Marcy Wheeler provides great details and links to the filing and other useful documents. Scott Shane gives us the usual FBI response when challenged: “We are confident that we would have proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at a criminal trial.” CIDRAP notes:
Glenn Greenwald has written a polished synopsis of how the FBI case has been disputed, while also discussing the meaning of the DoJ filing.The investigative reporters and other media outlets have suggested that the DOJ is likely poking holes in the case against Ivins as a strategy to defend the government in the civil suit, which claims negligence. For example, the Frederick (Md.) News Post reported yesterday that in a motion to dismiss the case, the DOJ argues that any doubt about Ivins' guilt would make it more difficult for the victim's family to show government negligence.The ProPublica group said it's unclear how the DOJ's civil court filings came to be so at odds with the case put forward by its prosecutors, and that the DOJ has not offered an explanation.
IMHO, Friday's DOJ statement of facts followed the identical methods used by FBI during the past 3 years. [Ivins died on July 29, 2008 and the FBI's (media) case was first prosecuted on Aug 1 by David Willman.]
The FBI's M.O. has three parts. In Part 1, the FBI strings together a complex scenario that sounds plausible as long as one isn't knowledgeable about the details of the case. This method is designed to confound 99% of reporters and 99.99% of the public, and does so successfully. FBI avoids discussing those parts of the case that cannot be explained by the synthesized scenario, and there are many.
FBI felt it could kill the 2011 Stevens case by challenging its earlier scenario, assuming nobody would notice. When they noticed, FBI simply repaired the brief.
Part 2 of the M.O. is an attempt to obtain testimonials from eminent authorities, and silence any authoritative voices that might challenge FBI's case. The National Academy of Sciences study was purchased to shut up the Judiciary Committees of Congress, and when NAS' report was not going well for the FBI, FBI showed up with a new document dump, designed to scare the NAS committee members about the seriousness of the bioterrorism threat, and thereby coerce them to go easy on the FBI.
When that didn't work, and the report undercut FBI's claims about the genetics studies conclusively linking Ivins to the letters, FBI tried to preempt the NAS report by loudly "closing the case" several months before the report was released (after an FBI review that forced its release to be delayed).
At Fort Detrick, everyone still employed was forbidden to discuss the matter.
Part 3 of FBI's M.O. is to proclaim (at every possible juncture) FBI's total conviction that the case against Ivins would prove his guilt in court. This is based on the premise that if you say it enough times, loud enough, for long enough, practically everyone will come to think it is true.
This time the FBI M.O. will fail, because people are paying close attention, since the anthrax letters are so important to understanding recent American history. As Greenwald puts it:
... discovering the perpetrators with confidence is so vital. As I've argued before, the anthrax attack was at least as important as (if not more important than) the 9/11 attack in creating a climate of fear in the U.S. that spawned the next decade's War on Civil Liberties and Terror and posture of Endless War; multiple government officials used ABC News' Brian Ross to convince the nation that Saddam was likely behind those attacks (as but one example, The Washington Post's Richard Cohen, in 2008, cited the anthrax attacks as his primary reason for supporting the attack on Iraq; in October, 2001, John McCain said on David Letterman's program that there is evidence linking Iraq to the anthrax attack). Even if one believes the FBI's case, it means that one of the most significant Terrorist attacks in American history was launched from within the U.S. military. As Alan Pearson -- Director of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation -- put it:
OH, and by the way (Thanks, Marcy!) one other correction made to FBI's brief was to delete the information thatIf Ivins was indeed responsible for the attacks, did he have any assistance? Did anyone else at the Army lab or elsewhere have any knowledge of his activities prior to, during, or shortly after the anthrax attacks? . . . It appears increasingly likely that the only significant bioterrorism attack in history may have originated from right within the biodefense program of our own country. The implications for our understanding of the bioterrorism threat and for our entire biodefense strategy and enterprise are potentially profound.
From: Ivins, Bruce E Dr USAMRIID
ReplyDeleteTo:
Cc:
Subject: RE: IPT Conference Call Agenda
Date: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 3:07:11 PM
and I will be at another meeting during the IPT conference call tomorrow. There is no more
recent information from us on spore studies. We are preparing spores for the challenge of the rabbits
starting December 5.
- Bruce
---
From: Ivins, Bruce E Dr USAMRIID
To:
Subject: RE: A 2001
Date: Monday, December 04, 2000 3:48:56 PM
H
___ [Pat] and I are involved in a rabbit aerosol on Tuesday and Thursday of this week, and Monday
and Wednesday of next week, but another day would be fine.
- Bruce
Is this a case that is just too complicated for most people to follow?
ReplyDelete(1) The DOJ says that Ivins sent the anthrax letters. Period.
(2) In the Stevens lawsuit, Maureen Stevens' lawyers changed their case to argue that Ivins did NOT send the anthrax letters. They evidently found that that arguing that the government hadn't found the anthrax killer was the only way they could win.
(3) On Friday, the government filed to have the Stevens lawsuit dismissed because Stevens' lawyers have no valid remaining arguments. (How can Stevens' lawyers argue that the government should have been able to predict the crime if Stevens' lawyers have no way of arguing who did it or where it was done?!)
The preposteous claims in the media that the government was changing its argument to claim that Ivins didn't do it make no sense. The government would be arguing the same thing that Stevens' lawyers were arguing. It would help Stevens' case, not the government's case.
It was just a simple misstatement. It was one incorrect sentence in a stack of documents.
This whole subject is as idiotic as the mess the media created when they tried to argue that the attack anthrax came from Iowa State University, or when they tried to claim that the attack anthrax was weaponized with bentonite.
It's media nonsense, and Stevens' lawyers are apparently jumping on it because it might help in some way -- if the judge doesn't simply throw out their case completely.
Ed
Little known fact. The DOD was planning to build their own Anthrax vaccine facility at the Aberdeen Proving grounds in the fall of 2001. The idea behind this was to bypass the FDA since the FDA would not approve Bioport's Anthrax vaccine because Bioport could not produce a consistent product. This would have put Bioport out of business.
ReplyDeleteIt's especially the little known facts -- along with the extraordinary claims -- that require citation to authority.
ReplyDeleteThat "simple misstatement" (Ed's term) happens to have been the truth. Oops, better get that out of there! C'mon now, Ed, where's your sense of irony?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete"It's especially the little known facts -- along with the extraordinary claims -- that require citation to authority."
Dr. Nass wont let me name names here. However, Since you missed my post in a previous thread with "citation to authority".
Here it is again.
Go to this link:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/03/ff_anthrax_fbi/
And use the find feature in your browser and search for the word Raleigh. The post that leads you to cites authority.
As for the little known fact. The company I was working for at the time was in talks with the DOD to build said facility at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. My boss, at the time, had done an up-fit for the Bioport facility when he worked for an engineering company out of Cary NC. Therefore, he was a prime candidate to design the Aberdeen facility. He is fairly well known in the pharmaceutical engineering world today.
AnthraxSleuth wrote: "The idea behind this was to bypass the FDA since the FDA would not approve Bioport's Anthrax vaccine because Bioport could not produce a consistent product."
ReplyDeleteWhen questioned about where he got the bizarre idea that the DOD was planning to produce and use a drug that would "bypass the FDA," AnthraxSleuth cited a Wired Magazine article and instructed everyone to search for the world "Raleigh."
There is no mention of "Raleigh" in the article. The search finds a comment AnthraxSleuth wrote stating his very personal theory about the case, and it says absolutely nothing about the DOD bypassing FDA approval in developing an anthrax vaccine.
I suggest everyone read AnthraxSleuth's theory. It's a very good illustration of how, when it comes to theories that disagree with the FBI's findings, no two theories are alike.
The only thing that binds the "Anthrax Truthers" together is the fact that they all think the government is wrong, which means that, if the government is right, then every one of the "Anthrax Truthers" and every one of their theories is wrong.
AnthraxSleuth's theory is a theory probably believed by only one person: AnthraxSleuth. Like every other "Anthrax Truther," he wants to convert the entire world to his beliefs.
I find this fascinating.
Ed
On May 5 of 2008, Emergent Biosolutions acquired patents and processes of VaxGen, Inc., of Livermore, California. VaxGen had filed for bankruptcy as a result of the cancellation on December 20, 2006 of its 2004 US Health and Human Services (HHS) contract to deliver 70 million doses of a second generation anthrax vaccine for $877.5 million, for failing to start Phase II testing by December 18, 2006. The anthrax vaccine patents were licensed from Dr. Bruce Edwards Ivins of USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, MD.
ReplyDelete