The Case Against Ivins, Search Warrant One
As many of you have noted, the Ivins documents are here.
I’ve just gotten through the first attachment to a search warrant (for a November 1, 2007 search), and here’s the evidence as summarized:
Ivins Was Inexplicably Working Late Just Before the Two Attacks
This is the most compelling evidence, IMO. It shows that Ivins was alone in his lab for two hours each on September 14, 15, and 16–just before the "media" letters were sent on September 17 or 18. And then he was alone in his lab every night from September 28 through October 5, leading up to the October 9 postmark on the "senate" letters (note, there was a weekend and a holiday in this window). Ivins’ explanation for those session was not very convincing.
Ivins Turned Over Incorrect Samples to Investigators
When Ivins first submitted samples of the anthrax he was working on in February 2002, the samples were unusable because he didn’t follow protocol. He submitted a second sample in April 2002. In April 2004, an FBI Agent went into his lab and identified a bunch of samples he had not turned over. There is a dispute between FBI and Ivins over whether Ivins admitted his anthrax matched that used in the attack or not.
Crazy Talk from 2000 to 2001
The FBI submitted a bunch of email messages from 2000 to 2001, which they claim correlate with the Al Qaeda-related messages on the letters. I find this less compelling, partly because of the timing involved.
Anthrax
The FBI talks about Bruce Ivins’ stress about problems with the anthrax vaccine in 2000. But that doesn’t come off as all that obsessive–aside from normal work stress.
June 28,2000, "Apparently Gore (and maybe even Bush) is considering making the anthrax vaccine for the military voluntary, or even stopping the program. Unfortunately, since the BioPort people aren’t scientists, the task of solving their problem has fallen on us.
The Sorority
Yes, Ivins did have an obsession with the KKG sorority–which the FBI uses to argue he mailed the anthrax from a mailbox not far from a KKG office. This is a stretch, IMO.
Greendale School, 4th Grade
The FBI presents an interesting argument for the Greendale School reference, which I’ll cite in full:
The investigation into the fictitious return address on envelopes used for the second round of anthrax mailings, "4th GRADE," "GREENDALE SCHOOL," has established a’possible link to the American Family Association (AFA) headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi. In October 1999, MA, a Christian organization, published an article entitled "AFA takes Wisconsin to court. " The article describes a lawsuit filed in federal court, by the AFA Center for Law and Policy (CLP), on behalf of the parents of students at Greendale Baptist Academy. The article focuses on an incident that occurred on December 16, 1998, in which case workers of the Wisconsin Department of Human Services went to the Greendale Baptist Academy in order to interview a fourth-grade student. The case workers, acting on an anonymous tip that Greendale Baptist Academy administered corporal punishment as part of its discipline policy, did not disclose to the staff why they wanted to interview the student. The case workers interviewed the student in the absence of the student’s parents and informed the school staff that the parents were not to be contacted. The AFA CLP filed suit against the Wisconsin Department of Human Services, citing a violation of the parents’ Fourth Amendment rights.
[redacted] donations were made to the AFA in the name of "Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Ivins" on eleven separate occasions beginning on December 3 1, 1993. After an approximate two year break in donations, the next donation occurred on November 1 1, 1999, one month after the initial article referencing Greendale Baptist Academy was published in the AFA Journal. It was also discovered that the subscription to the AFA Journal, in the name of "Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Ivins," [redacted] Frederick, Maryland 21 702, was active until March 2005.
So the FBI is pinning the anthrax terrorism on Ivins’ donations to the AFA.
Leahy and Daschle
The FBI then goes on to provide a relatively weak explanation for why Ivins targeted Leahy and Daschle–because they are pro-choice Catholics who opposed (particularly Leahy) PATRIOT. The FBI bases that on an Ivins comment similar to the kind a bunch of wingnuts were uttering in September 2001.
On September 26, 2001, in an e-mail to a fiend, Dr. Ivins writes "The news media has been saying that some members of Congress and members of the ACLU oppose many of the Justice Department proposals for combating terrorism, saying that they are unconstitutional and infringe too much on civil liberties. Many people don’t know it but the official ACLU position is to oppose all metal detectors in airports and schools and other public buildings. It’s interesting that we may now be living in a time when our biggest threat to civil liberties and freedom doesn’t come from the government but fiom enemies of the government. Osama Bin Laden has just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans, but I guess that doesn’t mean a lot to the ACLU. Maybe I should move to Canada. . . ."
So I guess the FBI now considers an affiliation with the AFA and a dislike of the ACLU to be probably cause that a person is a terrorist?
Well, that’s the probable cause behind the first search warrant. I’ll grant that the laboratory-specific stuff is pretty damning. But the stuff that goes to motive? We’d have to indict half of Michelle Malkin’s readers if that stuff amounted to probable cause.
And, given what I said in my last post, I’ll repeat that if an obsession about anthrax vaccines amounts to probable cause, Scooter Libby is as likely a culprit as Bruce Ivins.
I like the Scooter “Mr. Germ” Libby connection *G*
Thanks, Marcy, for your summary of this new set of documents!
Bob in HI
I’m sorry, I can’t possibly be reading this right. Are they really saying that a big part of their case was that the man was working late?
Maybe he was requested to work late or pressured to.
The issue was that 1) they claim they’ve proved the anthrax in question came from his lab, 2) He had opportunity to fuck with the Anthrax just before the attacks, 3) he couldn’t explain–nor could other lab records explain–why he was working late.
EW, did the FBI establish his work habits more broadly? Say over a 5 year period, how often did he work late? I know a lot of scientists who keep odd hours, simply because that’s their nature. I would find the late hours more damning if they are inconsistent with his normal working habits.
amen, phred. i’m not convinced that this piece means anything until they also show that prior to mid-september 01 and after the last letter was mailed, his work schedule was 9 – 5. like you, i tend to doubt that.
earlier i had emphasized that the fbi must show that his unstable behavior was evident during that period, given that his erratic behavior in the past year can so easily be due to harassment by his stalkers. so far, they have not.
plus, they must still explain why a democrat who has voted even in primaries and every election for over a quarter century would target dems.
i am also still skeptical that this was necessarily suicide; no note (from a guy who liked to write letters to the editor), and his method could just as easily been evidence of accidental OD. especially given he is alleged to have had a gun in his home.
so far, these docs raise more questions than they quell.
And they don’t make a fair attempt here with the e-mails they’ve included, among other things, and his mental health and medication history (beginning February 2000).
I’d have trouble explaining why I was working late last week, much less several months/years ago. I generally keep good records about what I do in the lab on any given day, but I don’t ever bother time-stamping them. So if I decided to shoot the breeze with someone all afternoon and then catch up on lab work later that evening, my notes would still just show a regular day’s-worth of lab work. If the FBI then showed up to ask why my notes only show a regular day of work, but my parking card shows that I didn’t leave until 8, I’d pretty much have to say, “Beats the shit out of me. I do that sometimes.”
Furthermore, the first guess I’d make as to why any married man is “working” late is that he’s at his computer downloading internet porn.
Which they could determine from his hard drive.
oh wait, he was working late. Is that particularly unusual at this lab?
For him, yes. His hours all came before the windows of opportunity before the two rounds of mailings.
it’s not so clear from marcy’s synopsis of these docs, brendan. they will have to ALSO show that he did NOT work late at other times. in other words, as phred pointed out above, they have to show that his working late during these periods was UNUSUAL for him.
It’s clearer in the docs themselves.
Umm, and was Ivins the only one with these “windows of opportunity?”
There is a presumption that the anthrax HAD to come from that lab near the time it was mailed and so ‘window of opportunity’ seems relevant.
But, if there was something in the anthrax which was mailed, but not present in the anthrax in the lab, then there is clearly the possibility it came from an earlier batch or from the same batch earlier and had that marker substance in it (perhaps added after extracted from the main batch).
In that instance whomever had that sample (dried and ready to mail) could easily have had opportunity and never have been looked at.
They claim, of course, their evidence is overwhelming. Does it include information about anyone and everyone who entered that lab and might’ve gotten the anthrax with the marker looking back from the first day the anthrax existed there?
If that’s all they had, after seven years and $55 million dollars and untold other taxpayer money waste and manhour waste, and phony leaks, and shills from the media who ought to be banned from the media, no wonder they hadn’t gotten an indictment from a Grand Jury as biased a dog and pony show with no defense bar present as it is.
I should say, this is jsut from the first search warrant. I need to go through the other ones, but first I need to go to the gym.
Um, this looks like shit now; think how it would appear after competent cross-examination. They better have more than this.
It is sort of interesting that one piece of “evidence” used to make the case against Ivins was based on a contaminant that was NOT found in the Detrick anthrax flask, but WAS found in the anthrax sent out in the attacks.
It seems rather odd to me that a piece of evidence that would tend to indicate his innocence was represented as exactly the opposite in the search warrant application.
This isn’t bad:
Traffic can be a b*tch.
Breaking news.
A shitferbrains attorney can tear holes in the crap the DOJ is proferring over your TV.
Fumbling Bureau of Invesitgation
Federal Bumblers of Investigations
And for great reasons. They suck. DOJ is pathetic.
I bet everything at the lab changed as soon as the first anthrax letter was found. Hair on fire, security lockdown, samples analysis, etc. That would go along way towards explaining why his working hours pattern changed suddenly at that point. As the opinion piece from the Frederick P-M that I posted last night said, things were customarily pretty loose at the lab before that point:
They’re loose now at the 450 facilities containing 15000 employees with access to what can be quickly made weapons grade anthrax and other bioterrorism pathogens.
And you have not a scintilla of medical defense if it struck you at your disposal readily.
We have no prophylaxis for acute anthrax, and now we have 450 labs that work with it, and we have 15000 personnel.
Your CDCs most dangerous lab is using duct tape on their doors while their power turns off regular shutting down their ventilation system to keep them and surrounding Atlanta safe, and all John Dingell and Bart Stupak have done so far is to fret about it–from Washington D.C. and parts of Michigan.
good point; of course everything would change after 9/11. so not only would the fbi have to show that ivins’s hours were different from his own pattern prior to and after that point, they have to show his hours were different from everyone else’s.
No handwriting match–because of attempt to disguise it. Some similarities but not a match.
If anybody is watching this, the woman who just asked that question is a Fox journalist who knows this stuff quite well.
Does anyone have a sense of how the case against Hatfill compared to this one against Ivins? I seem to remember the political profile fit Hatfill better.
The case against Hatfill was in part based on doggies with big ears who are best kept far away from forensic investigations and courtrooms since they are cute, lovable and the antithesis of scientific evidence or medical evidence and they cannot be cross examined to preserve your Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. And federal courts and state courts have repeatedly thrown them out back to play with their teddy bears where they belong.
My next question: why did they give preference to Hatfill as a target when they had this circumstantial evidence against Ivins?
Because they were perpshopping. Their first guess faile3d to pan out, sop they went shopping for a second perp. Had he lived, they would undoubtedly shopped around for a third.
My question was why Hatfill was their first, not second choice.
It takes a while to build a circumstantial case. All that narrative is a bitch.
Marcy is so up on the details contexting the Hatfill investigation and Bmaz, and others, that their answers would be helpful, but I think they had a paradigm problem. They simply didn’t realize the scope of people in sheer numbers that had access to anthrax that could be mailed. And Hatfill became a destructive downward spiral for them from the get go.
Then they got head faked by doggies and I’m not sure when they got access to more sophisticated DNA testing for anthrax–we have engineering types and scientists who are more familiar with that terrain but I don’t think they had the genotyping widely available that they now have.
That said this is a terrible workup/investigation if what I’ve seen so far is all they have. It leaves a lot to be nailed down. and I don’t think they’ve implicated Dr. Bruce Ivins except loosely and erratically with some circumstantial evidence.
I’m not interested in this case the way a defense attorney for Ivins would be, or even a juror, or even just a critic of the Rove DOJ. I’m interested in whether people like Libby, Miller, Cheney were conspirators in the plot to actually disperse anthrax; it’s a given (and a proven) that they were manipulated the attacks.
I’m somewhat assuaged by these documents because:
1. It seems more plausible that Ivins did it
2. Incompetence is a plausible explanation for DOJ’s behavior
In my Mighty Mouse effort to write whole sentences, I missed your use of the Cee word. I like. And agree with your example.
Don’t really think Ivins was involved in the attack.
“Very concerned that this program may come to an end.”
The circumstantial evidence matches Libby as closely as it does Ivins.
What pre-existing relationships did Ivins have aside from with his wife and AFA?
Did he know or have communications with superiors all the way up to the WH?
You mean germboy.
“Categorically false” that agents confronted Ivins and his family in mall in MD.
That was actually reported in a WaPo article. The confrontation that is.
“Ample evidence” that he was the one who drove to Princeton. Just showing that he had time, but not that he did it.
Jeebus this is pathetic.
I would infinitely rather have Marcy and Christy running these investigations, DOJ, and the FBI rather than what I’m seeing today.
Wow. Thoroughly unimpressed.
They all but admit they can’t place Ivins actually MAILING the anthrax. But don’t worry–they’re confident that Ivins worked alone.
WaPo:
This is from a July 11, 2008 affidavit seeking a search warrant.
http://www.usdoj.gov/amerithra…..idavit.pdf
Let me understand this. Ivins says he’s going to get a gun within a day and blow away his co-workers. The social worker informs the police. So in the face of an imminent threat of homicidal action, the police are so concerned that they don’t bother to act until the next day? After if such had been Ivins intention he had time to enact his murderous plan? Does this sound odd to you? It does to me.
Yes, because the whole thing rests on “what the social worker said” it seems. Duley. and she seems to have credibility problems, as far as I am concerned. No word from the other members of the group therapy.
Haven’t read a word where a colleague didn’t seem sympathetic rather than afraid.
He said he wouldn’t have the gun for another day, and they got him that day. It doesn’t sound odd to me.
No, we have hearsay that he was going to get a gun.
Except they picked him up at his work the next day. If he had gotten the gun before going to work (or even if he changed his mind and got the gun the previous evening), his co-workers would have been dead by the time the police arrived. Law enforcement agencies are simply not supposed to work this way. “Hey, sarge, we just received a credible, imminent threat. What should we do?” “I dunno, get coffee and donuts, I guess. Check into tomorrow.”
Grrr. My comment@ 84 was intended to repond to 37. Sorry.
Somebody at MSN (or possibly the poor agent stuck with serving the warrant) has a sense of “humor”(?) — take a look at the “Return” for SW 08-082-M-01
08-082-M-01%20search%20warrant%20return.pdf
(the warrant was for email accounts with Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail)
The result:
LOL! Fumbling Bumbling doesn’t even come close!
…September 14, 15, and 16…
Dunno about you guys but, IIRC, I came home from work late those days because, duh, my office had a zippy net connection and I just had dialup at home. I was burned out on TV news and those newfangled blog things had a lot to say about 9/11. I wonder if there are server records for the days in question?
Ivins said he went to work because things weren’t good at home. It’s not like he had to go far. Just across the street. It’d be like going into the next room at my house.
Hey I worked with a guy like that. He took on xtra hours cause work was more calm than the homefront. In fact, I know quite a few people like that. In fact, I think I was once like that as well.
Did I hear the DOJ right? He said they didn’t find any hairs in the mailbox — but in the documents, it said there were several hairs in the mailbox. Huh?
He did say there were no hairs in the mailbox. I haven’t seen the reference in the docs yet.
This is great. On p. 22 of 27 in 08-082-M-01 search warrant affidavit.pdf in the context of evidence proving that he often took long drives to mail stuff, they say:
So, he often worked at night, but his working at night after the anthrax attack was unusual. Riiiggghhhttt…
I just heard a repeat of the nes conference & the DOJ lawyer said that Ivins “DID NOT HAVE A HABIT OF WORKING IRREGULAR HOURS”
Oops.
sheez, no frikkin’ kidding.
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/hcourant.html
BioPort, the original maker of the anthrax vaccine for the Department of Defense, keeps making the statement that its vaccine is ’safe’ and has been ‘proven to be safe.’ Bush used those ‘findings’ to propose that every man, woman and child in America should be forced to take the (often debilitating, sometimes death- dealing) shots under ‘Project BioShield.’
Trust me, folks, absolutely, totally and unequivocally REFUSE to have this vaccine administered to you or anyone you know or love.
It will terminate your current status of health…and possibly your life.
There was so much liability headed toward BioPort from wrongful death lawsuits resulting from their crappy, deadly vaccine that they made a quick offshore move to avoid liability and merged with DynPort Vaccines, LLC, a shady entity that is both biotech company and a mercenary soldier parent company. DynCorp was later bought out by SAIC, one of the BushCo bandits in this bogus Global War on Terror.
Spell SAIC backwards…
CIA’s
SAIC was commissioned by G. W. Bush in 2002 to construct a replica of a mobile WMD laboratory of the sort used by Saddam. This mock up, supposedly destined to be used to train teams searching for WMDs in Iraq, was designed by Stephen Hatfill, the WMD expert now being harangued into isolation and thus silence by Bush’s FBI. Last spring, the Bush administration handed SAIC some of the biggest defense contract plums to be had -a billion-dollar chunk of the NexGen business and an unbelievably porky 10-year contract worth over $600 million.”
http://www.mail-archive.com/ct…..07176.html
http://www.warprofiteers.com/article.php?id=7892
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…..orporation
In January 1999, new SAIC consultant Steven Hatfill and his collaborator, SAIC vice president Joseph Soukup, commissioned William C Patrick (a retired leading figure in the old US bioweapons program) to report on the possibilities of terrorist anthrax mailings in the United States. (There had been a spate of hoax anthrax mailings in the previous two years.) Barbara Hatch Rosenberg said that the report was commissioned “under a CIA contract to SAIC”. However, SAIC said Hatfill and Soukup commissioned it internally — there was no outside client.
Patrick produced his 28-page report in February 1999. Some subsequently saw it as a “blueprint” for the 2001 anthrax attacks. The report suggested the maximum amount of anthrax powder — 2.5 grams — that could be put in an envelope without producing a suspicious bulge. This was just a little more than the actual amounts — 2 grams each — in the letters sent to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. But the report also suggested that a terrorist might produce a spore concentration of 50 billion spores per gram. This was only one-twentieth the actual concentration — 1 trillion spores per gram — in the letters sent to the Senators
Obviously, those hairs didn’t fit their case. Throw em out.
There is some factual evidence and some circumstantial. Is it a case? If this is all they had, it would be weak if the defendant had a competent and dedicated attorney. But this is the type of evidence that gets passed for justice everyday in America. Because we were taught to trust the government. After all, why would they lie?
I am sure the wingnuts are ranting and raving that the case be closed because truth is known, justice served.
Yeah, because they all seem like likely suspects.
More re the warrants for email accounts (082, 083, 084): all 3 were ordered on Feb 14 2008, to be executed no later than Feb 22 2008. The MSN warrant was executed on Feb 26 2008, and I don’t see any doc extending the original order. The AOL warrant (for an account spelled out correctly with @ and .) was executed on Feb 18 2008 and the Return states that one CD of account info was produced. There is no Return doc listed for the Yahoo warrant (which was for 2 accounts specified with [at] and [dot]).
Ivins worked late Sep. 14 15, 16 and Sep. 28 – Oct. 5th? Let’s pour over his record for the last several years. Is this unusual, a pattern, STOP?
Anthrax samples. Agree, as a careful researcher with thirty-five years’ experience, that’s not in Dr. Ivins’ favor, though it does take place more than four months after the attacks.
Crazy e-mails. Well, since the White House can’t seem even to archive its own, I’m not impressed with this government’s handling of questions regarding e-mails. But let’s see the full digital history and distribution lists, not just printouts (if that’s what’s been released).
Anthrax vaccine stress in 2000. One would assume this is STOP for a long-time anthrax researcher at a secret, possibly illegal government research facility on bio-weapons. It seems neither here nor there.
The sorority “connection” is highly emotive and prejudicial. (Eg, the dirty old man shtick.) If it existed, it may go to state of mind. But is it connected to the anthrax attacks?
The Greendale School link seems weak.
The comment regarding the ACLU seems laughable as motivation. Those were and are commonplace, from the boardroom to the White House. David Addington might regard them insufficiently right wing and his security clearance and sanity are considered in jeopardy. Nor would it be logical for someone who thought highly of the EFF, EPIC or the ACLU to devote their career to bio-weapons.
Greenwald on the supposed sorority link:
The evidence that Ivins knew of a school named Greendale is an explanation for how the name would suggest itself to someone looking to come up with the name for a not-actually-existing school (so as not to give away knowledge of the area). It’s not so easy to come up with something like that for which there is no previous connection.
But, conversely, that’s the very reason that finding a connection is not a terrifically strong indication of guilt. Don Foster came up with a ‘Greendale’ connection for Hatfill, too: there was a Greendale School near him when he lived and worked in Harare, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia).
Of course, one of the many reasons why this whole trial-by-selective-release in the press is unacceptable, and why a commission or Congressional investigation is needed, is that it doesn’t touch the question of whether, even if Ivins were at all involved, he was working alone. Was Hatfill completely uninvolved? The settlement was to clear the way to close in on Ivins, not the same as a trial in which he was exonerated.
Quick! Get the anthrax-sniffing dogs!! I think the FBI needs some help.
This is all very frustrating. Almost enough to utter the Cee word, and think dark German thoughts.
Ever notice how seamlessly the initial conspiratorial story (anthrax given by Sadam to Al Q’s Mohammad Atta) morphs into a lone nut story once it is revealed that the “attack” was home grown? Nass, as early as 2002, explained quite clearly why it is most likely that more than one and probably many “Lone Gunmen” were involved. So far as I have seen, everyone refers to the “attacker” — singular. Is it so unthinkable that the crime involved a group — given what we already know about Cheney-BushCo?
I’d really like to hear the true story of what was behind the segue from Arab conspiracy to lone nut American attacker. The FBI was involved in that story, but maybe not in the way we’ve heard it in the media, and have most of us come to think of it.
Whether being used, fully complicit, or a little of both — the whole FBI investigation looks more and more like an obfuscation of what happened. Forget Ft D, USAMRIID (or at least the “front end” of USRAMRIID). Those guys are too much in the public eye to be involved in a conspiracy. What about the 100 gm (it could be kilos) of anthrax spores kept by the CIA.
Don’t get me wrong. Shining a very strong light on the FBI is essential and this ongoing discussion invaluable. But finding the truth about the attack lies elsewhere.
Or so it seems to me.
yeah, we need to know more about that. likely had something to do with the fact that scientists involved would not back up a foreign source for the goods.
Obituary for Dr. Ivins. From the FrederickNewspost. I hope for the sake of his family, the funeral won’t be a mobhouse.
1. Regarding guns, there was a newspaper interview with the owner of a gunshop about a block away from Ivins’ house, where Ivins bought a gun in 2005. Did he get rid of since, for him to have to procure one again?
e.g
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08…..122802.htm
“Jack Moberly, manager of The Gun Center, told The Post Ivins acted “nervous” and “rocked back and forth on his legs” as he purchased a .40-caliber Glock 27 pistol in 2005. He claimed he wanted the firearm for target shooting.
(I seem to recall having seen a more detailed story; Ivins exchanged his first purchase for the Glock or something like that, but can’t find it).
2. A newspaper article mentioned that Ivins bought his house so that he could walk to work. Therefore being at work late because the situation at home was not good is not difficult to understand – compared to if he had a half-hour commute.
e.g., something like (but not quite)
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/…..ne=nyt-per
Dr. Ivins and his wife, Diane Ivins, raised two children in a modest Cape Cod home in a post-World War II neighborhood right outside Fort Detrick, and he could walk to work.
Others present at the group session are free to confirm or contradict Duley’s version, are they not? Seems she’s already made the issue of confidentiality moot. But IANAL…
If I was in group therapy for psych or drug abuse treatment, I would want my privacy. If I came forward, everyone would know I was treatment and the usual bias might follow. That didn’t seem to concern Duley though.
not a legal question but one of professional confidentiality, as well as the rules of group members in group therapy. they all agree and essentially promise to never share anything about anything that goes on inside the group. period. and you can see how easily this agreement works, in that everyone in the group is revealing pretty personal stuff. if you’re the one exposing anything, then anyone else can reveal stuff about you.
however, i agree that at the very least – and i’ve called here for this – someone in the group could at least come forward and assert that duley’s account is not accurate, or is exaggerate, if that’s the case.
How coincidental that Rumsfeld & Cheney profit from their own fearmongering more than anyone else:
Since early 2001 when Rumsfeld left the board of Gilead Sciences to become Defense Secretary, Gilead’s stock price has gone from around $7 per share to just a hair above $50 a share today. The future price direction? The stratosphere, especially since the President made it an explicit goal of the US ‘flu defense pre-emptive war’ on November 1. Gilead, which signed over the world marketing rights to Hoffmann-LaRoche, gets 10% of every dose of Tamiflu sold. Gilead is presently in a legal battle to retake 100% marketing control as well.
From $7 to $50 translates into a neat 720% profit for Mr. Rumsfeld’s Gilead stock holdings since he went to Washington four-and-a-half years ago. Since the start of the carefully orchestrated current Bird Flu hysteria this March, Rummy’s Gilead stocks have gained a neat 56% alone.
That might explain why, instead of dumping his shares as one might expect from an honest government official wanting to avoid a conflict of interest, he instead opted to buy another $18 million worth. Curiously, the Secretary waited until October 26, 2005 before issuing an official Department of Defense press statement that he had ‘recused’ himself from involvement in any future Pentagon decisions involving Gilead Sciences. By then, of course, the horse had long burst out of the barn door and the price of Gilead was racing at full gallop as the Pentagon and the Administration had already decided to stockpile millions of doses of Tamiflu.
In March the reliable Washington friend, Britain’s Tony Blair, ordered the UK Government to buy enough Tamiflu drugs to supply 25% of the 56 million British citizens. Mr Blair seems always ready to help his friends in Washington whether backing Washington’s war against WMD in Iraq or Tamiflu. In Washington it’s called the ‘Anglo-American Special Relationship.’
The Secretary of Defense, the man who allegedly supported the use of contrived intelligence to justify the war on Iraq, who oversaw billions of dollars in Pentagon no-bid contracts to Bechtel and Halliburton corporations, is now poised to reap huge gains for a flu panic his Administration has done everything it can to promote.
It would be useful to know whether the Pentagon’s successor to Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans developed the strategy of bio-warfare that is evidently behind the current Avian Flu panic. An enterprising Congressional committee in ordinary times would already be looking into the entire subject of plausible conflicts of interest regarding Secretary Rumsfeld, except for the fact the Congress is controlled by Mr Rumsfeld’s own party.
Gilead Sciences is no small-time biotech startup, either. Helped by the propaganda from its friends in Washington and other high places, today Gilead has a total market capitalization of $ 22 billion. Its board today includes Bechtel Corporation director and former Secretary of State, George P. Shultz. According to Fortune, Shultz turned a neat $7 million profit earlier this year in insider selling of some of his Gilead stock.
Bechtel is right up there with Halliburton in grabbing the lion’s share of Pentagon sweetheart contracts to rebuild Iraq. Most certainly it did not hurt Bechtel’s business that Shultz and Rumsfeld knew each other from their common days on the board of Gilead. The Gilead Sciences board also includes Gordon Moore of Intel, and Viscount Etienne Davignon, the Belgian Count who seems to be involved in everything big and Atlanticist, whether it be Bilderberg meetings or Trilateral Commissions, and now, profiting from the Bird Flu panic.
The Gilead model also suggests a parallel to the Halliburton Corporation, whose former CEO is Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney’s company has so far gotten billions worth of US construction contracts in Iraq and elsewhere. Is it just a coincidence that Cheney’s closest political friend is Defense Secretary and Avian Flu beneficiary, Donald Rumsfeld?
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolit…..miflu.html
follow the money…
According to BradBlog, they might regard some of Ivins other letters as downright “librul.” like:
Very interesting.
Not consistent with support for the AFA. Was the subscription to the AFA magazine support, or just keeping an eye on the wingnuts? Maybe Dr. and Mrs. Ivins had very different political views.
There were multiple guns seized in the first house search, and lots of ammunition of various calibers seized the second time but no guns that I can see.
Link?
The Motion to Unseal lists each doc number sequence with the search it relates to — wile the smart people are poring over the affidavits and supporting docs to get the “Why”, I went straight to the “Return” docs to see the “What” ;>
really? what is this source?
http://74.125.45.104/search?q=…..llnews.com
Where was Dr. Zack employed after he was ordered out of one of the top United States CBW government labs?
“Anyway, this same Dr. Zack worked for Gilead Sciences in 2000. This is the same Gilead Sciences that invented Tamiflu, which has become popular and profitable after the bird flu scare. This is the same Gilead Sciences that makes popular medicines treating AIDS (that many people believe was developed in American military laboratories). And who owns Gilead Sciences? A major stockholder is none other than NeoCon Donald Rumsfeld, who at one time was its CEO. Also, Tony Blair of England, who joined Bush in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And Tom Brokaw who had received one of the anthrax letters. And another major shareholder is none other than NeoCon Cindy McCain, possibly the next first lady of the US.”
Are you starting to get the picture?
Is it sinking in yet that the extent that you, America, and the world were lied to by these sub-human greed obsessed morons in Washington, DC?
The FBI has been playing “Where’s Waldo?” for over 6 years…and now their only suspect is dead?? They have yet to truly focus on who might be the real evildoer.
To make the anthrax vaccine, both BioPort and DynPort Vaccine would HAVE to use the Ft. Detrick weaponized anthrax as the baseline for the vaccine.
I have looked and there is no record of where Dr. Philip Zack was employed during the Fall of 2001 when these attacks occurred. I’ll bet if a real investigation were conducted, ties between Dr. Philip Zack, Retired Adm. Crowe, BioPort, DynPort Vaccine, etc, would not be that hard to find. It is established that Zack worked for Gilead Sciences and that ties him to Donald Rumsfeld.
Why do they lie so much? So these people could pull off a $5+ trillion genocide/oil theft war scam and try to steal about (current dollars) $20 to $25 trillion in Caspian Basin oil and natural gas.
They have killed over 1 million in Iraq and Afghanistan, so what are a few anthrax attack deaths on top of that? There is no telling how many they killed inTurkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan to remove obstacles (often entire families) in their way to try to gain control of that $20 to $25 trillion in oil and natural gas.
Have you yet had enough of being lied to by these despicable bastards and bitches in DC who pretend they are representing you and leading America?
They are robbing America. WAKE UP.
These people are not defending America by ANY measure. They are slaughtering millions and destroying entire nations to line their pockets. WAKE UP.
yes indeed–not a squeak about Zack, while Assad, Ivins and Hatfill are harrassed–to death in one case.
First, we don’t know why he was in the lab late those nights, we only have FBI spin.
Then, the issue over the samples may be explained by the fact Ivins was turning them over to people less skilled than he was.
Next, the language about Jews and America were in every al Qaida communique. He was paraphrasing those, not inventing those statements.
Again, the donations to the AFA could have been his wife’s issue. She was active in that area and she might have signed those checks in their names. The email cited as proof by the FBI actually describes a nuanced position written to explain a pro-choice stance.
Last, he doesn’t express dislike of ACLU but concern over security, which is what you’d expect from someone as thoughtful as he seems to have been.
I myself am still waiting to hear who he tried to poison and murder and what women he hated and who he sought revenge on. Where did all of that go?
The breifers did say he mailed packages. That is certainly rock solid proof.
On October 17, 2001, almost two weeks after Robert Stevens died of pulmonary anthrax at a hospital in West Palm Beach, Florida, the Bush administration unveiled its plans to build up, in a big way, the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile—the drugs, vaccines, chemical antidotes, antitoxins, and other medical supplies that are kept at the ready to respond to large-scale bioterrorist attacks. The White House asked Congress for more than $1.1 billion in emergency funds to expand the two-year-old program, and some lawmakers were soon talking of increasing that amount to as much as $10 billion. Little wonder that many of the nation’s pharmaceutical companies, aided by their Washington lobbyists, have been angling for seats aboard what one industry critic calls “another gravy train to cash in on some big government contracts.”
But the pedal-to-the-metal push to stockpile vaccines has left some lawmakers and public-health advocates questioning whether Washington may be throwing good money after bad. Exhibit A in the debate has been BioPort Corporation, the nation’s sole manufacturer of anthrax vaccine. Since 1998 the Defense Department has pumped more than $130 million into BioPort, a small, privately held company in Lansing, Michigan, in hopes of stockpiling enough vaccine to protect all 2.4 million U.S. soldiers and reservists against anthrax. The Pentagon has continued paying BioPort even though the company repeatedly failed Food and Drug Administration inspections and, as a result, was prohibited from shipping any vaccine.
One reason for the Pentagon’s reluctance to cut BioPort loose may be the company’s most prominent shareholder, retired Admiral William J. Crowe, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Crowe received a 12.5 percent stake in the company, according to his spokesman, for lending his name and expertise. BioPort’s CEO, Fuad El-Hibri, is a German-born businessman who has founded and operated a dizzying array of companies, including a Panama-based franchise operation called BurgerLand International. Last year El-Hibri and his wife each made $1,000 contributions to George Bush’s presidential campaign, a gesture that was matched on the same day by three other BioPort executives.
http://www.motherjones.com/new…..fense.html
follow the money…
http://winterpatriot.blogspot……iting.html
On September 11, 2001, Jerome Hauer advised the White House to begin taking Cipro, an antibiotic which is effective against anthrax.
Mr. Hauer’s advice was not made public. Its value may have been underestimated at the time, but it was clearly demonstrated a week later, when the first anthrax letters appeared, and again three weeks after that, when anthrax appeared in letters to Democratic Senators Daschle and Leahy.
The obvious question is: Did Jerome Hauer know about the anthrax attacks in advance?
On September 11, 2001, Jerome Hauer was a national security advisor with the National Institute of Health, a managing director with Kroll Associates, and a guest on national television. His background in counter-terror and his specialized knowledge of biological warfare served him well on that day. Perhaps a little too well.
Jerome Hauer’s connections with terror and counter-terror started with and concentrated on biological warfare, but they don’t stop there.
On September 11, 2001, in addition to his job with the NIH, Jerome Hauer was also Managing Director of Kroll Associates, a well-established security firm serving clients in the military and the US government. In the 1980s, Kroll was known as the “CIA of Wall Street” because of the sorts of the people it hired, and the sorts of tasks they were assigned.
Strangely, perhaps, on 9/11, Kroll was in charge of security for the entire World Trade Center complex.
The head of security at the WTC on September 11, 2001, was former FBI counter-terror specialist John P. O’Neill.
O’Neill, considered the world’s leading expert on Osama bin Laden, had resigned his post as Deputy Director of the FBI during the summer, very unhappy with the Bush administration’s head-in-sand “approach” to terror, after investigations into Osama bin Laden and al-Q’aeda had been blocked.
this isn’t occuring in a vacumn
anything the FBI has to say MUST be compared against the Hatfill prosecution
so far as I can see, the FBI has no more of a case against Ivins than they had against Hatfill
and how much did we end up paying Hatfill for our brilliant investigators ???
there ain’t no “EVIDENCE” here
what we got is a bunch of unvetted bullshit being leaked to the msm
how much did we pay Hatfill ???
maybe the FBI picked a dead guy so they could save a few bucks this time
and that is the sum total of what we can figure out
The FBI is LYING AGAIN
Whether it’s odd depends on the surrounding variables. The report says the the therapist made the right call for the right resonns, but neglects to tell us whether she called immediately or not. The therapy session could be an evening affair, and Ms Duley sat on this overnight. She may have called the next day after weighing things, or after consulting a supervisor, who directed her to call. We don’t know enough.
I was thinking that it would be possible to get testimony from more than one of the group members in such a way as to have some certification and accountability while protecting their identity from the press and public. Names attached to the testimony before a judge, say.
Duley apparently felt free to violate Ivins’ right to confidentiality, so there’s got to be some way of checking on the accuracy of her account without forcing other group members to go public.
testimony from group members is indeed possible, replete with confidentiality in tact, with subpoenas.
confidentiality rights go out the window when a patient or client makes threats of harm to self and others; part of the hippa stuff. her decision for a restraining order required the courts, where all things are public.
like every other right we’re accorded, there are limits.
It does sound like a case where FBI is intent on pinning the whole thing on one suspect. Universe of individuals with access to the flask being narrowed down over the years, assumes a crime where there were no actors involved without access to the flask. (but plenty of access to wrinting utinsils, cars, trains, post offices, mail boxes and so on)
By this logic Osama would get off free because he had no access to the box cutters used.
I have only started looking over the docs but I find the spikes in his after hours work at the time of the attacks very compelling and tough to explain. I also find the emails compelling in that they strongly suggest he was experiencing psychotic breaks and had been at different times in his adult life. This goes a long way in explaining the two Bruce Ivins. Mild mannered brilliant scientist 90% of the time and paranoid schizophrenic when the “other” Bruce showed up. And paranoids do not typically collude with the government for those of you who insist he did not act alone. I find that suggestion ludicrous. And I always considered the possibility of him switching samples deliberately to throw them off seeing as he was in a prime position to do so. The gov used the attacks to help with their plot for war which has killed thousands upon thousands and that is bad enough. The poems read like they were in a screenplay about a paranoid. Classic twisted genius. Sick, sick man. Funny poems and yet very sad. Because he was really insane and most of him was a good guy. The FBI still smells. They could have gone about their investigation in a far more professional and rational way and that might have saved a lot of time, money and trouble to say the very least. You know our government is corrupt and lame when the man who looks to be the anthrax killer still comes out looking sympathetic in comparison. Some of you will go on thinking the government sent the letters, I know. Have fun with that.
Hey, thanks for wrapping everything up so conclusively. By the way, are you still shilling that “Duley was credible and professional” meme, or did you finally give up on that?
Please name a federal government worker not working overtime in the week after 9/11. Dr. Ivins work involved researching defenses to bio-attacks. I would be surprised only if he hadn’t worked overtime.
We’ll have to disagree about whether the FBI’s case is compelling. Taylor’s characterizing it as sufficient for a conviction is a prosecutor’s whet dream, not an objective description of its strengths, even uncontested by a zealous defense team.
One thing that occurred to me was that George W. Bush is out of town and this might have been considered the ideal time to get this information out.
Maybe getting this out and exposing how pathetic the prosecutions would have been was important to disclose that the administration was desperate to pin it on somebody…anybody except the guilty.
Maybe it’s just the Bush way of tying off a loose thread.
But then, often their idea of a loose thread is someone who knows something or someone who deserves payback. Obviously in this case there were 3 guys they tried to pin it on, so it’s clearly not one in particular who deserves payback. So, they’re trying to tie off a thread which is embarrassing to Bush in some other way. Maybe this is just his “mission accomplished” schtick.
But, then again, maybe they need to end all investigation to avoid the discovery of some connection to Libby or Rumsfeld or some other neocon. Cui bono seems to point their direction certainly as much as towards Ivins.
If he was taking ambien, known to cause sleepwalking, he could have been brought to believe that he had done it when “out of his mind” though he had no recollection of doing it.
(I myself am an agnostic in this matter.)
Wow, rincewind is a firepup. Deeply honored, sir!
Yes, the evidence is not very good, so far.