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The More You Look for Terrorists, the Fewer Banksters You Have to Prosecute

This report–or rather the HuffPo piece on it–has gotten a lot of attention. It shows the government as a whole has prosecuted 57.7% fewer financial fraud crimes than they did 10 years ago, when 9/11 changed everything.

The report on our government’s growing disinterest in prosecuting banksters should be paired with this FBI report which I reported on some weeks ago (since that time, FBI has removed the link to the report). The FBI report makes it clear that the FBI, at least, has shifted its approach over the last decade from a “case driven” focus to a “threat driven” focus–meaning that it decides what it’s going to look for and then goes to find criminals committing that crime rather than finds crimes and responds to them. Depending on whether you believe this report or Director Mueller’s June reconfirmation hearing, financial fraud is either the 7th or 5th highest priority for the FBI, behind terrorism, counterintelligence, and cyberattacks.

Those priorities show. As part of its focus on terrorism, the FBI has increased surveillance capacity by 48%. And over that time, the report boasts, the FBI has written 85,500 raw intelligence reports. It has set up 10,200 SCI workstations.

All of which costs money. The FBI reports that its budget authority–which it notes is driven by the strategy–has more than doubled over the period in which it has found half as many banksters.

Most telling, though, is a stat you get by putting the two reports together. TRAC notes that FBI referred 37.6% of the fraud cases for prosecution so far this year–working out to be roughly 470 cases. But if you work out how many financial cases they say they were tracking last year (they say “more than 2,800” equates to 57% of the cases), you see they were tracking roughly 4,912 financial fraud cases. If these numbers are correct, it means fewer than 10% of the banksters and other fraudsters they’re tracking ever get charged.

In other words, it’s not that they’re not seeing the crime. They’re just not referring it for prosecution, choosing instead to look for young Muslim men to entrap.

The FBI: Now, with 48% More Domestic Surveillance … but No Banksters

The FBI produced a self-congratulatory report of the changes they’ve made since 9/11. It describes the FBI’s new intelligence focus. It boasts that it has a functional computer system (which for the FBI is an accomplishment) and 10,200 SCI work stations.

Oh, and it proclaims with joy that the FBI has had a 48% growth in surveillance
teams and capacity since 9/11. Let us rejoice in the proliferation of domestic spying!

But the most telling part of the report is the way it describes its threat-driven focus, then provides a list of prioritized threats. The report makes it clear that the FBI’s focus is driven not by what actual crimes are out there, but by what crimes it chooses to look for. And the list of its priorities puts terrorism, spying, cyber-attacks, public corruption, and civil rights ahead of white collar crime (you know–the banksters who crashed our economy?). This is similar to the priority list suggested by Robert Mueller at his reconfirmation hearing earlier this year…

  • Al Qaeda-launched attack like the Undie-bomber
  • Self-radicalized attacks like Mohamed Osman Mohamud
  • Spies like Anna Chapman
  • Cyber attacks allegedly launched by China
  • Massive corporate fraud committed by people like Lloyd Blankfein that weakens our financial system
  • Health care scams
  • Drug cartel violence
  • Public corruption

Though it appears that white collar crime has, since June, been demoted behind drug cartels and public corruption. And of course, the government has rolled out the new TCO designation, meaning that the FBI’s focus on Japan’s Yakuza technically now ranks higher than its focus on the gangsters dressed in banker’s suits who decimated our own country.

You see where this leads: to where the FBI doesn’t see–and therefore doesn’t investigate–the wholesale corruption of our economy, a crime affecting just about every American and doing far more financial damage than 9/11, because it is spending so much time finding or inventing enough terrorists to justify that being the top threat, the 18 model airplane plots it first invented, then stopped in 2010, rather than investigating banksters.

Mind you, the FBI report does boast of the big increase in penny-ante mortgage fraud arrests and convictions since 2007 (it notes that “mortgage fraud was not tracked separately in arrests and convictions until 2007”). But that’s still less than one mortgage fraud conviction for every 10,000 underwater homes and fewer fraud convictions than cybersecurity convictions. And in spite of the FBI claim that,

Since 2001, the FBI has focused on the most violent
criminals, the largest and most complex fraud schemes,
the most sophisticated and dangerous computer intrusions,
and the most corrupt public officials. [my emphasis]

It has netted precisely zero of those who propagated the complex fraud that brought down our country–not even Angelo Mozilo or anyone from Goldman Sachs, against whom they’ve got reams of evidence.

The FBI calls this emphasis on terrorism (and spies and hackers and corrupt politicians and Japanese gangsters) over white collar crime a “strategic” focus.

Sort of makes you wonder what objective this strategy is supposed to accomplish.

Once Again, US Ratchets Up Rhetoric Against Pakistan

The pattern by now is all too familiar.  Once again, the US is ratcheting up its rhetoric against Pakistan.  Earlier instances included the “crisis” when the US killed three Pakistani soldiers and Pakistan responded by closing strategic border crossings.  This was followed by the Raymond Davis fiasco. Then came exchanges of bluster over the US unilateral action that took out Osama bin Laden.  Now, the target of US ire is the cozy relationship between the Haqqani network and Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI.

Reporting for Reuters, Mark Hosenball and Susan Cornwell tell us this morning that some in the US intelligence community are now assigning a direct role for ISI in the Haqqani network attack on the US embassy in Kabul:

Some U.S. intelligence reporting alleges that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) specifically directed, or urged, the Haqqani network to carry out an attack last week on the U.S. Embassy and a NATO headquarters in Kabul, according to two U.S. officials and a source familiar with recent U.S.-Pakistan official contacts.

The article informs us that the Senate Appropriations Committee has added to the pressure on Pakistan:

The Senate committee approved $1 billion in aid to support counter-insurgency operations by Pakistan’s military, but voted to make this and any economic aid conditional on Islamabad cooperating with Washington against militant groups including the Haqqanis.

A series of high-level meetings between US and Pakistani officials also has taken place over the last week to hammer home these allegations against Pakistan, despite this warning in the Reuters article:

However, U.S. officials cautioned that the information that Pakistan’s spy agency was encouraging the militants was uncorroborated.

A series of articles on the website for Pakistan’s Dawn news agency provides some perspective on the coverage of the issue in Pakistan.  One article provides a forum for Interior Minister Rehman Malik after his meeting with FBI Director Robert Mueller yesterday: Read more

Patrick Leahy in Big Rush to Reconfirm the Guy Who Won’t Solve Leahy’s Attempted Murder

By now, it should be clear that, contrary to their claims, the FBI has not solved the anthrax killings. Sure, Bruce Ivins can’t be ruled out as having been involved. But the FBI has offered no plausible explanation for the following:

  • How a small sample of anthrax from Ivins’ flask was cultured into at least two larger samples of anthrax with a number of materials added
  • How those samples were dried
  • When that happened and how long that took
  • How and why the anthrax got sent from Princeton (I consider the KKG story implausible)
  • Why Leahy and Daschle were targeted

The FBI hasn’t even offered an explanation for several of these questions (they’ve offered weak explanations for the Princeton mailing and the Leahy and Daschle targeting).  And yet, based largely on Bruce Ivins’ long hours in a lab that was not amenable to producing the anthrax used in the attack, the FBI insists he’s the culprit (his lab hours are close to being an alibi at this point).

Which is why Patrick Leahy’s push to reconfirm Robert Mueller–particularly Leahy’s citation of urgency surrounding the 9/11 anniversary (which after all means the 10 year anniversary of the unsolved anthrax attack is approaching as well)–is so odd. In comments on the Senate floor on Monday, Leahy pressured Rand Paul to release his hold on Mueller’s reconfirmation.

“There is no good reason for delay. At first it was reportedly Senator Coburn who was holding up consideration of the bill, then Senator DeMint, and now apparently it is an objection by Senator Paul of Kentucky that is preventing the Senate from proceeding. This sort of delay is inexplicable and inexcusable.”

Leahy continued, “Given the continuing threat to our Nation, especially with the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks approaching, and the need to provide continuity and stability on the President’s national security team, it is important that we respond to the President’s request and enact this necessary legislation swiftly. I urge the Senate to take up this critical legislation and pass it without further delay.”

We’ve gotten the people behind 9/11. We have not yet gotten the people behind a government-connected terrorist attack on its own people. And yet Leahy–one target of that attack–is unquestioningly pushing the guy who refuses to solve the case (much less allow an independent review of the FBI’s investigation into it) for two more years.

Leahy’s pressure on Paul is all the more weird considering that Leahy, with his support for PATRIOT Act improvements in the past, has basically ceded the legitimacy of a number of the questions Paul wants answered before Mueller is reconfirmed, notably those about how the PATRIOT Act is used and abused.

I don’t often think Rand Paul is smarter than Patrick Leahy, but in this case, Leahy’s rush to reconfirm Mueller without asking any questions or getting any commitments on these issues is “inexplicable and inexcusable,” not Paul’s efforts to exercise a tiny bit of oversight.

Rand Paul’s Timely Questions

Charlie Savage has a report describing how Rand Paul’s hold the reconfirmation of Robert Mueller threatens to push the process beyond the time when Mueller’s ten year appointment date.

[A] necessary first step — enacting legislation that would create a one-time shortened term and make an exception to a 10-year limit on the amount of time any person may serve as director — has been delayed by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a libertarian-leaning Republican who was elected last year. He is invoking a Senate rule that allows any member to block a swift vote on a bill.

There may be significantly less time to complete the steps necessary to avoid a disruption at the F.B.I. than had been generally understood.

The widespread understanding has been that Mr. Mueller’s term will expire on Sept. 3, because he started work as F.B.I. director on Sept. 4, 2001.

But the administration legal team has decided that Mr. Mueller’s last day is likely to be Aug. 2, because President George W. Bush signed his appointment on Aug. 3, 2001. Coincidentally, Aug. 2 is also the day the government will hit a debt ceiling if Congress does not raise it.

I’ll be curious, though, whether the questions Paul has submitted to be answered before the vote might also lead to a delay, too In addition to questions about:

Circumstances implicating the Iraqis indicted in Bowling Green, KY
Investigative lapses of Zacarias Moussaoui that happened under Mueller’s predecessor
A Resource Guide: Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers calling boycotts “intimidation” (that might be more easily answered if the government would get over its squeamishness about calling Scott Roeder a terrorist)
A Missouri fusion center report suggesting support for Ron Paul (and Bob Barr!) might be a political risk factor for domestic terrorism

Paul also asks for the FBI to describe how many time it used each of the following tools, whether against citizens or non-citizens, and how many convictions resulted:

John Doe roving wiretaps
Section 215 orders (including its use for library records)
National Security Letters
Suspicious Activity Reports

He also asked, with respect to SARs, whether they got minimized after being investigated.

Now, Paul did not ask for this data in the most savvy fashion. For example, he did not specify on his Section 215 request that he wanted details on the secret program that uses cell phone data to collect geolocation. Nor did he ask generalized questions about minimization. Nor did he specify he wanted this data in a form which he could release publicly.

But these questions are, to a significant extent, the kind of disclosures that Democrats and Paul had been pushing to add to the PATRIOT Act.

In the past, DOJ has not exactly been forthcoming with some of this information. Even assuming they’ll answer Paul in classified form (particularly his question about SARs minimization), it’s not clear how quickly they’ll be able to produce some of this information.

All of which adds to the possibility that Paul’s request might hold up Mueller’s re-confirmation past August 2. If that happens–Tom Coburn has suggested–there are a range of surveillance authorizations that might be open to challenge because no confirmed FBI Director had approved them.

Nice to see someone wring some transparency out of this silly reconfirmation process.

 

Robert Mueller: Civil Liberties Don’t Need a “Fresh” Review

This exchange last Thursday between Senator Al Franken and FBI Director Robert Mueller was frustrating enough–Senator Franken’s questions were the only ones on civil liberties Mueller faced, and the Director seemed pretty miffed to be questioned on the subject in the first place.

But I’m even more troubled by the exchange now that we’ve learned about the FBI’s new investigative guidelines that allow, among other things, database searches without any record and new powers to coerce informants.

After all, Mueller’s response to Franken’s concern about NSLs boasted that they had implemented a compliance system for NSLs and “other areas” where FBI might “fall into the same habits.” (What do you suppose those other areas are? Is he addressing FISC concerns?)

But perhaps as important if not more important, we set up a compliance program to address not just [National] Security Letters, but other areas such as National Security Letters where we could fall into the same, the same pattern, or habits. And so the National Security Letters I believe we addressed appropriately at the time, and it was used as a catalyst to set up a compliance program that addresses a concern in other areas comparable to what we had found with regard to National Security Letters.

Getting rid of the records on database searches would seem to eliminate any compliance system. And Mueller knew he was planning to do so (as did, I presume, Franken) when he gave this answer.

And in response to Franken’s question about infiltration of mosques and peace groups, Mueller assured Franken that FBI complied with its own guidelines.

I’m not certain it needs a fresh, a fresh, uh, look because I’m very concerned whenever those allegations arise. I will tell you that I believe that in terms of surveillances of religious institutions we have done it appropriately and with appropriate predication under the guidelines in the applicable statutes, even though there are allegations out there to the contrary. I also believe that when we have undertaken investigations of individuals expressing their First Amendment rights, we have done so according to our internal guidelines and the applicable statutes. And so, whenever these allegations come forward, I take them exceptionally seriously, make sure our inspection division or others look into it to determine whether or not we need to change anything. And I will tell you that addressing terrorism, and the responsibility to protect against attacks, brings us to the point where we are balancing day in and day out civil liberties and the necessity for disrupting a plot that could kill Americans and it’s something that we keep in mind day in and day out.

But of course, FBI is about to change those guidelines, making it easier for the Agents to attend political meetings undercover and track innocent people. And it doesn’t much matter if FBI complies with its own guidelines if those guidelines support abusive investigations. Mueller is basically insisting that he doesn’t need to reconsider FBI’s actions because FBI complies with its own guidelines and therefore the underlying guidelines themselves don’t need any more scrutiny.

And that canard about balancing civil liberties with the necessity of disrupting a plot (there’s zero evidence of course, that the FBI’s surveillance of peace groups has any tie to a plot, save against political speech)? Not only is this not a zero sum game, but the FBI doesn’t take similar civil liberties-infringing actions to disrupt right wing plots.

When he was gently, respectfully challenged to defend his civil liberties record, Mueller instead resorted to that same old terror fear-mongering. Given the new permissive guidelines, such an attitude is even more troubling.

Michael Leiter Resigns, Undermining Claimed Rationale for Mueller Extension

National Counterterrorism Center head Michael Leiter resigned yesterday.

I’m agnostic about whether that’s a good thing or not. NCTC got most of the blame for missing the UndieBomber, which Leiter exacerbated by going off on a ski vacation just after the attempted attack. But Leiter supposedly made some improvements at NCTC.

But I am rather curious about the timing (along with the trial balloons about Hillary and the World Bank, though State has aggressively denied them).

After all, we spent most of Wednesday morning, during Robert Mueller’s confirmation hearing for an unusual two-year extension, talking about the importance of continuity. Mueller has to stick around not solving the anthrax case and not investigating Lloyd Blankfein for two more years, it was explained, because the current CIA Director is about to become Secretary of Defense, after which a current top General will become CIA Director. The justification for Mueller’s extension was that we need continuity at a time of great change, particularly in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death and the lead-up to the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Now, granted, NCTC head isn’t as senior a position as CIA or FBI Director. But it is, obviously, right in the thick of our preparations for the 9/11 anniversary.

So, uh, were all the stated concerns about continuity just a ruse?

 

Tom Coburn Suggests Problems with Use of PATRIOT Act Section 215 Will Be Big Court Battle

I’m watching the SJC’s 51 minutes of almost entirely pathetic questioning of Robert Mueller to remain Director of FBI for two more years (the only real challenge came from Al Franken on civil liberties issues). And while by far the most telling aspect of the questioning came in Mueller’s repeated assertion that aspirational internet terrorists are the biggest threat we face, Tom Coburn asked a truly fascinating question.

He asked Mueller if he believed his two year extension was constitutional. He then used that as a platform to ask (my transcription),

Could you envision colorable challenge to use of 215 authority during your 2 year extension of power?

While I have no problem with you staying on for two more years, I do have concerns we could get mired in court battles [over 215] that would make you ineffective in your job.

In other words, he suggested that the Section 215 issues that Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have raised may quickly turn into a significant, and drawn-out, constitutional litigation.

Remember, Coburn was on the Senate Intelligence Committee last term. While he’s no longer on the Committee (and therefore was not in the briefing on February 2, 2011 that got Wyden and Udall in such a tizzy), he would have been briefed on the FBI’s use of Section 215 to develop databases of Americans who buy hydrogen peroxide and , presumably, geolocation.

FWIW, Mueller didn’t really answer the question (at least not that I noticed), though in response to Al Franken he claimed the FBI has not abused any of the PATRIOT authorities.

Well, it sounds like Coburn, at least, believes a Court (and presumably, ultimately SCOTUS) may soon have an opportunity to determine whether or not he’s right.

Update: I recall now that among the things that Wyden has asked for at times–in addition to the OLC opinions backing this use of Section 215–are FISC opinions, presumably on Section 215 applications. That suggests this may already be wending its way towards SCOTUS, only via the secret FISA courts.

Update: I may have totally misunderstood. Alternately, there may be this much sensitivity on 215 that Coburn is worried. John Gerstein includes this in an article on Coburn’s concerns about the constitutionality of a Mueller extension generally.

“I have concerns that we’re going to get mired in court battles over this that actually make you ineffective in carrying out your job,” Coburn told Mueller earlier in the committee hearing. The Oklahoma republican noted that Mueller or one of his deputies is required to sign certain types of surveillance and search orders and that such approvals could be challenged if Mueller’s appointment was in question.

But why would Coburn be primarily worried about Mueller’s 215 applications–and not FISA applications more generally?

Update: Ok, I’ve watched the piece again. Coburn was asking about potential constitutionality of Mueller’s extension raising legal issues for Section 215 orders, which have to certified by Mueller or one of two of his subordinates. That may have been just a hypothetical. But it still strikes me as an odd hypothetical.

 

SJC to Consider Re-Confirmation of Guy Who Let Major Domestic Terror Attack Go Unsolved

At 10, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the extension of Robert Mueller’s term at FBI by two more years. You’ll no doubt hear Ranking Member Chuck Grassley make all sorts of complaints about FBI in his wonderful grouchy Iowa voice. You’ll hear Jim Comey recount the dramatic hospital confrontation from 2004.

But you’re unlikely to hear Chairman Patrick Leahy ask Mueller why he has let Leahy’s own attempted murder in the 2001 anthrax attack go unsolved.

Oh sure, the FBI claimed they had solved the anthrax attack last year when they closed the investigation. But as I first reported in 2008, Leahy doesn’t (or at least didn’t) believe that accused anthrax killer Bruce Ivins acted alone.

The FBI’s case against Ivins started eroding right after his death, as Ivins’ own will made it clear that the motive the FBI had attributed to him made no sense. Then it became more and more clear that FBI claims about the record and anthrax keeping standards at USAMRIID were overly optimistic, meaning their assertion that Ivins had control of a flask of anthrax couldn’t be trusted. But the real blow for the FBI’s claims about the anthrax came after–having spent three years waving the shiny object of the cool science they used to “solve” the case–the National Academy of Science poked a bunch more holes in their case. Not only were the FBI’s claims about Ivins’ flask not as certain as the FBI claimed they were, but the FBI had never answered lingering problems about the chemicals involved in the anthrax, which made the FBI’s failure to talk about how Ivins could have made the anthrax all the more problematic, not to mention made one of FBI’s most compelling pieces of evidence against Ivins–his time in his lab–meaningless.

Pretty much what the FBI is left with are a few suspicious incidents and Ivins’ weird obsession about a probably unrelated sorority, which a bunch of self-interested shrinks have helpfully sensationalized.

And the failure to really solve the anthrax case comes on top of the earlier failure in targeting Steven Hatfill for several years.

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily hold the FBI’s failure to solve the most serious terrorist attack in the US since 9/11 against Mueller–it is a tougher case to solve, after all, than 9/11 itself.

But rather than allow Congressional overseers to examine the FBI’s work to both see what went wrong and what leads they may have ignored, Mueller has been refusing such oversight. He (and the FBI generally) have stonewalled and lied when members of Congress asked questions about the weak points in the FBI case against Ivins. More galling still, to me, is that he out and out lied to Chuck Grassley in 2009, telling Grassley that an independent review of the investigation would be detrimental to ongoing litigation. What Mueller didn’t tell Grassley is that he had already secretly engaged the Shrinks-4-Hire to do their own purportedly independent review of the investigation, a report apparently designed to rebut the obvious weaknesses the NAS would find.

Mueller was fine to do an “independent” review, apparently, so long as the FBI could game the outcome.

Mind you, Mueller’s refusal to accept any real oversight on this case has been assisted by President Obama, who used a veto threat to discourage a true congressional inquiry.

In short, under Mueller’s leadership, the FBI badly fucked up the anthrax investigation. And rather than review why the FBI fucked up so badly, Mueller has been obfuscating to prevent any real review of the that fuck up.

Mueller’s single biggest job as FBI Director in the last decade has been to make sure the FBI is able to investigate terrorism. And yet his FBI has badly screwed up the second biggest terrorist attack in the US–and he doesn’t think Congress should know why.

And yet SJC will no doubt vote to reconfirm Robert Mueller for another two years today.

The Circumstantial Case against Bruce Ivins Gets Weaker

It seems we’re going to be discussing anthrax in detail again. And in anticipation of those discussions, I wanted to challenge the notion that the circumstantial evidence against Ivins remains strong.

The whole case depends on the FBI’s contention that a flask Ivins had–RMR-1029–was “the murder weapon.” But in fact, the FBI only has proof that Ivins had what might be one of eight or more potential precursors to the murder weapon. Their efforts to equate the two ignore some interim steps about which they seem to have little evidence (and what they have they’re not examining very closely).

So here’s my summary of the circumstantial case against Bruce Ivins. (Jim White gave me a ton of scientific help with this, but the errors surely result from my own misunderstanding.)

When US Attorney Jeff Taylor announced FBI was closing the investigation in February 2010, he gave the following 7 pieces of evidence that Ivins was the culprit.

First, we were able to identify in early 2005 the genetically-unique parent material of the anthrax spores used in the mailings. As the court documents allege, the parent material of the anthrax spores used in the attacks was a single flask of spores, known as “RMR-1029,” that was created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins at USAMRIID. This means that the spores used in the attacks were taken from that specific flask, regrown, purified, dried and loaded into the letters. No one received material from that flask without going through Dr. Ivins. We thoroughly investigated every other person who could have had access to the flask and we were able to rule out all but Dr. Ivins.

Second, as a renowned expert in the production and purification of anthrax spores, Dr. Ivins was one of a handful of scientists with the capability to create spores of the concentration and purity used in the attacks. The affidavits allege that, not only did Dr. Ivins create and maintain the spore batch used in the mailings, but he also had access to and experience using a lyophilizer. A lyophilizer is a sophisticated machine that is used to dry pathogens, and can be used to dry anthrax. We know others in Dr. Ivins’ lab consulted him when they needed to use this machine.

Third, in the days leading up to each of the mailings, the documents make clear that Dr. Ivins was working inordinate hours alone at night and on the weekend in the lab where the flask of spores and production equipment were stored. A review of his access records revealed that Dr. Ivins had not spent this many “off hours” in the lab at any time before or after this period. When questioned about why he was in the lab during these off hours prior to each of the mailings, Dr. Ivins was unable to offer any satisfactory explanation.

Fourth, the affidavits indicate Dr. Ivins had engaged in behavior and made a number of statements that suggest consciousness of guilt. For example, one night shortly after a search warrant was executed on his house, Dr. Ivins took highly unusual steps to discard a book and article on DNA coding while under 24/7 surveillance. In addition, he had submitted a questionable sample of anthrax from his flask of parent spores to the FBI, presumably to mislead investigators. He had also made far-reaching efforts to blame others and divert attention away from himself, and had made threatening e-mail statements to a friend regarding the case. Recently, he had detailed threats in his group therapy session to kill people who had wronged him, after learning he might be indicted.

Fifth, as reflected in the court documents, Dr. Ivins had a history of mental health problems and was facing a difficult time professionally in the summer and fall of 2001 because an anthrax vaccine he was working on was failing. The affidavits describe one e-mail to a co-worker in which Dr. Ivins stated that he had “incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times,” and feared that he might not be able to control his behavior.

Sixth, throughout his adult life Dr. Ivins had frequently driven to other locations to send packages in the mail under assumed names to disguise his identity as the sender. He had also admitted to using false names and aliases in writings. In addition, he was a prolific writer to Congress and the media, the targeted victims in the anthrax attacks. Law enforcement recovered 68 letters to such entities from his house in a Nov. 1, 2007 search.

I’ll conclude with one more point. The envelopes used in the attacks were all pre-franked envelopes, sold only at U.S. Post Offices during a nine-month window in 2001. An analysis of the envelopes revealed several print defects in the ink on the pre-printed portions of the envelopes. Based on the analysis, we were able to conclude that the envelopes used in the mailings were very likely sold at a post office in the greater Frederick Maryland, area in 2001. Dr. Ivins maintained a post office box at the Post Office in Frederick, from which these pre-franked envelopes with print defects were sold.

Here’s what remains of each of these 7 pieces of evidence:

1. The spores in the attack came from RMR-1029 and Ivins controlled access to that flask

The certainty of this claim was seriously challenged by both the National Academy of Sciences report and subsequent reporting on several grounds.

First, the NAS study concluded only that the genetic analysis was consistent with the spores being derived from RMR-1029.

The results of the genetic analyses of the repository samples were consistent with the finding that the spores in the attack letters were derived from RMR-1029, but the analyses did not definitively demonstrate such a relationship.

That only says that whoever prepared the (probable) two separate batches of anthrax may have started with anthrax obtained at some point from that flask. NAS holds out the possibility the anthrax producer may have gotten it from somewhere else, that it was possible to get similar genetic results from other means (that is, suggesting that’s not the only way to have produced the samples found in the letter).

An even bigger problem is the complete lack of attention on what happened to the anthrax after it came from Ivins’ flask, if it did. The NAS later emphasizes this interim step.

The flask designated RMR-1029 was not the immediate, most proximate source of the letter material. If the letter material did in fact derive from RMR-1029, then one or more separate growth steps, using seed material from RMR-1029 followed by purification, would have been necessary. Furthermore, the evidentiary material in the New York letters had physical properties that were distinct from those of the material in the Washington, D.C. letters.

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