or someone who knew of an intent to die? I am aware of instances where people do something to try to kill themselves and send out emails after the act only to have the police show up at their home -sometimes before they are dead. In these instances, emails acted as a form of suicide note.

      If Ivins did write a note at home or send emails expressing his intent to die, it’s certainly possible that it contained information beyond expressing an intent to die. If it exists, I also imagine it’s possible that someone might not want any of that additional information to be made public right away, or ever.

      .

      • yonodeler says:

        I’m not sure that we’ll ever know why Ivins resorted to using public library computers. I doubt that he had any illusion that he could keep all of his activity there undiscovered. One could try to plug in and use a pen drive loaded with anonymity software, but that would be unlikely to go well. Surely he was familiar with onion routing software and email encryption—not that they would have provided completely reliable protection for him, especially after the FBI went all out to investigate him. I suspect that he thought that his home and work computers captured everything he did on them and sent it all to the FBI, and I suspect he would have been right in thinking so. But why use public library computers? I don’t know his state of mind at the time, and whether he might have been creating messages, documents, or data trails that he intended to be found. Chances are we’ll never know much about what he was doing and why, unless the authorities think they have a slam dunk opportunity useful in a legal proceeding, in a congressional hearing, or in efforts to patch public relations.

          • yonodeler says:

            Oh? That was extremely cruel, then, on the level with some of the FBI’s other sadistic measures. I would have thought they would have let him keep a computer with a key logger and their best applicable surveillance programs installed. Turning off the flow of information has its attractions, apparently.

            • PetePierce says:

              They probably had key loggers on Ivins and many other computers for years. They have programs in place to put them on yours via your ISP.
              in
              And they can be foiled with a script or two.

              By the way, there are security holes in the actual internet now that have been known for a while but have been in the news lately that threaten the passwords of everyone that were all over the media recently. NYT had two articles.

            • R.H. Green says:

              The FBI announced that Ivins had been using library computers to attempt to track their investigation. His attorney had advised him to prepare himself to be indicted. He spent 21 days locked in the Whoopee cushion and upon release went to the library to check on how things were progressing; I would too. Incidentaly my perusal of the comments on the local papers online edition has several comments about how the goverment came into their library and took their computers, without warrants. And these smalltown folk blamed it on …the Patriot Act. Whodathunkit.

              • PetePierce says:

                If I had been Ivins and wanted to use a computer, regardless of his innocence or guilt, with the FBI having turned his life upside down, I wouldn’t have used the slow, spyware infested, pieces of crap at a public library. I would have bought a laptop they didn’t know about and tried to keep it in a place they couldn’t find although they were probably tailing him 24X7 for some time. I doubt he was in the library without an FBI agent a few feet away or anywhere else.

                • bmaz says:

                  The FBI guy was so close in the library that he described that he witnessed Ivins reviewing articles on the anthrax case on the screen of the computer in the library. They seized the computers and then sought a search warrant to search the contents (they had already done it I am sure, but anyway) and the agent in the affidavit stated they had witnessed what Ivins had on the screen. Again though, if you were Ivins and had been locked up, wouldn’t you want to see what the hell had been going on in the investigation, while you were out of touch, that was ruining your life? I would.

                • R.H. Green says:

                  Maybe so for you. But today’s post (upon which we’re commenting) is about what happens when the government gets you in the crosshairs. Ivins commented to a collegue about another scientist that drank himself to death as a result of being “investigated”. I suspect Ivins thought his days of freedom were getting few, and if he wanted to keep his fate in his own hands, he probably didn’t have time or need for a laptop.

                  • PetePierce says:

                    I was commenting on Ivins’ use of library computers if it happened. I guarandamntee you that it would be difficult for most people to keep calm with as much heat as they had on Ivins or really the vast majority of people who have been notified they are pending a federal indictment, or who think they are.

                    That usually, like medical care happens in proportion to the wealth and the connections of the attorney and their relationship with the local DOJ district office.

                    There’s an awful lot of googling going on here, but there is scant information as to what happened in this particular anthrax investigation, and that’s by design. The government wants this over and done; and wants people to move on and accept their selective and egregious presentation of “evidence.”

                    That’s one reason why microbiologists have taken to the op ed sections of several newspapers yesterday to make it explicit that the evidence that the feds have revealed thus far is hardly conclusive.

                    There has not been a scintilla of scientific evidence presented yet as to how they connected Ivins and the anthrax that was mailed period.

                    I know they searched his house, and I know they found body armour and guns, and a lot of rounds of ammo. But they haven’t established other than Jean Duley’s assertions that Ivins intended to harm anyone.

                    Wig, hair, makeup –could have belonged to some womanor his dauther. That means little to me.

                    • bmaz says:

                      Could have been part of his clown juggling act he often did for kids and charities too. Or halloween; we have all kinds of halloween stuff in a closet somewhere.

                    • PetePierce says:

                      Absolutely of course. We’re going to get more info as time goes on, but I don’t know if we’ll get the kind of physical evidence we’d all expect to see.

                      And while they do circumstancial cases all the time, this one has anthrax evidence and other physical evidence we aren’t getting yet as you’ve displayed well.

            • bmaz says:

              I am not sure if they seized all of them, but I know they seized multiple ones on July 11 or so while he was in-patient committed; it is stated so in the search warrant returns. So I am guessing, but I tend to think they would take any and all computers. If so, going to a library makes sense. You wouldn’t go to a neighbor or friend, because you would be causing their computers to be taken from them too. How else is this guy going to catch up on news beside what he did? Really, it makes sense going to the library.

        • PetePierce says:

          The librarian there volunteered the computers before the FBI seized them. And librarians have had a track record by and large at opposing federal demands on their records.

          He may not have had computers left to use after they seized any of them that he and his family had. Towards the end, he didn’t have access to any of the area Marcy calls the “hot lab” at Fr. Detrick, although my information is he had access through 7/10/08 although he had been kept out from time to time over the last several years.

          The FBI also set up a climate in that lab where they made everyone paranoid of everyone else and I wouldn’t be surprise if they lied and told each one of them that someone else had ratted them out.

          One thing I’m sure of with all these posts and all these threads. People are working hard to piece together information from a record that is being buried and covered by the FBI and DOJ whose salaries you pay.

    • mamayaga says:

      Not sure all of those have been promoted from “suspicious death” to “murder.” However, there is actually one more AUSA murdered during the Bush administration, Michael, C. Messer, murdered in August 2001, supposedly as part of a robbery.

      Somewhere (looking for the link) I read a speech by someone in the DOJ saying that in about the first 5 years of the Bush administration assaults on AUSAs had increased 60%. All this would seem to be well within tin foil hat territory were it not the recent revelations from Jane Mayer that a number of DOJ officials she interviewed appeared to be in fear of violent retaliation if they stepped out of line…

      • Boston1775 says:

        Thanks for your link.

        In the case of the deaths in Texas, I think it was five other Assistant USAs who left the office after these two deaths. I guess if you look at the rulings, it makes a difference who the rulers are.

        People have definitely been intimidated. The new US Attorney in Tom Wales’ office was warned not to look any further into his death. It ties in with the removal of competent attorneys because of political reasons.

        In the death of Jonathan Luna, it was originally purported to be a suicide. After finding his hands shredded from defensive wounds and admitting that he was stabbed in the back, it was changed to homicide.

        • mamayaga says:

          This site, about a memorial to murdered prosecutors (not just AUSAs) shows only 6 murders between 1967 and 2000. This suggests that what we’ve seen recently is an increased rate. Of course, you could posit that our criminals are just more violent and better armed now — who knows? I’m inclined to find Mayers’ interviews more alarming than the statistics.

          • mamayaga says:

            Another interesting difference between the murders prior to 2001 and those after — all the early ones were solved. Most of the later ones have not been (I think there were arrests in the Messer case, but I don’t know how the prosecution went on those).

  26. pajarito says:

    Great post Bmaz.

    The assumption of many is that the FBI serves the citizens by investigating crimes. They do not anymore. Their role is now to protect and serve the president, VP, and others in their largely secret campaign to destroy social institutions and acrue power to themselves. They are also key in continuing the fear factor that keeps many from asking the hard questions about what is going on in this country.

    The Dept. of Justice is likewise not interested in justice (e.g. rule of law), now totally corrupted to the mission of suppressing challenges to the executive. DOJ will ruthlessly target scapegoats in this case, perhaps because nobody wants to find the real culprits. They work for the same boss.

  27. wavpeac says:

    According to the Maryland laws in order for Duley to practice she would have needed a CAC-AD license. http://www.dhmh.state.md.us/bo…..ements.htm This License would require supervision under a master’s level licensed counselor. According to MD law, her DWI’s should have been reported to her supervisor who would then help her determine her level of impairment. It is interesting to me that only one DWI is mentioned in that article. Two in two years would suggest to me that her current program was not working. Also interesting to me about that article on her is that she mentions past treatment, mentions her legal consquences in regard to the most current DWI but does not mention anything about her own current treatment. (two DWI’s in two years would suggest the need for inpatient and/or halfway house…again.) I got the feeling, that the article was minimizing her current alcohol problems and focusing more on her “past” drug addiction, “mostly cocaine”. Maryland has a code of ethics in regard to this. This woman violated at least 3 of these codes. I cannot understand how she could be working in any capacity in the mental health field knowing what we know and after looking at the code. Who would hire someone in this condition? She violated confidentiality, Her DWI would suggest a “moral” problem, and she would need to be very forthcoming in how she was dealing with it, and by making sure she wasn’t treating addicts if she herself was impaired.” That means she probably was practing and relapsed at the same time. This is ground for loss of license.

    I can’t remember did they give the name of the counselor in 2000 that reported that Ivins was taking poison to a soccer game? Obviously he didn’t use the poison or we would know about that. If they quoted an anonymous source, a therapist, it is very suspicous to me. The therapist would then be violating confidentiality. (anonymous or not, would be putting licensure on the line) Unless the therapist informed authorities because she thought it a safety issue in light of the case, and the authorities leaked it. It seems like if a client tells me they are going to poison someone, trust me enough to tell me that, they are going to give me enough identifying information for me to intervene. It’s pretty easy to get identifying information if you want to, and obviously if he told a counselor, he wanted to be found out on some level or stopped. It’s just a matter then of asking the right questions. I can’t imagine a scenario where I could not elicit the information if they were unguarded enough to tell me as much as he supposedly did.

    So I get the idea that she is minimizing her current problems with alcohol. It is a fact that she violated MD laws in regard to her license. And that she could not practice in that capacity without a license in the state of MD and call herself an “alcohol and drug counselor”.

    If he was going to treatment, that means he was reaching out for help. It means he wanted help. Also, why didn’t they serve the protection order on the day it was supposed to be served. If they were following him, they knew exactly where he was at work, or at home. The fact that he killed himself BEFORE he was served, with authorities already having it on the books is weird to me. I have worked with many court ordered clients who did not follow through with recommended treatment, if this was court ordered treatment. His threat in group tells me very little. I have had clients make all kinds of comments. When I press for plan, and means, they often recant. If, he had all these weapons (and they were not planted) then perhaps he was planning to kill his co-workers but to what end. They didn’t out him, because we have several quotes from co-workers describing him in a positive light. You would think he might want to kill himself or might want to kill people in the FBI. Also, why has no group member come forward. Group members have no legal obligation to maintain confidentiality. WE ask them to be respectful of this, but there is no legal remedy if they violate that.

    I hope MS Duley is not working in the mental health field and I don’t understand why her lawyer is allowing her to speak out in this way, because in my opinion she is WIDE OPEN for a lawsuit regarding Ivins suicide.

    The laws seem to be in place to protect the patient in the state of MD.

  28. LiberalHeart says:

    Oops, meant to post this here, but posted it downstairs by mistake:

    Gee, this kinda weakens the FBI’s “find” of all those guns at Ivins’ house, while also explaining why he would have had some homemade body armour (for the drills):

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..8;pos=list

    • wavpeac says:

      I cannot imagine that he was truly a sociopath. He obviously loved being with his family. Soccer is a team sport. I have a colleague who is a counselor. She loves to shoot guns, grew up shooting them, we often laugh about the fact that she works in a “Women Against Violence” program. Except for these accusations that thus far remain uncorroborated, there doesn’t seem to be outward evidence of sociopathy.

      But it does mean that if he made a threat with guns, he had the means to follow through, which increases the lethality of the threat. It’s just that he does not sound like he would have been a difficult guy to work with even in active addiction. At least he doesn’t sound like he would be difficult to me. My heart goes out to him. If he killed those folks that’s one thing but it sure seems like a dichotomous picture.

      For instance, there are psychopaths who have family and kids, but in the case of the B.K serial killer in KS, his family had no problem saying “tally ho”, when he was caught. They didn’t seem to be particularly attached to him. And while he had a job, he was not well liked. There was no outpouring of support for him. The descriptions of Ivins just don’t fit the bill for me.

      He showed up in his music ministry every sunday?? Makes me wonder about the level of his addiction. He obviously was a functioning addict,(until the last year) as opposed to Duley, who was not.

  29. wavpeac says:

    Also, if I were the one supervising her, per required by law, then I would want her to keep her mouth shut.

  30. earlofhuntingdon says:

    No matter how much Mr. Cheney believes the opposite, Dr. Ivins is entitled to the presumption that he is Innocent.Until.Proven.Guilty.

    Apart from fairness to the accused — who is only that until convicted of a crime by a jury of his peers, based on admissible evidence subject to disclosure and examination by those defending him — that presumption is the buttress that keeps the Wall of Justice from falling down around our ears under the weight of executive power. Without it, all is rubble.

    Even if Dr. Ivins did what he was accused of — a big ”If” based on what the FBI has disclosed to date — the FBI’s investigation of him, his family and others is abhorrent. The US Attorney’s claims are atrocious. He has not proven his case, much less proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. Until he demonstrates his entire case, his Hooveresque claim that he ”got his man” is empty boast, an abuse of power he wrongly assumes is victimless. We are all its victims.

    BushCheney’s Gitmo, their torture and secret prisons, may be dry runs for adopting similar, ”gloves off” methods here. But they’re crimes, illegal here, too. So far, the proof of those is more solid and convincing than the case disclosed against Dr. Ivins.

    If Dr. Ivins didn’t do what the FBI accuses him of, whoever did it remains free to strike again, with ready access to bioweapons. The FBI remains free from liability for its negligence, inept and reckless behavior. The administration commits one more crime for which Congress will impose no liability (so long as its members’ re-elections are not in doubt). We have no direct control over the executive or Congress. But we can put in doubt their re-elections. We needn’t make their grasp on power secure or reward them, like Congress, for their criminal misdeeds. Let’s not.

  31. R.H. Green says:

    Nice parsing of events. Also recall that when Ivins was released from the hospital, he went to a public library and looked into the investigation developments that he could access. His attorney had told him to prepare to be indicted. Having been out of the loop for a few days, he may have been wondering how much longer he would have the freedom to control his fate.

  32. Nell says:

    Comment I left on the Post article on Duley:

    “The agent said, ‘We are going to be watching him, we can’t be watching you,’ ” according to Duley. With no other alternative, she filed a petition for a restraining order on July 24, providing one of the first public documents that cited worries about Ivins’s potential for violence.”

    No. Passing on unproven allegations of murder and made-up diagnoses goes well beyond “worries about Ivins’ potential for violence”.

    Did Anne Hull ask Duley where she got the information she made public in the request for the peace order? ‘Homicidal sociopath’ is a diagnosis, one Duley was wholly unqualified to make. Did Dr. Irwin make the diagnosis? If so, wouldn’t that have been enough to get a commitment order to keep Ivins in a hospital?

    Why is the reporter selling Duley’s “no alternative” line? Did she ask why Duley didn’t go to Dr. Irwin, purportedly her supervisor, to get some advice on the situation?

    “In a panic, she asked the FBI for protection, but the agent she spoke to suggested she petition for a restraining order.”

    The FBI saw in Duley a convenient way to put more stress on Ivins. I doubt very much that the conversation with the agent reported in the story was her first with the bureau. But even if it was, the FBI is responsible for Ivins’ death.

    The agent did not reassure her that their 24-hour surveillance would prevent Ivins from doing any harm. They did not suggest she talk over medical commitment with Dr. Irwin. Instead they shrugged and suggested that Duley seek a peace order, a step they knew would place damaging confidential information about Ivins on the public record.

    Had this not been their intent, they could have communicated to the court ahead of the hearing support for Duley’s alleged request that it be a closed hearing, and the judge would almost certainly have complied.

    No, there were a ton of alternatives that would have removed any threat Ivins might have posed and kept the investigation going. But the FBI stuck to their pattern, illustrated vividly in today’s New York Times story, of hounding the targets of their investigation to death and breakdown.

    • wavpeac says:

      A peace order which would also have offered NO protection. The only thing a peace order does is give you the right to call the police is said person shows up at your door or on your property or at work. So you call the police and then they can arrest that person. It’s causes an automatic warrant for arrest. So, imagine the guys shows up with guns at your house ready to kill you. How effective is that phone call and warrant going to be in that scenario. NOT even a little bit effective. Ridiculous.

      All it would have done was given the gov’t a way to arrest him, if he violated the order. I can just imagine. All they would have to do is have a bunch of robo calls going to her number (from Ivin’s number)and Ivin’s would have violated the order and been arrested for violation of a p.o. (that is a felony in most states). It would have been very easy to do with our current FISA laws.

  33. earlofhuntingdon says:

    All bureaucracies protect themselves, shift blame onto others, and take credit for things done by others or obtained by luck. That’s been true since before the Roman army built its military roads across its known world.

    That’s why our Founders built checks and balances into government. Establishing three branches was only part of it. Sunshine was another part. As is what used to be a ubiquitous incredulity, although the press gave it up as the price for becoming “made men”.

    But incredulity is as normal a human trait as curiousity. Even a figure out of a Norman Rockwell painting approaches government claims with the same incredulity they would use in critiquing a butcher’s claim about the weight or freshness of that oddly shaped ham or pork. The FBI’s claims should be treated no differently. With its history and the Bush administration’s record, the incredulity should go off the charts.

  34. Muzzy says:

    Some notable info from this 8/5 article that appeared in the Frederick News

    During a July 9 group session, Duley described Ivins as “extremely agitated” and “out of control.” When she asked him what was going on, he told the group “a very long and detailed homicidal plan” including killing his co-workers and roaming the streets of Frederick trying to pick a fight with somebody so that he could stab the person.

    Clearly, members of the group should be able to corroborate his agitated state and homicidal threats.

    Ivins was supposed to have a permanent commitment hearing at Sheppard Pratt, but Duley said his attorney advised him to check himself in voluntarily so that he may leave when he wished. Drawbaugh told the court he probably was being released from the hospital as the hearing was going on.

    Ivins told Duley this in a voice message, or in a phone conversation? I can’t exactly tell from the article. It seems odd that it would be included in a voice message unless he wanted the information to have some effect on Duley (with aggressive undertones) -i.e. “whether I’m here or not is my choice, not yours.”

    Probably stating the obvious, but the medical records from the stay at Sheppard Pratt likely contain some important insights into his state of mind. He was there from July 11 or 12 until the 24, so there is likely some substance to the chart assuming daily interviews and around the clock monitoring. How the medical staff reconciled allowing him to sign out voluntarily given recent events would be important to understand.

    .

    • wavpeac says:

      Even if he put himself inpatient voluntarily, there would be nothing to stop Duley from reporting the threat to the hospital and beginning commitment proceedings. I saw lots of patients who were inpatient voluntarily but then were committed because of self harm or a parasuicidal act. (insulin dependent diabetic-overdose-sneaking out the locked doors for vodka and mixing it with ativan).

      Even if he said “No I won’t kill anyone”. I think they would have done a 72hr hold, which would have given her time to discuss her concerns with the board BEFORE he was released. I just don’t get it. And yes, those hospital charts would be fascinating. He likely would have had to repeatedly affirm that he was not going to kill anyone.

      Also, why did they so quickly refer to his death as suicide when there was no note. It seems much more likely that they were aware he had a substance abuse problem. Why would they not refer to his death as an accidental overdose instead of suicide?? That would be the more likely explanation given his history. And yes, where are all the group members to corroborate.

      And Bmaz, I’ll see what I can find on Mikesell.

    • Nell says:

      Clearly, members of the group should be able to corroborate his agitated state and homicidal threats.

      But it’s pretty unclear to me how their corroboration (or contradiction or clarification or context provision) could be obtained in a way that protects their rights and confidentiality, or — more accurately, because I can certainly imagine a judicial procedure that would allow it — how in real life those with Ivins’ and the public’s interest at heart might be able to compel this checking-out of Duley’s account with other members of the group.

      • Muzzy says:

        I don’t know what the legal intricacies are regarding investigation and confidentiality for members within a chemical dependency treatment group after homicidal threats are made by a member, including a subsequent death. The question is whether or not they can be identified as being in the group and interviewed. I also don’t know what legal exposure a group member fight face if they voluntarily spoke with the press about Ivins today.

        For mental health settings with psychiatrists or counselors, there is a ‘duty to warn’ when imminent threats are made to others in the community, so confidentiality has limits when the public is in peril. If Ivins’ threats occurred in the group as stated, it appears Duley did the right thing by calling the police.

        wavpeac – It may vary from state to state, but my understanding is that you cannot court commit a person due to mental illness if they are voluntarily accepting treatment. If he was initially held involuntarily on a temporary notice of mental illness, but chose to sign in voluntarily and the nmi was subsequently dropped, the physicians Shepperd Pratt should be able to re-initiate a hold after some short interval if he tried to abruptly sign out and they feared for his or others’ safety. So presumably the treating psychiatrist/treatment team felt he was no longer an imminent risk on july 24 when he signed out. A 12 to 13 day voluntary inpatient stay suggests there were conditions present that justified his being there for treatment. Again, the medical record would be very interesting to examine to see if his condition actually changed or not during his stay and whether or not he formed an open treatment alliance with the staff that could strengthen the case that they understood his state of mind.

        .

        • wavpeac says:

          You could not identify anyone in the group. That would violate confidentiality but I think it’s interesting that no one has voluntarily come forward to confirm or deny the accusation. I can’t imagine any scenario where they would be able to breach confidentality for those in the group. I hope the clinic protects it’s clients in this case.

          The factors that lead me to believe he was committable even if he denied homicidal ideation are:

          1) access to guns

          2) chemical dependency making him extremly unpredictable and not a good source of info about his own state of mind. People can be committed simply because of addiction and potential harm to self.

          3) It is unlikely that the hospital was unaware that he was a suspect in the anthrax case. He told others, his wife and kids knew, they probably would have been involved in mental health treatment. They may have interviewed his family for corroboration. (commonly done)

          4) He made a public threat to off his coworkers using guns for which he has access.

          If you put these three factors together, if you couldn’t get a commitment on him, then you can’t get a commitment on anyone for any reason!! I know it’s harder than it should be and all of that, but his situation, when laid out is pretty compelling.

          Weird. They had a duty to warn his employer and all the people who worked with him. Was this done and if not, why not?

          • rincewind says:

            WRT 1) and 4) — it’s not at all clear that he had any guns at the time. The Fibbies seized multiple firearms in the Nov 07 search, but there were no weapons found in the second search (lots of ammunition of all kinds, presumably for the weapons that had been seized).

            WRT 4) The only evidence we know of about the threat to coworkers comes from someone whose chemical abuse is better documented than Ivins’.

            • bmaz says:

              Here is a good one: On what basis would they seize firearms in either search? I have seen no evidence he was a prohibited possessor or that there were any illegal weapons. And they certainly are not a threat to anyone after he is dead. I breezed through the SW material pretty fast; did they really seize firearms in November? Do you happen to have a cite handy (if not I will go back and look)?

              • LiberalHeart says:

                Hmm, interesting point about the guns seeing as how there’s no gun crime under investigation — is there?

                  • LiberalHeart says:

                    And is it correct that you can’t take things during a search unless they’re what you went in looking for, per the search warrant — or they’re pertinent to the investigation and lying out in plain sight at the time of the search? Maybe not even if they’re in plain sight; maybe you have to get a new warrant to take them.

                    • bmaz says:

                      Generally that is correct unless there are exigent circumstances of some kind warranting seizure of the subject used the gun to threaten the search agents etc. None of which I have heard a word of here.

              • R.H. Green says:

                I seem to recall that FBI searched the home when Ivins went in for examination. The guns and the magazine were confiscated then. Could it be that there was no probable cause for a search prior to that? (no legal search).

                • bmaz says:

                  I’ve got to go read the warrants; I skimmed them to quickly initially. If duly signed and issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, warrants are presumed to have the requisite probable cause and to be legal. To establish otherwise, you have to “go behind the warrant” and show that the probable cause was illusory due to defects in the sworn affidavit by the officer making the application. There is, as you might guess, an elevated threshold that must be overcome to do so.

                  • R.H. Green says:

                    Wait, before you run out to do that. I,m not asking about the warrants. Duley reported to the local police a percieved threat of harm to someone. He was taken into custody and under advice of counsel, agreed to a voluntary stay in the “hotel”. The FBI appeared at Duley’s door to question her. I believe, if the morass of details hangs together for me, the FBI also searched Ivins’ home, presummably under a warrant. If he was such a person of interest, why did they wait until they had her complaint to act? Given the seriousness of the crime “under investigation” wouldn’t there already been reason to have looked into his closets? Or not, and the complaint became the basis for the warrant?

                • PJEvans says:

                  Given that this maladministration doesn’t believe in the 4th amendment, I wouldn’t want to bet on search warrants, or at least ones that properly describe where and what. I sure wouldn’t want to bet that the FBI found what they said they found, at this point; they’re just as likely to have planted it, or are just talking.

                  OT, amusing:

                  GOP convention officials discover deficit just in time
                  They recently found they were $10 million short, but have since scrambled to make up much of the gap.

                  ST. PAUL, MINN. — Republican Party officials have developed a well-deserved reputation for planning evermore extravagant national conventions, each built on the party’s ability to secure abundant cash.

                  But just six weeks before the convention, where Arizona Sen. John McCain is to accept his party’s nomination, executives found they were about $10 million short of what they needed for a celebration they had already scaled back.

          • R.H. Green says:

            Caution. The only one of these factors that matters is the alleged “threat”. The others become mitigating factors, of course, but you don’t commit a person, for having guns, or chemical dependency, or even both, nor even being a suspect in a crime. It all hangs on the alleged threats. These still could consist of words spoken in a context, (if they did occur), and are open to interpetation, especially by someone with an agenda. Consider someone, hounded and feeling betrayed,carelessly lashing out with a statmemt such as, “Those rats. I got gun, I ought go in there an wipem all out, an maybe I will, an I don’t care what happens!” Would this be regarded as a threat, to be taken serously enough to call the police? Since we don’t have enough contextual facts, we can’t say.

            • wavpeac says:

              Well, we do it every day. Those are the factors you look at when determining a commitment.

              Lethality of the concern.
              Means to carrying out the threat.
              Mental status unstable or considered stable.
              Type of threat: guns and bombs are at the top of the hierarchy. The lethality of the threat.
              Mental health status.

              This is how you establish a harm to others. AT least in my state these are the factors for consideration. They are mitigating. There is no way to determine it without taking these factors into account. But everything I know says that if you put a threat, with drug and alcohol abuse. I mean maybe it just can’t be done. I don’t know. I have never had to transfer a 72 hour hold involuntarily for danger to others. I have helped commit lots of folks for danger to self, with far less evidence than this.

              As stated above it is much easier if there is a treatment team and psychiatrist pushing for the commitment.

              I know crap happens but usually the variables I hear about have to do with lack of funds to pay for treatment and not having a doctor to get behind the committment.

            • wavpeac says:

              If someone said that in my office and after questioning I determine they are serious, yes I report.

              We have batterers picked up for 24-72 hour hold frequently. They threaten their wife, have a history of violence. No they haven’t “done it yet”, but we can have him held based on the threat. Yes. But someone determines the validity of the threat at the hospital and that process means they look at his mental status, stability, drug and alcohol abuse, medications, lethality of the threat and means to carry it out.

              That’s the process in nebraska, I guess I don’t know how they do it elsewhere but I thought that hierarchy was pretty formalized in the literature.

              • bmaz says:

                hierarchy was pretty formalized in the literature.

                As you probably recall, this has been one of my beefs with the insane Duley stuff from the get go. Hierarchy. The first thing someone in Duley’s shoes should have done, by any rational sense, is to staff the issue up the treatment food chain and act through that vehicle and only through that vehicle.

                • earlofhuntingdon says:

                  Duley’s decision not to work through her supervisor or the head of her practice is revealing. And it ain’t pretty. The process she went through, albeit a short-form process, is still deliberate, despite her handwritten affidavit and its misspellings. She didn’t rush out within minutes after a session and ask a real judge to arrest Ivins for his own good or that of his community. She went out, with the aid of a lawyer, and simply asked that he be put under an order to stay away from her. Needless to say, if Ivins had the self-restraint and self-preservation necessary to obey the order, it wouldn’t have been necessary to issue it.

                  There’s no indication that Ms. Duley talked with her immediate supervisor (ordinarily, an MSW/LISW) or the person in charge of the office or practice (presumably an MD or PhD). Her “lone wolf” actions suggest she was already strongly at odds with those people. If true, that begs the question of why. Did it relate to her own past behavior or was it connected specifically to something about her treatment relationship with Ivins? Or both?

                  She immediately left the practice, also a strong indicator she was at odds with her employer before the claimed episode with Ivins that so upset her. Did that alienation make it easier for the FBI “to work her”, as it attempted to do with Ivins’ children? Was her willingness to be worked by the Bureau part of why she was falling out with her employer? Or was it an expression of the same misfit that seems a pattern in her background?

                  The legal proceeding Duley initiated against Ivins — very oddly at the instigation of the Bureau — dissolved her treatment relationship with Ivins. It didn’t necessarily dissolve her practice’s relationship with him, especially a) if she misunderstood the facts or misdiagnosed Ivins’ condition; b) if she assumed as fact without proper verification information she was given by the FBI; c) if her reaction was idiosyncratic and not reasonable; and d) if she violated professional or legal standards about she involved the judiciary. There’s a disconnect, for example, between how quickly Ivins was released and the immediacy of harm Duley claims she feared from Ivins’ purportedly uncontrolled behavior.

                  I suggest that the insurors for the practice for which Ms. Duley formerly worked should set aside its policy limit in expectation of detailed inquiry into whether she and her supervisor acted professionally.

                  Separately, while the Ivins’ family owes Ms. Duley no sympathy, she may be another victim of the FBI’s unprofessional conduct, which seems to pervade this investigation. If this is how it behaves in a high-profile, high-resource case, WTF is it doing with run-of-the-mill cases in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Omaha?

                  • wavpeac says:

                    Totally agree with this. When we make decisions we do it as a team from the psychologist down. Our consultations are in our notes. She was required by law to be supervised, so if these decisions were not sanctioned by her supervisor she would be practicing outside of her scope.

                    If they did okay her behavior those folks are in big trouble as well. I would be freaking out if I were her supervisor. Noting every decision she consulted me on and what she did not. Ugh. knocking on wood.

                    Yah, if the story we hear is true, then she is at great risk for a lawsuit because her behavior was negligent. And regardless of what the FBI said or did, she is responsible for her ethics violations. I suppose she hopes that she can add to the stink against him, but that almost makes it worse. She has a motive to make him look as crazy as she can, which could give her a pass for her unprofessional behavior. Talk about unethical?? How horrible is that??

                    The others are silent because they know what is at stake, but boy!! did she make her life look like a bowl of cherries in that article. “No foul here and I got a new job already”. Has no one warned her that she could be sued?

                  • R.H. Green says:

                    Agree wholly with last paragraph. We’re not in sync in the 1st however. Please help me get things straight if I’m off here, but I beleve the “threats” occurred at an evening group session. Duley sat on the matter overnight and reported the threats to police the next morning. He was in the hospital for 21 days, and it was when informed (how?) of Ivins’ (imminent) release, Duley sprang into court to seek the restraing order. I,m having difficulty keeping these things in order, as the timeline is too scetchy here, and when I read an accout like yours, I get to thinking I’m off.

                    If my take on this is accurate, there was a good deal of time to consider what she was going to do when the release came. She did seek legal advice, in time to assist in the hasty PO application

                    • bmaz says:

                      What kind of fucking lawyer thought that process was a good idea? That bit of lawyering has the same mark of skill and professionalism as freaking Duley. I don’t care if Ivins is guilty or not, these people should be taken to the woodshed big time.

                    • nightlight says:

                      Duley’s handwriting on the document front and back has the look of someone penning words that didn’t come from their own conscious thought: i.e. taking dictation. Maybe if her brain got fried from a lifetime of drugs, she could write such things as these:

                      bizarre spellings:

                      “tetisfy,” “calld,” “committmen” (the ‘t’ was added later)
                      “theripist,” “phy”(chiatrist)

                      grammatical bloopers:

                      “homicidals intent,”
                      “I have been subpoena to testify”

                      Inconsistent implied subject of sentence: (i.e. Ivins vs Duley)

                      “threats of homicidals intent, plans, had committed”
                      “FBI involved, currently under investigation”

                      careless repetitions:

                      “homicidal threats, actions, plans, threats & actions”

                      confusion about her own actions:

                      Duley crossed out her first reference to “sheppard pratt”

                      haphazard shifting between printing and cursive (Take a look at the links.)

                      widely irregular spacing between words (Ditto)

                      inconsistent punctuation yielding clumsy expressions:

                      “Dr. David Irwin his phy psychiatrist
                      called him homicidal, sociopathic
                      with clear intentions
                      will tetisfy with other details
                      FBI involved, currently under
                      investigation &will be charged
                      w/ 5 capital murders.
                      I have been subpoena to testify
                      before a federal grand jury
                      August 1, 2008 in
                      Washington ,D.C.”

                      I would guess, though, that she was jotting this down with a phone clamped between shoulder and ear. Could she have been talking to the FBI rather than an attorney?

                    • R.H. Green says:

                      Hadn’t considered that. Do you mean by process, the seeking the PO? Please elaborate. In that puff piece in the Fredrick News (Local gal makes big news), Duley said she asked the FBI for protection, and they suggested that she get a restraining order. I can just imagine them rolling their eyes, and saying, “Lady, that’s not what we do.” (Like the bard wrote” “An the cops don’t need you, an man they expect the same”.)

                    • bmaz says:

                      Yeah; it turns out that, despite the goofy as shit raving handwritten chicken scrawl, she was accompanied by an actual lawyer with her to the justice of the peace court to apply for a protective order. I have done it with clients before a few times, and I would either make the affidavit at the office before going so that it was printed from the word processor/computer and full legible, or I would draft it out for them at the court on the pre-printed form so that it was neat, clean and met the requirements necessary. This thing had the look of some wacko that walked in off the street, was under the influence of something and scribbled her rant out. I didn’t know that there was a lawyer with her until seeing the WaPo article last night. I was floored when I saw that. Jeebus.

                    • nightlight says:

                      “In a panic, she asked the FBI for protection, but the agent she spoke to suggested she petition for a restraining order. The next morning, on July 24, Duley and a lawyer went to the county courthouse in Fredrick to fill out a peace order petition.”

                      “A lawyer” = her lawyer? On the urging of the FBI?

                    • Hmmm says:

                      This thing had the look of some wacko that walked in off the street, was under the influence of something…

                      Yeah, that’s what I thought too when I asked @ 155 “Huh. Wonder if Duley had been drinking before she went to court to get the P.O.?” Though the scenario of her being on a cell phone with somebody — maybe FBI, maybe somebody else — and doing a poor job of jotting down the words & ideas as they streamed past her ear would also explain what we see.

                      Hell, why not both drunk -and- taking dictation…?

                  • alabama says:

                    If this is how it behaves in a high-profile, high-resource case, WTF is it doing with run-of-the-mill cases in Cleveland, Milwaukee and Omaha?

                    This question, for me, goes to the heart of the problem. I suspect that the FBI handles its “run-of-the-mill cases” fairly well. Trouble starts when the cases get complicated, and when those complications are compounded by publicity and political pressure from on high (”urgency,” if you will).

                    Or to put it another way: if Microsoft (or Apple) were somehow put on the case for fun and profit, I think it would have been solved long ago.

                    (And DoJ is not above paying bounties to outside experts on occasion–as when they hired Cravath, Swaine and Moore to build a case against Drexel, Burnham, Lambert)….

          • LiberalHeart says:

            I’m wondering if the FBI talked to the group members and had them sign those famous confidentiality forms.

          • R.H. Green says:

            Correction. Your comment addressed committment, not police notification. And rereading your comment, I see you were addressing the total package of factors. Maybe I overreacted. However, I still stand behind my point about the centrality of the “threats”, as well as thir interprtation.

        • Nell says:

          If Ivins’ threats occurred in the group as stated, it appears Duley did the right thing by calling the police.

          I don’t agree, but am not remotely connected with the world where law and medicine and treatment intersect, and will defer to those who do. But I can’t imagine that calling the police was the first thing she should have done. What about her employer(s), and the doctor who “supervised” her? If that supervision has any meaning at all, it would be that he needed to be consulted before she took such an action.

          • bmaz says:

            The statutes in Maryland, as in most all jurisdictions, actually contemplate that law enforcement contact be made by and through the licensed supervisory level professionals. So, you are quite correct.

            • Nell says:

              Thanks for that info, bmaz. It makes sense. First, because they’re the ones responsible. And second, because the supervising professionals would have the ability to check out the counselor’s account of the threats made in the group without violating confidentiality.

              Do we know whether or not Duley consulted Dr. Irwin or other supervisory professionals before calling the police?

              She certainly doesn’t seem to have done so before getting in touch with the FBI as Ivins was about to be released from the hospital — but then, she may have been influenced by the FBI during their visit after she’d gotten in touch with the police.

              • R.H. Green says:

                I doubt if Dr Irwin was consulted. There seems to be a continuing misconception that Dr Irwin was part of some therapeutic team. I don’t think so. He is a forensic psychiatrist. I looked up this obscure term in the Wiki, and got an eyeful. This expertise has no interest in patient well being or treatment. Rather it is to provide a solid bridge of understanding between legal and psychological concepts. These professionals counsel prosecutors, defense counsel, and law enforcemnet to help them navigate psychological jargon, (such as “sanity”, “sociopatic”, “clear intent”, and I suspect, “threat”). They provide services as a profiler, and serve as expert witnesses at court. Some apparatly have bad reputations as providing whatever psychlogical mumbo-jumbo a client will pay for.

        • RevBev says:

          I basically agree with what you’ve said. There is also a way in this state that the patient through his/her attorney can agree to the court ordered treatment.

  35. earlofhuntingdon says:

    One thing suggested by the investigation of Ivins and others mentioned in the cited NY Times article is that in the Cheney administration, knocking down doors and civil rights, ruining or taking lives via negligent or reckless investigating or interrogating, is A-OK. Not doing something when the veep says do it is not. (If he says it, it must be legal and authorized, but he couldn’t say it if the President hadn’t authorized him to, could he?)

    But remaining loyal to the law, one’s oath of office, to one’s professional standards or to basic standards of human decency is so old hat it could get you fired before end of day. That’s the legacy Cheney and Bush will leave us. By all accounts, Sen. McCain’s administration would make that behavior seem downright homey in comparison.

  36. mamayaga says:

    Here’s the link I was referring to re: the increase in threats and assaults to AUSA’s since 2001: http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=2700647

    ”What sends chills up the spines of prosecutors is that death threats and assaults against them are steadily mounting, increasing more than 60 percent between 2001 and 2006. The murders of two assistant U.S. attorneys remain unsolved. Yet only in the most perilous of circumstances are heightened security measures provided to federal prosecutors or their families. Their pleas for home security systems (provided to all federal judges), personal security training and secure parking measures have gone largely unheeded.”

    • nightlight says:

      Oh, how I wish I could convince you sleuths out there to look into the murders of those two assistant U.S. attorneys.

      Tom Wales, was murdered on October 11, 2001 in Seattle, Washington.

      Jonathan Luna, got “suicided” (murdered) the night of December 4-5, 2003, somewhere between the Baltimore courthouse and rural Lancaster County in Pennsylvania.

      The circumstances surrounding their deaths and – especially in Luna’s case – the FBI’s shameless cover-up are just screaming for attention. Their modus operandi was identical to what we’re now seeing re Ivins and anthrax.

      This is just a start, in case you’re interested.

      • LiberalHeart says:

        And who was that prosecutor who went missing and they found his hard drive in some water? Did they ever find his body?

          • steinn says:

            Gricar has not been found.
            His replacement is Michael Madeira BA from Bob Jones University… there have been a number of interesting outcome of local high profile cases.
            Case dismissed with opening statement by prosecutor; failure to file felony charges before time ran out.

            There was a recent local flap, with several other county DAs accusing Madeira of letting the investigation go, claims that several obvious law enforcement measures were not taken to followup on the case, and State resources were not requested. A number of other DAs then held a press conference basically denouncing interference in local matter.

            local paper has stuff on it

  37. wavpeac says:

    thinking…nothing to stop Duley from reporting to the board, but HER RECORD. Maybe she was afraid to report to the board, because then they might ask about credentials and somebody might find out how impaired she was.

    Hmmm. Which would be grounds for a lawsuit. (and would really make her impairment part of the problem and the negligence.)

  38. wavpeac says:

    Also, if he threatened his co-workers at work, was there a formal inform to his colleagues? In this case, given his access to weapons, one would think that the hospital and Duley would have notified his employer and that each member of his team would have been notified. We have heard nothing of this.

    That would be the protocal and the hospital he was at was jcao certified…that means there should be an internal investigation with the board that certifies the hospital. Even if he took back his threats, the hospital staff would have been asking “do you have access to guns?” (and the hospital would have likely worked with his family to have the guns removed from the house or put in a safe place, or locked storage, before he could leave). Those notes would be important, but of course none of the hospital staff could comment on this. The records likely will take time to release. Those would be interesting.

    • bmaz says:

      The NYT article basically infers that the Feds were talking trash to each member of the Ft.Detrik team about the others and actively ginning up a climate of fear and persecution. Instilled professional cannibalism. This would seem to make your question all the more likely; but we don’t really see much in the way of that do we?

  39. bmaz says:

    This from a new article in today’s LA Times

    In November, after he was medically committed to a Maryland mental health center, Ivins’ security clearance was canceled, a crushing blow.

    In May, Ivins sent an e-mail to the co-worker, saying he intended to retire in September. “We’re not well-paid, and we do what we do because it’s interesting,” Ivins wrote. “If you take away that, there’s no reason to stay in science.”

  40. Mary says:

    Beautiful post bmaz.

    Wasn’t the daughter institutionalized for depression when the FBI showed her those pictures? I don’t understand about the autopsy – wouldn’t that be ultimately the family’s decision and not just the govs? Did the family not want an autopsy either?

    9/12 – Just a few little things like a multimillion $ settlement and two dead men? Mistake, shmeestake. *sigh* Mueller and Mukasey really don’t give much of a damn anymore, do they? The point about ”There’s no way the army has a sociopath handling anthrax… right?” is one I do keep coming back to, though. If some of what has been put out about several of these guys – including Hatfill – is true, wth is going on?! And if these things are not true (see 66 – and it certainly seems like colleagues were fond of Ivins – particularly odd if he was telling people of his plots to kill them) then someone should have reprucussions for seeding them.

    61 ”Even if Dr. Ivins did what he was accused of — a big ”If” based on what the FBI has disclosed to date — the FBI’s investigation of him, his family and others is abhorrent. The US Attorney’s claims are atrocious. He has not proven his case, much less proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. Until he demonstrates his entire case, his Hooveresque claim that he ”got his man” is empty boast, an abuse of power he wrongly assumes is victimless. We are all its victims. ”

    Amen. This is what happened with the Padilla press conf as well, which seems to have really set a tone at DOJ about how it can be used as a public propaganda organ for Bush. It is radical abuse imo to have prosecutors take to a press podium to fibbify and propagandize against someone who will never have a voice to respond. Lovely comment and I just wish I had some faith in, ”But we can put in doubt their re-elections. ” I think people did just that in 2006, only to find out that the alternative isn’t really much of one. And the current ”alternative” has Cass Susstein out making sure that everyone can be comfy that he won’t really be all that ”alternative” either. It wasn’t Republicans who took impeachment off the table.

    • bmaz says:

      It is radical abuse imo to have prosecutors take to a press podium to fibbify and propagandize against someone who will never have a voice to respond.

      That is really striking to me as well. This type of trial by press just never occurred with US Attorneys prior to this administration. They were not all as tight lipped as Pat Fitzgerald, but not far off. Now they take to the airwaves and press like Federal Nancy Graces or something. I’ll be honest, in my eyes, I think that press conference violated ethical obligations of prosecutors. Think about what Mike Nifong was busted down for in the Duke case, and then think about what Jeffrey Taylor did last week.

      • Neil says:

        If DOJ and US Attorneys are going to politicize prosecutions by making their arguments at press conferences and declaring guilt without due process then I don’t know what chance Americans have for justice.

        Taylor’s face turned red as a beet during that press conference and they pulled the plug on it rather quickly too. Assuming he’s a competent lawyer and competent prosecutor, then what the fuck was he doing last week at the press conference?

    • PetePierce says:

      Autopsy. I know that one. I did 300 I wished I’d naver had to do, and a few I published when I rotated on path.

      Staff asking for all kinds of goofy stains that always prooved irrelevant made them take forever to sign out.

      Ivins died at Frederick Memorial Hospital which made the Frederick County coroner a doofus for not ordering an autospy. The main stream media is in its usual vegetable mode for not questining what was a ridiculous decision. When someone is faced with impending federal indictment for five murders (at least Taylor claims that was the case) and dies suddenly, that’s legal grounds for the coroner to order an autopsy whether the feds want it or not whether the family wants it or not.

      A county coroner can order an autopsy. Asleep at the switch in Maryland. You bet your ass. There were plenty of reasons I’ve seen coroners lose their balls a few times.
      and back down from the feds.

      On Shawn Maartyak of the Frederick, Maryland CID, said that a blood test (presumably acitomenophen levels) made an autopsy unnecessary. That’s forensic medicine at it’s most stupid and raises the question as to whether the feds didn’t want an autopsy and leaned on the dumbass that was the county coroner.

      Another compelling reason for the autopsy was that the feds are offering no substantive physical evidence that Ivins was the anthrax murderer or part of a team.

      I’ll give you a prime example that shows you the moronicity of Orin Hatch. A few years ago the BOP went into a cell in Oklahoma City and beat the shit out of one of the inmates. They literally splayed put his brain material all over the
      walls. The county coroner showed up at the prison and was told to go away. The county coroner was an idiot, because by law he had every legal right to go to court and put anyone in the BOP in an Oklahoma county jail who stood in his way. He didn’t. And Hatch helped cover it up. Hatch is the one in the Senate who used to run SJC, makes goofy recordings, and always likes to crow about how he has made or broken nominations for the federal appellate bench particularly the S. Ct. Only problem with his background is my puppy has litigated as many seconds in a federal courtroom as Orin Hatch has.

      Marcy said that a source in Pettyman told her the “judges Hogan and Lamberth like Taylor.” Whatever it is they like, it isn’t his brain.

      “We don’t just have egg on our face. We have omlette all over our suits.”

      —Tom Brokaw after reporting Al Gore carried Florida (but you can argue he did carry Florida)

      • nightlight says:

        Could you provide a link or names regarding the Oklahoma City BOP brain-splattering incident? There are so many shady things that have happened in that city (and Norman, OK), and I’d like to see if any of them connect.

        • PetePierce says:

          It’s correct, and when I get some time I’ll provide links. There aren’t a lot of official reports because DOJ covered up the situation and Hatch helped them. There is code section where the BOP Warden or Regional Director can order an autopsy, designation of use of body parts, etc.

          In this situation the death was covered up.

          Lately there have been scores of deaths in BOP facilities and ICE facilities that could have been avoided as well.

          The medical care in a federal facility is reprehensibly incompetent.

          But then again, there is a little more attention/ground swell focused upon the medical care of Teddy Kenney when he summons neurosurgeons into one place on short notice to come up with a game plan, and the average prisoner in a BOP facility or the medical care for Bob Novak when he has a very similar disease.

          There is a multitiered health care system in place in the United States of America, as I’m sure you know, and the poor get the very short end of the stick. I’ve seen times when the rich also get less than optimal care, but those are rarer.

          Tim Russert, for example did not get the cutting edge cardiolgoy care that might well have saved his life.

  41. posaune says:

    Hi pups.
    Haven’t been able to read through all the post and comments, but wanted to add this.
    I read in Wapravda this am that Bruce Ivins & wife adopted their twins after serving as foster parents. They established a relationship with the previous foster parents and bio parents. Having been through the arduous adoption process, I can assure you there is files of home study documents, social worker assessments, plus court records of the adoptions. How could a successful home study & adoption with post placement assessments for years happen with “someone psychotic since graduate school?” Wonder if anyone bothered to look that up?

  42. NorskeFlamethrower says:

    1,730 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

    Citizen bmaz and the Firepup Freedom fighters:

    Great post Citizen bmaz…now we all know that there must be a COMPLETE criminal accounting for everythin’ that has happened since November 2000 beginnin’ with the electronic election theft and the Florida larceny even if it means beginning and ending in some cases with Congressional hearings to bring forward pardoned individuals to testify under penalty of perjury. There is gunna be SOOOOO much ta do in the first 100 dayz that permanent subcommittees must be established to work with special prosecutors and the DOJ for as long as it takes to investigate EVERYthing up to and including treason in the Plamegate affair and the dismantling of our counter terrorism and nuclear proliferation operations.

    Thanx again…Jesus what a fuckin’ nightmare!!

    KEEP TJHE FAITH AND DON’T LET THE FUCKERS OFF THE GROUND THIS TIME!!

  43. ixnay says:

    As someone else said, very powerful post.

    Grammar police alert: please let bmaz (and all other FDL posters) know that “it’s” is the contraction of “it is” and the possessive form of “it” is “its” – it’s an error that makes it hard for me to read the remainder of a post.

    • skdadl says:

      I knew that someone would finally get us back to Scooter and Judy.

      Many things about this history fascinate me, but none moreso than EW’s little reminder to us a few days ago about Scooter.

  44. bgrothus says:

    One time, I received a death threat over the telephone from someone I knew. The police told me, “We can’t do anything based on a threat. If something happens, we will act.” Or some such.

    Another time, when I was being stalked by a neighbor, the police told me I could not have a restraining order because the person was not a “household member.”

    I saved perhaps 10 or more hours of phone messages with various threats from the stalker, just in case “something happened.”

    This whole incident with “Amerithrax” is an object lesson. . .nothing of it makes any legal sense.

    Humans are fragile, the government is powerful. None of us are safe.

    • wavpeac says:

      This guy already had a mental health history and was suspected of murder. Do we know if they “tried” to have him committed, but it failed? Or if they never tried? The hospital had plenty of reason to try to get him committed and to start a formal review.

      They are much less likely to commit people who have NO connection to mental health what so ever and are more likely to agree with committments when docs put their push behind it. If there is no doc pushing for a committment (just wife, kids, or ex, or whatever it’s much harder). So I still can’t understand if it’s true that he was labeled a homicidal sociopath why they couldn’t get him committed.

      He should have been under board of mental health, and if he wasn’t, they should have been in the process. Did he leave AMA? Cause if he didn’t that means someone, some doctor felt he was safe. (keep in mind one other fact. When we think about all the folks who get glossed over for committment it’s usually people with no means to pay the bill…I am thinking he had some pretty good insurance to cover him.)

  45. Teddy Partridge says:

    How come the Forces of Government can do this to a dead guy, and yet Ken Lay’s conviction was overturned after his “death?” The government can gin up a wacky case against you after you commit “suicide” and you can be accused of all sorts of horrible things. But — if you are convicted and then “die,” your conviction is overturned because you had no opportunity to complete an appeal?

    What is this, the Soviet Union?

      • dakine01 says:

        I think it’s all part of Little Boot’s plan. Since the world hates us for our freedoms, if he takes them all away and makes us like the rest of the world, they will learn to love us instead of hating us and we’ll be safe.

        Or not.

  46. MartyDidier says:

    Great post and it’s right on track but there are mountains more that still need to surface. Unfortunately this isn’t just about Anthrax as it’s about the Political Mafia’s system of coverup. How I know is because I was in a family for more than 26 years who is directly involved. Everyone is going to have a difficult beleiveing is but we are all in big trouble if it doesn’t stop.

    There’s another White House Coup in the works and it’s supported but “Black Op’s in large part funded by the sale of Ton’s of Drugs. How I know again is because the family I was in were one of many air shipping in the drugs. They got caught red handed in Mexico with 4 Ton’s of Cocaine and the two who were flying got away scott free. It’s important to know that the family often bragged about being a CIA Asset. They started laundering Drug and Gun Running money straight into property in the later 70’s for the Dirty War. They were doing the same for Iran Contra I and other op’s. In the 90’s they bought planes and included Clyde O’Connor to fly in drugs and participate in the CIA Rendition flights.

    Believe me, this is huge. The Laundromats are protected by armies of Protection and Security groups. They do the SAME thing that was done to Ivins, to others who represent a threat to the system and I’m one of them!

    Marty Didier
    Northbrook, IL

  47. bgrothus says:

    The family who threatened me has a history of mental illness and is suspected of murder. . .just sayin’.

  48. Julia says:

    Speaking of the grammar police, does anyone else wonder about this?

    “theripist”
    py psychiatrist”
    “will tetisfy”
    “I have been subpoena to testify”

    I don’t mean to be shallow, but if someone’s were going to court to say that I have homicidal tendencies, I’d really prefer that it be someone who knows enough about therapy to be able to, say, spell it.

    • marymccurnin says:

      Not everyone has the ability to spiel. I can’t spiel. Sometimes I can’t even rite. (It’s actually true. I can’t come up with a simple word sometimes and have to use another)

      • Julia says:

        I understand – my mom has issues with spelling – but it seems a little odd to me that someone who’s presenting herself as a mental health professional – and I believe she is the therapist she’s claiming death threats against, although she actually appears to be a social worker/drug counsellor – would be familiar with the word, particularly if it’s what she took her degree in.

  49. plunger says:

    Perception is reality. If the media refuses to cover this story any longer, did it ever happen? What Anthrax Attacks?

    This story will DISAPPEAR:

    Media ownership study ordered destroyed
    Sept 14, 2006

    ‘Every last piece’ destroyed

    Adam Candeub, now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior managers at the agency ordered that “every last piece” of the report be destroyed. “The whole project was just stopped – end of discussion,” he said. Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC’s Media Bureau at the time the report was written and communicated frequently with its authors, he said.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14836500/

    “You can’t tell any more the difference between what’s propaganda and what’s news.”

    FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein
    15 August, 2006

  50. MartyDidier says:

    I want to add to my post above that I personally know others who are victims. It’s interesting to note that each one has a different background but in each case, they are linked to someone who is directly linked to the Political Mafia. In Chicago is also known as the Combine or even Shadow Government, but it’s important to know that they are all the same thing.

    All criminal behavior by design is made to look like an accident or an act of God or something you did to yourself. They seldom if ever will directly commit murder. However in the case of Gus Boulis, the clock ran out and they didn’t have any choice but to take him out. I knew about Gus from 1990 when the family wanted me to spend a week and meet him in Florida, but I declined. Considering what happened to Gus, I’m glad I did.

    Out of the many stories of close friends one has lived in hell every since her husband ran away with a 13 year old student of his. It was his father who was the VP or a Trust Department at a huge bank downtown who is alledged to be involved with the crmiinal system. Her troubles start then and she has had numerous car accidents, trouble with insurance companies and much more. The reach of the criminal system is deep and there isn’t any escaping it. She hasn’t succeeded in any court cases and her ex has been able to skip away scott free from everything. She feels the judicial system sucks and for good reason. She feels there isn’t anything anyone can do about it too, but this is where she is wrong.

    Another lady I knew from the early 2000’s her Ex is a high level FAA manager at O’Hare. I personally know him to be involved in the Poltical Mafia. Her life has been hell. One reason is they mirco-snoop those they track so no matter what you do, you can’t find any privacy. This is how the setups are conducted. They use “mind control” techniques to manuver you to your doom. It works. But her story doesn’t end here it starts again with her sister who was married to her ex’s brother in Atlanta Ga. He is also linked but involved in the huge drug system there. What happened to her was devistating and she lost everything including her good name.

    I know from the family, they prioity is to end your life if they can. But if they can’t it’s guaranteed that your life will be totally ruined. This is accomplished because there are many others in the criminal circle. A large part of what this is is coming out and on the Internet. Because it’s in parts you may not be able to link them together yet but at least they are there.

    Marty Didier
    Northbrook, IL

  51. orionATL says:

    bmaz-

    thank for writing on this injustice; i’d bet there were others still whom we have not heard about.

    those whose lives were ruined by the fbi over anthrax are just one subset of the many americans whose life, liberty , and pursuit of happiness have been threatened by american govt security “forces” over the last eight years.

    – arab-americans who might have some suspected connections, real or not, with terrorism or with arab social or political causes.

    – attorneys for these and other individuals targeted by the govt

    – recipients of national security letters, including several hundreds which were illegal, and including some individuals who were not allowed to tell even their spouses or their lawyers they had received such a letter.

    – individuals on tsa no-fly lists

    – individuals injured or killed by tsa officials

    – american and european citizens,e.g., jose padilla, tortured by the american govt or a surrogate (such as egypt).

    – goof-ball young people from college students to the miami five treated as if they were genuine security threats.

    – businesses damaged or closed

    i am confident one could add more subsets of persons harmed in one way or another by the american “security forces”.

    in my view, the fbi needs to be completely dismantled, imploded like an old bridge or building, and then rebuilt.

    if if were rebuilt, special attention should be paid to the management structure of the fbi bureaucracy

    and

    special protection should be built into the the agency’s rules and procedures providing absolute protection for whistleblowers

    and

    the the doj/fbi must be prevented by law from ever again using national security to justify lawless activity or to shield itself from criticism or from oversight.

  52. JohnLopresti says:

    I wonder if there was some decanoate-like effect from the hospital regimen, which created central nervous system toxicity or simply nephrotoxic synergistic interaction with whatever the decedent might have ingested once signing out from the ~21-day hospitalization, quite a long duration of a stay for a ’simple’ maladjustment problem, more like a length of stay for pharmaco’loading’. One of the standard photos I see in the news this week seems to have facies; but Ivins’ profession is somewhat eccentric, so the spectrum may differ from major pharma in that subspecialty. Label information and toxicology monographs are easiest to obtain for members of the profession, with time to review the comparisons. I doubt haloperidol would have been part of the regimen because of the extrapyramidal sequelae contraindicated for a researcher who required fine motor coordination, to put it mildly. Yet, the comments that approached these ideas seemed important in my framework. I liked the post’s title and conceptualization, as well, as a study in governmental resiliency, to paint it cheerily. Yet, I know of a person whose childhood included a preteen obligate stay hours in a car outside a court hearing room during one of the dogged HUAC ancillary hearings, the interviewee having abjured spouse to remain in vehicle there on the leafy street, with the children, and if he did not emerge at hearing’s end, to drive to kin not to home. Like the subject instant, the particulars are matters difficultly addressed in public fora. Kids grow up, and, if well raised, incidents like the wait outside HUAC’s ‘court’ as a child is only vignette; the creative incidents tending to loom larger and healthier in a youth’s early adult life. I support the investigative agencies’ having the capacity to be competent learners of the facts, ma’am, too. So the comparison seems apt in the theme of the post.

    I agree with one MD commenter, as well, concerning profiteering in rehabs of many stripe; to me, one more incentive to restructure healthcare provision in the US, a truly difficult chore in our preferred ambience of freelance entrepreneuralship.

  53. bgrothus says:

    An art professor in Buffalo was also incarcerated after his wife died unexpectedly, and they confiscated her body and his art materials related to genetic modification/DNA. I can’t get the link to work, but teh google has references at “art terrorism.”

  54. oboblomov says:

    Late in commenting, but I am highly impressed and appreciative of this post of yours, bmaz. Hereafter we shall all refer to that government institution as the FBH, the Federal Bureau of Harassment.

    The reality that you drive home in this article is how thoroughly institutions that Americans have traditionally felt existed to protect them from harm (e.g. the FBH and the media) have become ugly, malevolent, deadly oppressors of ordinary folks.

    Many thanks.

  55. DeanOR says:

    Before the FBI insisted on a domestic anthrax source, the Cheney gang was equally insistent that Iraq did it, and they tortured to “prove” it. Jane Mayer in The Dark Side page 135: Detainee al-Libi was rendered to Egypt for interrogation. They pressured him about ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq. “The Egyptian interrogators wanted more, though…they pressed him about Saddam Hussein supplying Al Qaeda with anthrax and other biological weapons.” His “evidence” given under torture “was “piped into the Vice President’s office, among other places, and used by the Bush Administration to buttress its allegations that Iraq was on the verge of supplying Al Qaeda with potentially terrifying weapons of mass destruction.” Sickening…

    • antibanana says:

      This is what Andrew Sullivan has been saying for awhile. The purpose of torture is not to gain good intelligence. It is often used to obtain false confessions to advance a political agenda.

      That leads to two more questions. How much else that we have been told about the events occurring in 2001 are also false? And what is the political agenda being advanced?

      This is larger than the issue of Republicans and Democrats.

  56. freepatriot says:

    for the record, bush’s “investigation” of the anthrax attacks falls under the legal heading “Conspiracy To Obstruct Justice”

    I’m willing to bet that we could jump this puppy thru the seven hoops required for a RICO prosecution

    ignorance ain’t a defense, and there is a 10 year statute of limitation

    oh george, you got some splainin to do …

  57. plunger says:

    It was an FBI Agent that advised Duley to obtain the restraining order – after the FBI previously ensured that he was committed involuntarily, and dosed with God knows what. They KNEW this would case a panic response in Ivins.

    This guy’s entire downfall was orchestrated by the FBI. Duley did precisely what the FBI told her to do, setting up the apparent justification for suicide.

    Makes for a nice narrative, doesn’t it?

    The fact that he complained about a metallic taste in his mouth that coincided with his paranoid and delusional episodes is not explained away by the prescription medication he was taking. He made it a point on more than one occasion to state that the taste and the episodes were directly related (he actually said that he felt the episodes caused the metallic taste in his mouth). He didn’t say he felt that it was from his medication, which he surely took on a daily basis.

    Were some of his prescription medicines laced with LSD?

    Google: project artichoke

  58. MarieRoget says:

    Bmaz is main paging it- congrats on yr. excellent post & accompanying thread on this topic.

    Going to be quite busy in the next mo. or so doing a few things here & there, so won’t be commenting much. Say hello to the local AZ folks you know who are lucky enough to inhabit the old Scottsdale orange groves for me, bmaz. And adding another adolescent saguaro (wasn’t it?) that can grow into a Grandpa near yr. home is definitely in order, if you haven’t already done so.

    Great job, as always to one & all here @ ew, & the FDL main pagers.

    TTFN.

  59. alabama says:

    Though I yield to no one in my outrage against the FBI, and would like nothing more than to see it brought to justice somehow, there’s one thing that tells me this couldn’t happen even if the nation rose up as one to insist on such an accounting.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01213.html

    This link to the WaPo may be slightly dated, but certainly not with regard to the anthrax case. And it tells us something both pertinent and alarming, namely, that the FBI apparently has no control over the information at its disposal, and wouldn’t know how to do effective, honest, and just work even if it wanted to.

    It can’t begin function on the level posed by the anthrax problem.

    I think incompetence is far more dangerous even, and more damaging, than competent malice. Incompetence, when put the test, actually breeds malice in the minds of the tested. And so, when the FBI is asked to do something beyond its capacities, it beats up on everyone in sight.

  60. R.H. Green says:

    In addition to my 151, I got to thinking while vacuuming, (what else is there to do). My commodore 64 computer doesn’t have audio, and was frustrated when I noted that there is an audiotape of Duley’s hearing in which she petitioned for her restraining order, and produced the psycho-buzz words that convinced the judge to grant the PO. Does anyone know if there is a downloadable written transcript of that proceeding one could examine for signs of coaching on the use of psychological terms?

  61. wavpeac says:

    I worked at a psych hospital just after the stories broke in 1992 about the Franklin Credit Union. (republican singer at convenetion: larry King..Johnny Gosch, Caradori-investigators plane that crashed, accusations of missing children and snuff films, hunter thompson…interesting case even today). That was the case where the republican party was accused of operating a child pornography ring. The kids involved in that case were seen in several mental health venues. All I can say is that the level of professionalism exhibited in my town in regard to these kids was amazing. I was not licensed at the time and could not say whether or not they were seen at the hospital in which I worked, but they were seen by many professionals in town and none could speak to the press about it at the time. None did. Except to report properly the abuses to authorities. Which was documented legally in the media.

    I can’t imagine anything this woman did being done where I work. I know there is “bad” care out there, but that’s not the world I live in.

  62. orionATL says:

    while admiring bmaz’s fine commentary on our u.s. dept of justice’s likely acts of injustice,

    let’s move to a wider view of the anthrax controversy

    and play two questions:

    1) where is robert mueller in all this?

    and

    2) where is michael mukasey in all this?

    the first gent, of course, is the director of the fbi; the second, of course, is the head of the u.s. department of justice of which the fbi is a part.

    so how come these two worthies are not out front and center on this anthrax controversy.

    aside for its failure to haul in for questioning a couple of the sept 11, 2001 suicide “bombers” before the fact,

    the anthrax investigation is the most important national security investigation the fbi has had in the last eight years –

    you won’t mind, will you, if i don’t cont the guys who were going to cut up the brooklyn bridge with torches, or who played paint ball games in preparation for invading fort dix, or the sons of david group in miami whom the fbi informer set up.

    so, again,

    where is mueller in all this?

    where is mukasey in all this?

    or

    why are they not taking a very active part in the public discussion of the “conclusion” of the anthrax investigation?

    well

    maybe they designed this farce of a public relations venture

    or maybe the white house was pushing doj/fbi for a “resolution” and the two leaders wanted no part of that “resolution”, and so appointed a couple of deputies to take the fall.

    no doubt there are other possibilities: but the silence is deafening.

  63. joanneleon says:

    DNA is just anthrax clue, not clincher
    This article in today’s Phila. Inquirer (written by one of their staff) had a few interesting things:

    At first, prosecutors seemed to suggest that forensic DNA had solved the case. U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said science had enabled the government to link the anthrax spores in the 2001 attack to a flask “created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins” in his federal lab.

    But at least eight other anthrax samples gathered from researchers in the investigation carried the same genetic signature as Ivins’ batch at Fort Detrick, Md., court documents say.

    Richard Spertzel, a bioweapons expert who worked at the same army lab as Ivins, said the perpetrator had used a sophisticated process to turn the spores into the deadly powder used in the attacks.

    He said the machine in Ivins’ lab known as a lyophilizer is a common piece of equipment used to dry spores and would not by itself allow someone to create the 1.5- to 3-micron particles used in the attacks.

    “He must have used some other new technique that we don’t know about,” he said.

    Spertzel said he found it unlikely that someone acting alone could have created the anthrax used in 2001. “I’d like to see the details behind the hype.”

  64. joanneleon says:

    Couple of questions about Ivins re: autopsy and burial:

    First, I’ve read that the DOJ or FBI determined that an autopsy was not necessary. The family can make that decision about whether or not to have an autopsy, can’t they? If so, why do you think they didn’t insist on an autopsy?

    Second, I’ve read that there was a memorial service for Ivins at a Ft. Detrick chapel on Friday, and a funeral at his church on Saturday. Then it said that the burial would be private. They did use the word “burial” but I can’t find anything else about it. If they were going to cremate the body, would they use the word “burial”? I’m hoping they didn’t opt for cremation because at some point I hope someone investigates his death further.

    • PetePierce says:

      In a situation like this, where the suspect in a terror invstigation is suddenly dead, any county coroner has the legal right (and certainly obligation) to order an autopsy.

      He does not need to regard the wishes of the FBI nor the family. This certainly should have been a coroner’s case. The FBI should have pressed for an autopsy, but it is the decision (or apparently the idiocy of the county corner in Detrick County Maryland.

      This was not done. I don’t know why.

      It’s just one more piece of evidence for me that Mukasey and Mueller have brains where the elevators don’t hit all the floors and the lights aren’t on.

    • bmaz says:

      Somehow or another, it was the local county authority that made the brilliant determination that no autopsy was needed, not the FBI/DOJ. Or at least that is the record so far. Relatives have no right to demand an autopsy; they can request one, but the state is not obligated to perform it. They can arrange for a private one of course, which I have not heard of being done, but there is not necessarily any reason we would hear about that. The $64,000 question is why the Feds didn’t demand the body for an autopsy as part of the investigation. I guess because they were too busy trying to close the investigation immediately if not sooner.

    • PetePierce says:

      Both the county coroner and the feds could have ordered an autosy. We don’t know why it wasn’t done, but then we don’t also know why the anthrax evidence, if they have it, has been witheld either.

      The feds haven’t been in the habit of explaining why they skirt US code sections for eight years.


      Maryland Code, under Health Occupations Title 5 Subtitle 3 § 5-310
      . Decisions concerning disposition of body.

      Clearly the county coroner in Frederick County, Maryland, where Dr. Ivins died should have and by law could have ordered an autopsy.

      By law Frederick Memorial Hospital must notify the Frederick County Coroner’s office when the cause of death is not known regardless of what serum tests are ordered on the body. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is the authority over all coroners in Maryland.


      Office of Chief Medical Examiner, David R. Fowler, M.D.

      General Information: (410) 767-6500 or 1-877-463-3464

      Ring ‘em up on your telly.

      (1) If the medical examiner who investigates a medical examiner’s case considers an autopsy necessary, the Chief Medical Examiner, the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, an assistant medical examiner, or a pathologist authorized by the Chief Medical Examiner shall perform the autopsy.

      (2) If the family of the deceased objects to an autopsy on religious grounds, the autopsy may not be performed unless authorized by the Chief Medical Examiner or by the Chief Medical Examiner’s designee.

      There is probably case law or CFR that allows the clowns in your FBI to order an autopsy as well and probably a lot of pages where DHS/FBI can order autopsies too in various circumstances, plane crashes, tortures by rendering, torture in the US, etc. but I didn’t find the US Code section. I’ll give it another shot later.

      Cheney probably has eaten parts of all the bodies he has buried.

  65. R.H. Green says:

    This just in. I don’t know how to provide links, but I can refer you to The FredricNewsPost.com. While googling around for a transcript of Duley’s court performance of7/24, I came across this news story in the localpaper (online). In the comments, there is a series of articulate tounge lashings to the editor about slppy writing and reporting that would make you proud. But two of these commenters refer to a transmission of a Grand Jury indictment to someone in Fredrick, and it seems some of that information was used in Duley’s court appearance. I don’t know what this is about but I thought our presiding legal thinker could comment on the aparrant illegal disclosure of the Grand Jury information.

    • bmaz says:

      Alright, I found it. Looks like idle speculation by people with half a clue. No way any of these jokers had an actual transcript of a special Federal GJ. Information maybe, transcript no.

      • R.H. Green says:

        Ok. transcript wasn’t the operative term, it was indictment.
        I’m lost here so your dismissal works for me. (for now)

        • bmaz says:

          Right. But there was no indictment; there were never even draft charges submitted to a grand jury. So this is just not credible.

      • LiberalHeart says:

        I read or heard somewhere (sorry it’s so vague, but I do know it was a news source, not just someone’s post) that the grand jury hadn’t even begun to hear the anthrax case. This was stated as a counter to the claim in the PO application that he was about to be indicted. I think they were going to start hearing the case on Aug. 1st, but I’m not sure that’s the date.

          • PetePierce says:

            The grand jury is still up and running, working on the investigation. It’s a work in progress, but whether DOJ knows the facts or not has never gotten in their way for a press conference.

          • LiberalHeart says:

            What I heard was, yes, there was a grand jury but they hadn’t yet heard any evidence presented re the anthrax case. Don’t grand juries typically hear several cases during their service?

  66. nightlight says:

    FWIW: A couple of days ago there was a comment posted by adelbag on tpmuckraker that I think is important to share here:

    There are a number of very disturbing points contained in the documents released by the government on this issue. In no particular order of importance:

    1) Reference is made to a single flask of RMR-1029. It would be very unusual to maintain a single container or any particular strain or sample, especially an important one. The more usual practice is to have multiple small samples, aliquots, of important strains in storage. This is done to for a number of reasons including prevention of contamination. If only one container of a particular strain exists and it inadvertantly becomes contaminated, then that strain is lost.

    2) Specimens are not stored in ‘flasks’ or ‘beakers’, they would be stored in small sealable tubes specifically designed for the purpose.

    3) The manufacture of anthrax spore powder is a very complicated and time consuming process. If one were to start with spores, they must first be grown in culture medium to a certain density, then they are removed from the growth medium and placed in a special nutrient deficient medium that stresses them and induces the formation of spores. Then this spore containing medium must be put through a clean up process and then freeze dried. Doing all of these tasks would necessarily consume a notable quantity of supplies, two types of medium, culture flasks, pipettes, protective clothing etc. and would also take quite a bit of time and effort. This would be a quite notable departure from routine maintenance activities and unless some extra material was made in the course of normal laboratory activities, it would almost certainly been noticed by co-workers.
    4) Given the amount of work involved in making spore powder, and the timing of the suspect laboratory use, it would have been very difficult to start work on a project of this type, successfully produce two or three batches of powder, and then mail them over the few days that the suspect access events occurred. While it could have been done, it would have taken a nearly full time effort which would have been noticed. In the alternative, some spore powder could have been prepared and stored and only packaged in the suspect time period, but again, laboratory audits of sample storage would likely have shown extra or unusual quantities of material.

    5) Nothing is reported on identification of any spores or traces of the final powders from the letters that were recovered during the search warrants.

    6) Silicon is listed as being identified in some of the delivered letters. There is technology using silica as a non-clumping/dispersion aid for powdered bioweapons, but not silicon or silicone.

    7) The search warrants make reference to isotopic studies identifying the water used as having come from the northeast. Laboratory work of this nature does not make use of tap water supplies. The water would have come from one of three sources, first commercially produced bottled ultra high purity water prepared for cell culture work. The second source would be derived from municipal supplies that would have been subjected to several exhaustive purification steps in the laboratory to produce water of the purity necessary to do this type of work. The third source would be commercially available medical grade water for injection. All of these processed grades of water will have particular contaminant profiles and oxygen isotope ratios. Ivins certainly would not have used raw tap water.

    The critical need is to examine the data from all of the laboratory work the FBI commissioned.

    9) As others have noted, what about all of the other people and institutions that had samples of this particular culture?

  67. R.H. Green says:

    Following the address I gave (Its FrederickNewsPost) I kept getting the 8/11 edition. Googling the article’s title got me to it. It’s: Womans ties to anthrax case unclear. The comments weren’t provided, but in the upper right hand corner of the page is an option to view comments. Clicking that brings thm up. I believe comments # 12 & 13 are the ones.

  68. bmaz says:

    I would also note that i tried bringing up Duley’s recent criminal docket that we were accessing and discussing the other night. Can’t get it. Can find the 2006 one and some older stuff, but not the current one. I wonder why?

  69. PetePierce says:

    I might add, that an epicenter of forensic talent exists in Maryland, and much of it is federal which makes it all the more ironic that these idiots didn’t autopsy Dr. Ivins.

    The irony is that the dumber the FBI and DOJ are, and the more stupid things that they do, the more apathetic the American people are, and the more incompetent that Conyers and Leahy become in effectie oversight.

    I haven’t seen much substantive out of a hearing in years.

  70. alank says:

    [Bruce Ivins’ son, Andy,] wrote, “I will miss you Dad. I love you and I can’t wait to see you in Heaven. Rest in peace. It’s finally over.” (emphasis added)

    Maryland’s chief medical examiner, Dr. David Fowler, confirmed Saturday that the cause of Ivins’ death was found to be an overdose of acetaminophen, the active drug in Tylenol; and that it was ruled a suicide based on information from police and doctors, according to the AP.

    Kimberly Thomas, a forensic examiner with the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, would not comment Saturday on results from Ivins’ autopsy or confirm Dr. Fowler’s statement.

    Despite the widespread publicity following Ivins’ death, Keeney and Basford Funeral Home said Saturday that the family had made no changes to funeral arrangements announced Friday in his obituary. A memorial service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick, followed by a reception at the church parish hall.

    Ivins’ brother, Tom Ivins, said he had not spoken to Bruce Ivins since 1985, but acknowledged the possibility his brother may have been the anthrax mailer.

    “It makes sense, what the social worker said,” Tom Ivins said. “He considered himself like a god.”

    Ivins’ wife Diane refused to comment today from the couple’s home on Military Road in Frederick.

    Their two children posted messages to their father on their Facebook pages Wednesday.

    Daughter Amanda wrote, “forever my hero, forever in my heart, forever my daddy É rest in peace I will always love you!!”

    Son Andy wrote, “I will miss you Dad. I love you and I can’t wait to see you in Heaven. Rest in peace. It’s finally over.”

    News-Post reporters Nicholas Stern, Adam Behsudi and Sarah Fortney, and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

    The disposition of Ivins’ body is unclear, whether interred or cremated.

    From Frederick News-Post

    See also: Archived letters to the editor submitted by Bruce Ivins.

    • Hmmm says:

      Son Andy wrote, “I will miss you Dad. I love you and I can’t wait to see you in Heaven. Rest in peace. It’s finally over.”

      That’s extremely interesting. If the family believes Ivins is in Heaven, and if they are Catholics as previously reported, then they don’t believe he committed suicide. Heaven is not where suicides go in that religion.

      • alank says:

        He apparently observed St. Patrick’s Day with Celtic music performances and juggling (suggesting he was indeed Catholic).

        • Hmmm says:

          Well, everybody parties on St. Paddy’s Day. I’d look for evidence just a wee bit more conclusive than that.

          P.S. Juggling is Catholic?

          • alank says:

            Not that I’m aware of.

            St. Patrick’s Day is indeed ecumenical, and Patrick was never canonized by the Pope, but he is a patron saint, nonetheless.

  71. Hmmm says:

    Actually in the instant case I noticed the librarian gave up the computer(s) without receiving any subpoena, search warrant, nor national security letter. That seemed odd. She seemed convinced just by what she was told by the agent(s).

    So who needs a Patriot Act if the authoritarian follower personality trait is so firmly entrenched as this?

    • PetePierce says:

      99% of the US if not much more is convinced by the piece of shit dog and pony show Jeff Taylor put on the other day. Let’s get real. It’s not surprising the librarian was.

      The vast majority of people trust FBI and DOJ until they or someone close to them is a target. That goes for Senators and Congressmen/women as well. A lot of them in the past few years have had cause to re-evaluate their perceptions of law and order.

    • PetePierce says:

      I’ve posted a good amount on his OD, alank, and taken care of several Tylenol ODs.

      We have only a sketch of what happened. We don’t know how long Dr. Ivins took the Tylenol #3 or how much he took before he was found and if he even received treatment. For all we know, he may have been dead when he was found, and DOA on arrival at Frederick Memorial Hospital.

      The FBI and Jeff Taylor from DOJ, the USA in the District of Columbia who refused to do anything about the contempt citations of Miers and Bolten, as did his boss Mukasey, hasn’t been exactly forthcoming on many of the detials and he has silenced a number of people who might provide information with non-disclosure agreements and intimidation.

      The bottom line is that if you get the patient early, and can superimpose their blood levels on a graph we call a Done nomogram, and it’s optimal that we treat them roughly in the first 6-8 hours of their OD, they can do well.

      Dr. Ivins may not have had a shot at treatment period.

      I could provide you with endless references as to how to handle Tylenol ODs, but this one will do fine. I posted it a few days ago.

      Acetomenophine Toxicity

      But there are several variables. Sometimes mucomyst treatments and even dialysis can’t save them. You don’t always get OD patients early on. You don’t always know everything they’ve taken, and while tox screens are awfully accurate, they aren’t perfect. Individuality matters. We are told that Dr. Ivins drank heavily, and favored Vodka, but we don’t know how much for how long.

      Contrary to what most people think, while ETOH can cause transient transaminasemias or the SGPT (the enzyme in hepatocytes or liver cells to go up), it takes an awfully long time in most individuals to get permanant liver damage that might have made him substantially more vulnerable to acetomenophen toxicity.

      Currently, we have an incomplete understandning although we know a lot of the cellular mechanisms of alcoholic hepatotoxicity.

      In men, 40–80 g/d of ethanol produces fatty liver; 160 g/d for 10–20 years causes hepatitis or cirrhosis. Only 15% of alcoholics develop alcoholic liver disease.

      Chronic infection with hepatitis C (HCV) is an important comorbidity in the progression of alcoholic liver disease to cirrhosis in chronic and excessive drinkers. Even moderate alcohol intake of 20–50 g/d increases the risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular cancer in HCV-infected individuals. Patients with both alcoholic liver injury and HCV infection develop decompensated liver disease at a younger age and have poorer overall survival.

      For all we know at this point, the FBI/DOJ may have helped murder Ivins if not physically, via harassement. They wrecked the careers of many people in this investigation, and they pissed a way a lot of our money, but they do that on a daily basis. Hatfill was certainly not the only MD whose career the FBI wrecked through ineptitude.

      And the FBI and DOJ don’t give a shit. Nothing happens to them when they screwup.

      Anthrax Case Had Costs for Suspects

      • Hmmm says:

        Sounds like you’re focusing on an OD occurring shortly before Ivins was found unconscious, yes? Alternatively, could the acetaminophen OD have been started much earlier, or could it have been cumulative, say — just to pull a random example from a hat — over the period when Ivins was hospitalized?

        (I can’t believe we’re playing Little League “Clue” here…)

        • PetePierce says:

          That’s just it. We don’t know really how much he took; we don’t know if he took other drugs besides Tylenol #3; we don’t know the period of time from when he took it to when he received treatment or as far as I can tell if he received treatment. I’ve read more news accounts now with all my links and the lnks of others here, and the ones available on line than I can shake a stick at and I still don’t have much of an idea of the details about what he took; what the time interval was to treatment in an ER, or if there was any treatment in an ER. I don’t really know what his vital signs were when he was found; where he was found, etc.

          What they are telling us is intentionally sketchy. The FBI and DOJ have a very low opinion of most people who

          a) aren’t them
          b) can’t impact their jobs or their lives

          I’ve seen them backed down when they’ve threatened people because the people they threatened were smart enough to go over their heads because they were threatening them with facts that were clearly false and they knew or should have known they were false but they were sloppy.

      • alank says:

        Thanks for pointing up the existing discussion about the topic of ODing on Tylenol #3. The source of info I linked was NIH. They have nothing to do with DOJ, as far as know.

        I suppose the FBI adduced evidence of a prescription for this drug.

        • PetePierce says:

          NIH are unbelievably great people in every subspecialty imaginable. They are extremely talented and a national treasure and a great resource for physicians as well.

        • PetePierce says:

          I’m sure long ago that the FBI had pharmacies checked for any Rx’s for Dr. Ivins and many other potential suspects, although as we all know meds can come from anywhere.

          I’d like to see some emphasis on the details of physical evidence that they say they have. I haven’t seen much of that yet. What they’ve presented on the anthrax is far from conclusive.

      • R.H. Green says:

        I’ve been operating under the assumption that Ivins committed suicide, perhaps not from criminal guilt, but from feeling beaten down, and not wanting to be imprisioned. But I read a letter he posted to the editor of his local paper in 1997 which he professed a belief in the hope of the eternal, and am wondering if my assumption could be incorrect (as well as wondering if these two opposite notions can be compartmentalized to avoid a conflict). But for you, sir, with your knowledge in these matters, can you fathom a guess as to whether Ivins died as an accidental combination of a single dose of Tylenol and alcohol, or would it take more, and how much more. I realize the difficulty without knowing how much booze, over what time period, but consider that he’d been away from alcohol for 3 weeks, and may have had some. I’m thinking that if the purpose of the tylenol is to help in getting a good night’s sleep, one should be enough. If more were taken, it probably meant he intended something else. So please give us your best guess: accidental or not?

        • PetePierce says:

          But for you, sir, with your knowledge in these matters, can you fathom a guess as to whether Ivins died as an accidental combination of a single dose of Tylenol and alcohol, or would it take more, and how much more

          I can safely say that Dr. Ivins didn’t die from a couple/few drinks and a couple Tylenol. Whatever killed him was considerably more although we don’t know of what.

          It would take much more than a single dose of tylenol for sure, and the sketchy reports were that he took Tylenol #3 with codeine. But reports were that he was drinking heavily due to the stress in the last few months or even longer.

          Dr. Ivins was a very smart guy, whether or however unstable he might have been shortly before his death, and whether or not he had had a schizoaffective or schizophrenic break. It was reported that he saw split selves or viewed himself as two people, or objectified himself–that’s pretty sketchy as well. If he wanted to kill himself with Tylenol and alcohol, I’m sure he knew how much would get him in trouble, and probably how to make sure that he might not be found in time.

          You can get into fatal OD territory with 15-20 ES Tylenol and part of this is size dependent, and varies with individual liver metabolism. If you’ve been drinking heavily, of course you can get CNS depression from the alcohol depending on the amount and what else is on board.

          And again, he may well have had access to tri-cyclic antidepressants and they have an anti-cholinergic effect that can cause conduction defects that cause fatal arrhythmias and can stop the heart. If there are enough, the damage can be irreversible. I don’t have any idea what Dr. Ivins actually took.

          Opiates like codeine also cause CNS depression. It’s pretty well spelled out in the article I just linked.

          A couple of tylenol whatever strength are not going to get anyone in trouble, even when mixed with a few drinks of hard alcohol fortunately. A lot of people who have been out social drinking pop them or a couple aspirin in hopes of fending off headaches. And while he was drinking heavily, maybe for years, we don’t know whether his liver status was that compromised because only 15% of heavy drinkers develop alcoholic disease of the liver anyway in large multi-centered research studies.

          The liver can take quite a pounding from alcohol before permanant damage is inflicted in most cases, surprisingly and fortunately for a lot of people.

          A large percentage of pancreatitis is not alcohol related and occurs in people who don’t drink as well, although conventional wisdeom probably thinks the opposite.

          • R.H. Green says:

            I thank you for this. It goes far beyond my knowledge, but fits what I was thinking. So unless he was murdered, he (from we know) probably did it himself, by design. Thanks again.

  72. rincewind says:

    Sorry to be so late getting back with the search warrant info (daughter’s b-day party!)

    The SW “Return” docs are here (Nov 1 2007) and here (Jul 12 2008).

    In November, 3 handguns (2 Glocks and a Beretta) and possibly a 4th (another Glock — the entry is ambiguous), 2 StunMasters, an “airtaser”, and 2 peppersprays were seized. No mention is made of any ammunition, although docs relating to the guns (receipts, applications, and “notebook detailing firearms training and contacts”) were removed. In addition, a Mac, a Dell, 3 hard drives, an iPod, a Nintendo, and 2 cameras (plus numerous floppies, CD’S, VHS tapes, and cassettes) were seized.

    Some really stupid shit: Item 21 “Make-up & false hair, costume type” (this was on Nov 1, remember); Ivins’ Social Security card; Camus’ “The Plague”.

    They went back to the house on Nov 2 to take samples — swabs and vaccuum. It appears that no one was at the home during this search (either Nov 1 or 2). The printed form says “Copy of Warrant and Receipt for Items Left With”, and handwritten is “In Residence”; also, the printed “Received From” signature line says “Not Available”.

    On July 12 2008, no weapons were found/seized, but lots of ammunition; and the weird “homemade yellow with silver duct tape body armor”, plus a “black bulletproof/ballistic vest Eagle Eye Personal Body Armor, size Medium”.

    They found and took 4 more ‘puters too, so I think bmaz is prob’ly right about why Ivins had to go to the library. On this Return, the name of whoever was given the warrant copy and receipt for items seized is blacked out.

    Bottom line, when Ivins got out of the hospital he had no guns, no ammunition, and no computers. There’s no indication in either SW Return that they looked for or found any medications/drugs.

    • Hmmm says:

      Oh for fuck’s sake. They took the kids’ Nintendos…?

      Why oh why does “The Grinch STOLE CHRISTMAS!” come to mind?

    • bmaz says:

      Have you read the affidavits? They are bad. I am not sure they would survive a good attack. I suppose in this day and age they would, but they are damn dicey if you ask me. There is all kinds of stuff related by the affiants that is misrepresented, overstated and included either out of context or totally without any context whatsoever. the government also seems to be mutt and jeffing by having both the FBI and the Postal Inspector working simultaneous warrants at the same effective time. Using the same boilerplate though. Just bizarre. They don’t have anything but a total mishmash of ginned up and bootstrapped shit on Ivins. If this case were taken to trial it couldn’t make it past a directed verdict motion. This is what they got and it is totally, 100% bogus. The DOJ is running a fraud to claim they have the guy and the case is solved and wrapped up. Complete and utter fraud.

      • rincewind says:

        Just skimmed a few of ‘em quickly, hope to dig more this week. A couple days ago I noted here (maybe the first anthrax timeline post?) that one of the email warrants wasn’t executed until some days after it expired — is that unusual, or no big deal, or ??? (we non-lawyers are handicapped by not knowing what’s important and what’s commonly given a pass)

        • bmaz says:

          It is stale after expiration. No, that is not normal. There is a difference between execution and the return though and that may account for what you are seeing. I have skimmed/sped read too; am toying with really going at them, but that would entail a lot of time. We’ll see.

          Can’t find it again quickly, but it turns out that the much vaunted “body armor” we have heard so much about was fucking homemade with stuff cobbled together with a bunch of duct tape. Heh heh, remember the “Evil Iraqi Drone Aircraft” that was going to allow them to spread all their chemical and biological weapon even in the US; but that turned out to be a giant Cox airplane kit like contraption held together literally with rolls of duct tape and wasn’t capable of flight? That is the picture i am getting here.

          • nightlight says:

            I don’t have any idea what Dr. Ivins actually took.

            I’m pretty sure it was Celexa. (Although who knows if there were others at different times.)

            • PetePierce says:

              Yes but if Ivins was trying to kill himself, and we don’t know for sure (feds or his handlers or people he never met who framed him) he could grab meds from years back, or he could have meds shoved down his throat, or he could buy meds anywhere.

              Until the feds cough up information this is going to continue to be entirely speculative.You live in a country that used to be a democracy and is anything but a democracy. The DOJ doesn’t feel they have to answer to anyone, and Congress as oversight is a weak passive appendage that’s a joke.

              People like Rove, Miers, Bolten and Bush piss on Congress as often as you use the bathroom. That’s just the facts.

              • wavpeac says:

                You know what’s really bothersome. I get the feeling from Pelosi’s persnickety, well coiffed frame that if Rove and Meiers did piss on her, THEN she might do something.

                Otherwise it’s just the constitution, don’t piss on my nice suit.

                • PetePierce says:

                  The woman is putting about $4000 on her back, $800 on her feet, and another $3000 on in bling every day. No luxury is too fine for Queen Pelosi. It’s all about power, but Bush completely dominates her and her compliant puppy dogs on every issue and now DOJ feels free to wiretap every communication you make.

                  I have to laugh at the sanctimonious presupposition that HIPPA matters when the government is magic lantering your email and listening to all your phone comunications, and your texting (if you’re teenboppersomething in age or in your young twenties and a Gossip Girl afficianado and have read a total of five novels or less (the average US high school grad/college freshman).

                  Books are something little Tiffie won’t be taking to ole State U.

          • rincewind says:

            There were 3 SW’s for email accounts (08-082, 08-083, and 08-084 on the DOJ Amerithrax list of docs). All were issued on Feb 14 2008, “YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED to search on or before” with a stamped date of “Feb 22 2008“.

            (Note: I typed the accounts exactly as they appeared on the warrants, and it’s obvious WHY they used the [at] and [dot] formats, as almost all software now turns correctly formatted addies into links.)

            There is no Return doc for 08-084, to Yahoo for “jimmyflathead[at]yahoo[dot]com” and “[email protected]“.

            The Return doc for 08-083, to AOL for “[email protected]“, produced “One (1) CD containing snapshots of the requested e-mail account” on Feb 18 2008.

            The Return doc for 08-082 is the funny and peculiar one — to MSN for “goldenphoenix111[at]hotmail[dot]com“. In the box that says “DATE AND TIME WARRANT EXECUTED“, there are two entries: “2/14/08 4:08 pm = faxed” and “2/26/08 = MSN executed“. Does that mean that the Fibbies ’served’ the warrant by fax on the 14th, but MSN didn’t produce their result until the 26th, and does that satisfy the order to search before the 22nd?

            This Return made me ROTFLMAO:

            MSN was unable to determine the user of the email account based on the terms provided, specifically “[at]” instead of “@”, and “[dot]” instead of “.”.

            (There are no docs indicating that they tried again with a revised account name.)

            And yep, I laughed too when I read Item 15 from the July 12 Return: “homemade yellow with silver duct tape body armor“.

  73. rincewind says:

    And how many of us have “costume type” make-up and false hair in our houses on any given Nov 1?

      • rincewind says:

        Like, anybody with kids? There’s no record of whether they also found a pumpkin with ‘cultic symbols’ carved in it…..

    • Nell says:

      You’re referring to Halloween being the day before, yes?

      And to alank and others: There’s been ample documentation in articles cited on this very post that the Ivins are Catholic. Read about the memorial service.

  74. yonodeler says:

    That shared prescription database used by pharmacies is freaky. (Are there more than one such database?) I remember helping to transfer my parents’ prescriptions from one pharmacy to a different corporation’s pharmacy. We named one prescription medication and the pharmacist at the new pharmacy started reading off the rest. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies consult the prescription database(s), of course, and I suppose there’s a lot of nongovernmental leaking and spying.

  75. dcgaffer says:

    Haven’t seen this mentioned. Discusses level of effort associated with making the quantity of material contained within the various letters:

    http://www.herald-mail.com/?cm…..ormat=html

    …Melanie Ulrich of Greencastle, Pa., who teaches at Hagerstown Community College, on Wednesday challenged circumstantial evidence against Ivins that has been made public….

    A flask in Ivins’ custody that contained anthrax said to be the “parent” to powdered anthrax sent through the mail. Ulrich said different anthrax samples were genetically identical, so that flask can’t be proven to be the “parent” sample. Also, the flask was for aerosol use, which would have been done in a different building than the one in which Ivins worked, she said.

    Ivins’ alleged use of a lyophilizer to make powdered anthrax. Ulrich said Ivins signed out a SpeedVac, but not a lyophilizer, which is too large to fit in a containment hood, or secure protective area.

    She said it would take about an hour to dry one milliliter of wet anthrax spores in one vial in a SpeedVac. It would have been impossible for Ivins to have dried more than a liter, which would have been required for the amount of anthrax sent in the letters, in the time frame they were mailed, Ulrich said….

  76. yonodeler says:

    The information may be published somewhere, but I’ve been wondering what percentage of the most lethal weaponized anthrax went to biodefense industries for (ideally) research and development.

  77. alabama says:

    What is the FBI, finally?

    It’s the creature of J. Edgar Hoover, who founded it in the 1920’s, and ran it until his death in 1972. To the say the least, he was a micro-manager. For at least forty years he hired and fired the Bureau’s rank and file, and some of his recruits must be working in the Bureau today. Others would have retired only recently. The FBI is a big institution with a very strong identity, and its identity can’t be distinguished from Hoover’s. The Bureau is the “afterlife” of its founder.

    To judge from the collective fury of this and other threads, we find it hard to believe that “J. Edgar Hoover” is alive and well. We (or I) have no wish to accept the overwhelming evidence in support of this elementary fact.

    This is not surprising: having lived through the Red Scare years, the Cold War, and the war in Vietnam, I myself apparently needed to believe–and, after Watergate and the Church Committee hearings, had to let myself believe–that we’d somehow outgrown the self-destructive brutality and folly of it all. Of course I got it very, very wrong.

    Our first task–the task of each person, singly (my own, anyway)–is to take the measure of our self-delusion about America’s governance, its governing institutions. We have to demystify those institutions and loosen their grip on our confidence. We have to moderate our optimism about the capacity of our institutions to function wisely. We should refrain from putting our faith in princes, and in the servants of princes, recognizing, as we do so, that we haven’t learned how to survive in the absence of princes.

    I like Obama and plan to vote for him. I hope he wins, but even if he does, I cannot let myself suppose that he’d have any chance to transform the FBI into an enlightened and just institution. The FBI has more density, more definition, than the Presidency itself, and intends to survive as it is. Since it will survive, the best we can do is to study its deep and abiding nature. With that in mind, we can even regard this disastrous case as a blessing in disguise: it reminds us (and we always need reminding) of the beast that knaws on our vital organs.

  78. rosalind says:

    bmaz: i left a reply to Chrisc at the end of the last thread with a link to a story i think you’d enjoy.

  79. klynn says:

    Hey bmaz late to the post here. Great work.

    Two thoughts:

    1) The NYT’s mentioned that there were actually 15 labs that had the same match of anthrax. Is there any way to get that list made public?

    2) I happened to be on the computer when the Ivins story broke. Right when it was posted as breaking news, I Googled, “Anthrax Case”. The first hit was not the LATimes story but Wikipedia. Wikipedia was updated naming Ivins as the guilty one, just seconds after the story was up as breaking news. I am not a tech person but boy that seemed fast that Wikipedia was updated on this news so fast. Is there a way to check who does an update on Wikipedia?

    Here it is:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

  80. bmaz says:

    I think that service of the warrant upon the entity within the time period is probably sufficient. I am not positive about that, but it makes sense. I have only ever fought this stuff in the form of grand jury subpoenas for such information, not direct search warrants; so I can’t say for sure. Curious they didn’t use a subpoena or NSL demand etc.

    “homemade yellow with silver duct tape body armor“. Sure comes off a hell of a lot differently than the scary swat squad defying Rambo/Terminator picture they have been painting for the public eh? Heh heh. This really is the Iraqi Duct Tape Drone and Powell’s bogus UN dog and pony show redux.

  81. yonodeler says:

    Kevin Coughlin has posted an archived Star-Ledger article from early 2002, FBI’s critics call anthrax hunt slow, which lays out observations from that time, including the following:

    President Bush wants the bureau to proceed carefully, to ensure proper procedures are followed and any anthrax evidence holds up in court, a spokesman has said.

    Other scientists, led by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a bioweapons expert with the independent Federation of American Scientists, have accused the bureau of foot-dragging.

    Rosenberg, who teaches at the Purchase campus of the State University of New York, has hinted at potentially embarrassing U.S. violations of an international biowarfare treaty. She also maintains the FBI has suspects around Washington, D.C. – claims rebutted by the FBI and White House.