Of course, Mr. Lambert was the leading FBI agent pointing the finger at Dr. Steven Hatfill during the time he was in charge of the Amerithrax investigation (from April 2003 to August 2006). In August 2006, he left Amerithrax to take the position of Agent in Charge of the Knoxville, TN, office of the FBI. Mr. Lambert's replacement on Amerithrax, Edward Montooth, examined the evidence found so far and concluded that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the person most likely to have sent the anthrax letters. So, the focus of the Amerithrax investigation shifted from Dr. Hatfill to Dr. Ivins.
Based upon what I read in his lawsuit, however, leaving Amerithrax was a bitter pill for Mr. Lambert to swallow. He repeatedly complains that he wasn't given the support he needed to find evidence against the person he believes sent the anthrax letters, and he evidently believes that the "truth" about who sent the anthrax letters is being hidden from the American people.
This of course, qualifies Mr. Lambert to join the ranks of "Anthrax Truthers."
Like all Anthrax Truthers, Mr. Lambert provides no facts or evidence to prove his case. He basically argues that he wasn't allowed to find the "truth." And, like all Anthrax Truthers, he wants the FBI and DOJ to prove the negative, i.e., to prove that there is NO "exculpatory evidence" showing Dr. Ivins to be innocent, and that further investigation will NOT find that someone else sent the letters.
Here are some key parts of the lawsuit that relate to Amerithrax:
52. In October 2002, in the wake of surging media criticism, White House impatience with a seeming lack of investigative progress by WFO, and a concerned Congress that was considering revoking the FBI’s charter to investigate terrorism cases, Defendant FBI Director Mueller reassigned Plaintiff from the FBI’s San Diego Field Office to the Inspection Division at FBI Headquarters and placed Plaintiff in charge of the AMERITHRAX case as an “Inspector.” While leading the investigation for the next four years, Plaintiff’s efforts to advance the case met with intransigence from WFO’s executive management, apathy and error from the FBI Laboratory, politically motivated communication embargos from FBI Headquarters, and yet another preceding and equally erroneous legal opinion from Defendant Kelley – all of which greatly obstructed and impeded the investigation.and
53. On July 6, 2006, Plaintiff provided a whistleblower report of mismanagement to the FBI’s Deputy Director pursuant to Title 5, United States Code, Section 2303. Reports of mismanagement conveyed in writing and orally included: .......
(j) the FBI’s fingering of Bruce Ivins as the anthrax mailer; and, (k) the FBI’s subsequent efforts to railroad the prosecution of Ivins in the face of daunting exculpatory evidence. Following the announcement of its circumstantial case against Ivins, Defendants DOJ and FBI crafted an elaborate perception management campaign to bolster their assertion of Ivins’ guilt. These efforts included press conferences and highly selective evidentiary presentations which were replete with material omissions.and
55. After leaving the AMERITHRAX investigation in 2006, Plaintiff continued to publicly opine that the quantum of circumstantial evidence against Bruce Ivins was not adequate to satisfy the proof-beyond-a-reasonable doubt threshold required to secure a criminal conviction in federal court. Plaintiff continued to advocate that while Bruce Ivins may have been the anthrax mailer, there is a wealth of exculpatory evidence to the contrary which the FBI continues to conceal from Congress and the American people. The FBI vehemently opposes Plaintiff’s position.Note that in the above paragraph (#55), Mr. Lambert says that he (the "plaintiff") advocated "that while Bruce Ivins MAY have been the anthrax mailer," there is supposedly "a wealth of exculpatory evidence to the contrary," which would show that Dr. Ivins was NOT the anthrax killer. So, Mr. Lambert is avoiding saying that Dr. Ivins was innocent. He just claims that there is evidence which he believes should prove it.
You can also click on the images at the top of this thread to see larger versions of key pages, or you can click HERE to view the entire lawsuit claim.
Ed
This morning, I found three attempted posts from R. Rowley awaiting moderation. They were to the previous thread, but they fit better here.
ReplyDeleteThe first post quotes me then gives Mr. Rowley's response. Here it is in its entirety:
----------------------------
Plaintiff [Lambert] continued to advocate that while Bruce Ivins may have been the anthrax mailer, there is a wealth of exculpatory evidence to the contrary which the FBI continues to conceal from Congress and the American people.
=======================
Frickin' truther!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Yes, Mr. Lambert is indeed an "Anthrax Truther" by any measure.
The second post quotes from the lawsuit and then gives Mr. Rowley's response. Here it is in its entirety:
---------------------------------
Following the announcement of its circumstantial case against Ivins, Defendants DOJ and FBI crafted an elaborate perception management campaign to bolster their assertion of Ivins’ guilt. These efforts included press conferences and highly selective evidentiary presentations which were replete with material omissions.
============
Gosh that makes the press conferences and Amerithrax Investigative Summary
sound like PR efforts!
---------------------------------
Yes, Mr. Lambert and Mr. Rowley do indeed think alike.
Here is the third attempted post from Mr. Rowley in its entirety:
---------------------------------------
Now that it's had a chance to sink in for a few hours, it seems to me that this development gives Diane Ivins, Bruce Ivins' widow, an opening for a wrongful-death lawsuit: her attorneys could call Richard Lambert as a witness, a witness as inside the Task Force as you could get. That witness would say that evidence in Ivins' favor was given short shrift and was withheld from the public. And that via tactics of social isolation, psychological manipulation etc. the Task Force had provoked Ivins' suicide.
Given what a can of worms THAT would be, I think the DoJ would prefer to settle such a lawsuit out of court, even if they had expectations of 'victory'. A recapitulation of the Maureen Stevens lawsuit in broad terms. A PR disaster for the DoJ.
But perhaps Diane Ivins doesn't have the stomach for it.
-------------------------------------
Mr. Rowley's post is pure nonsense, of course. (1) The FBI/DOJ was in no way responsible for Ivins' death. He committed suicide. (2) Mr. Rowley has an ABSURD misunderstanding of the case. When Dr. Ivins committed suicide, he was not even known to the public as being a suspect. Dr. Hatfill was still the main "suspect" in the minds of the public. NOTHING was publicly known about Dr. Ivins.
When David Willman broke the news that the FBI's main suspect in the Amerithrax investigation had committed suicide, that was the first the American public ever heard about Dr. Ivins. His name seemed to come "out of the blue."
The FACTS AND EVIDENCE say that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the anthrax killer. Mr. Lambert's lawsuit doesn't change that one bit. It just adds Mr. Lambert to the roles of Anthrax Truthers who believe they know "the truth," and they want "the government" to help prove they are right by finding evidence that they BELIEVE exists somewhere.
Ed
R. Rowley attempted a response to the above post. Here it is in its entirety:
Delete--------------------------------------------
[Quoting me] Mr. Rowley's post is pure nonsense, of course. (1) The FBI/DOJ was in no way responsible for Ivins' death. He committed suicide
======================
You've never heard of such a thing as a 'forced suicide'? Some of us have been long familiar with it. Had Richard Jewell committed suicide during the months that the FBI took him for the Atlanta Olympics bomber, THAT would have been another example.
---------------------
Mr. Rowley is ONCE AGAIN arguing his SCREWBALL BELIEFS against the facts and evidence.
He doesn't not cite any examples of "forced suicide." Perhaps he is thinking about Ariel Castro who kidnapped and held three women prisoner in his home for years. Castro committed suicide in his cell rather than be tried for his crimes.
Looking up "forced suicide" HERE I found this definition:
-------------
Forced suicide is a method of execution where the victim is coerced into committing suicide to avoid facing an alternative option they perceive as much worse, such as suffering torture or having friends or family members imprisoned, tortured, or killed.
----------
The idea that Ivins was FORCED to commit suicide is just plain RIDICULOUS.
And so is using Richard Jewell as an example. JEWELL WAS INNOCENT AND DID NOT - REPEAT NOT - COMMIT SUICIDE.
Mr. Rowley has reached a new low in his arguments that his BELIEFS override all the facts and evidence.
Ed
R. Rowley just attempted another post to this blog. Here it is in its entirety:
ReplyDelete-------------------------
Yes, Mr. Lambert is indeed an "Anthrax Truther" by any measure.
================
Uh, I meant that ironically. Perhaps we'd better have a pow-wow on that.
I THOUGHT your definition was more or less: a Truther who is anyone who
thinks a government investigation/investigative body is wrong, based on that Truther being 'in the know' via some other theory/hypothesis etc. Either of a general sort (al Qaeda) or more personal sort (specific member(s) of al Qaeda like DXer has). That I can see from his court filing, Lambert has no such hypothesis. He merely says that
"while Bruce Ivins may have been the anthrax mailer, there is a wealth of exculpatory evidence to the contrary which the FBI continues to conceal from Congress and the American people."
-----
I see no personal hypothesis that Lambert is putting forth. I see him as dissatisfied with the case against Ivins. Period.
Are you going to claim that LAMBERT, the second of three (3) Task Force heads "doesn't understand how evidence/circumstantial evidence works"?
How would that even be possible??????
---------------------------
Mr. Lambert's theory was that a DIFFERENT "suspect" was the anthrax killer. Although he doesn't mention that suspect by name, that person could still be the focus of his theory. By most accounts, he was moved off the Amerithrax investigation because he refused to accept evidence pointing to anyone but HIS suspect. His March 31, 2005 interview of Ivins was against everyone's advice and seemed geared toward finding evidence against HIS suspect, while doing great harm to the case against Ivins.
I don't know if there is any "official" definition of "Truther," but for me it has always been someone who believes they KNOW "the truth," someone who is out to get others to see "the truth," even though they do not have facts or evidence, and someone who wants others to find "the truth" for them.
It appears that Mr. Lambert is VERY BITTER over the FBI not allowing him to continue to pursue HIS theory of who did it. He seems to believe he knows "the truth." That makes him a "Truther."
Ed
Mr. Rowley,
DeleteHere is Richard Lambert's index entry from my 2012 book:
---------------
Lambert, Richard L., 225, 238, 241, 247, 249-254, 256-257, 259, 264-266, 280, 291-293
-------------------
David Willman's book also has an index.
You should do some research, instead of just arguing your BELIEFS.
Ed
R. Rowley just attempted another post to this blog. Here it is in its entirety:
Delete---------------------------
Mr. Lambert's theory was that a DIFFERENT "suspect" was the anthrax killer.
----------------------
Then you should be able to STATE who, in a general way, that "suspect" is. ESPECIALLY if you have written about him in your book.
Lambert's position can be encapsulated in two sentences (truncations of what's out there):
1) Ivins MAY have done it (ie no alternative suspect necessary at all)
2) but there is lots of hidden exculpatory evidence held by the DoJ
(which IMPLIES that someone else may have done it, but makes no statement, direct or indirect, on who did).
I see no hypothesis/theory on Lambert's part. At least not in plain view.
His position seems like that of Pat Leahy and countless others.
Maybe Ivins did it. Maybe not.
===========================
Note: citing books PAGES without reference to what is relevant on those pages to the present discussion gets us nowhere.
------------------------
Sorry, I thought it was clear from the text at the top of this thread and other things I wrote, that Lambert's "suspect" was Steven Hatfill. Because you argue about wanting to show evidence against Hatfill here, I thought it best to omit his name from my response to you. But here's the paragraph with Hatfill's name added:
--------------
Mr. Lambert's theory was that Steven Hatfill was the anthrax killer. Although he doesn't mention Hatfill by name in his lawsuit, Hatfill could still be the focus of his theory. By most accounts, he was moved off the Amerithrax investigation because he refused to accept evidence pointing to anyone but Hatfill. His March 31, 2005 interview of Ivins was against everyone's advice and seemed geared toward finding evidence against Hatfill, while doing great harm to the case against Ivins.
-----------------
Here's a quote from page 247 of my book:
-----------------
Although Richard Lambert seemingly remained convinced
that Hatfill was the best suspect in the case, investigators working under him were beginning to look seriously at Bruce Ivins. One of them was Special Agent Lawrence Alexander.
-------------------------
Here's a quote from page 249:
------------------
In mid-March, 2005, Lawrence Alexander decided to take a less confrontational approach with Richard Lambert. He met with Lambert one-on-one in his office and explained that unless they could clear Ivins, there could never be a legal case against Hatfill, since Hatfill's lawyers would learn of all the suspicious circumstances surrounding Ivins when it would come up in discovery. And they'd be presenting those suspicious activities to a jury to give them reasonable doubt of Hatfill's guilt. Ivins was clearly a viable suspect who had never been cleared by the FBI investigation.
The result of the meeting, however, was something that Alexander hadn't anticipated: Lambert decided he wanted to personally question Bruce Ivins as quickly as it could be arranged. That decision set off a furor as Alexander and others protested that such a meeting without full preparation could do more harm than good.
Lambert seemed to think that Ivins might be a good witness against Hatfill, if it could be shown that Ivins had given a sample from RMR-1029 to a USAMRIID scientist known by Hatfill.
Alexander argued that Lambert should wait for a week or two. If Ivins became spooked, he could throw away critical evidence. Such a confrontation should be coordinated with a hazmat team and others to perform a simultaneous search of Ivins home, and that would take at least a week to arrange.
But, Lambert wasn't willing to wait. A meeting between Lambert and Ivins was arranged for Thursday, March 31, 2005.
-----------------
My source on most of that was David Willman's book.
Ed
Another attempted post from Mr. Rowley in its entirety:
Delete-------------------------------
Sorry, I thought it was clear from the text at the top of this thread and other things I wrote, that Lambert's "suspect" was Steven Hatfill.
===========================
"Was" is a past tense verb.
We need a timeframe for that. Saying Lambert liked Hatfill in August of 2006 does not establish that he likes Hatfill today. Or even in 2008.
YOU YOURSELF in responding to me (when I noted that on December 7th 2001 you thought an adult printer had DRIVEN to Indianapolis, both points at variance of your late 2008 to the present positions) noted that people change 'hypotheses' when more info becomes available.
In 2006 Lambert, as head of the Task Force, certainly knew as much about the respective bodies of evidence against Hatfill AND Ivins as anyone on this earth, and thought Hatfill a more likely culprit. But that's almost certainly in part because he knew the full range of exculpatory indicators for Ivins...
----------------
If you read Mr. Lambert's lawsuit, you'll see that he was moved out of the San Diego Field Office and brought into the Amerithrax investigation in October 2002. At that time the pressure was so great upon the FBI to PUBLICLY investigate, arrest and convict Dr. Hatfill, that the FBI was in danger of being closed down and merged with Homeland Security. So, it appears that Mr. Lambert was brought in SPECIFICALLY to investigate Hatfill in every way possible.
If you read David Willman's book (or mine), you'll see that Mr. Lambert was FOCUSED on Hatfill during is entire tenure as the head of Amerithrax. You can see in his lawsuit that he bitches and moans that he wasn't given the support he needed in order to prove who (i.e., Hatfill) did it.
When it was becoming clear to other agents on the Task Force that Ivins was becoming a top suspect, Lambert resisted. He even did things that almost SABOTAGED the growing case against Ivins in order to find things that would show Hatfill to be the killer.
Moral on the Task Force became so bad that they brought in a Review Inspection Team to find out what was wrong. What was wrong was that Lambert wanted evidence to prove Hatfill was the killer, and the Amerithrax team was only finding evidence pointing to Ivins.
From page 259 of my book:
--------------------
Lower level FBI agents, particularly those working out of an office in Frederick, were clearly starting to focus on Bruce Ivins, even though Richard Lambert back at the Washington Field Office still felt Hatfill was a better suspect. Even Lambert would have had to see that there was a lot more and better evidence pointing to Ivins. And, they'd run out of ideas on where to find additional evidence that might point to Hatfill, whereas they were still uncovering very interesting details about Bruce Ivins every day.
--------------------------
Finally, someone somehow persuaded Lambert to transfer to Knoxville so that someone new could take over the case. Edward Montooth took over, examined the evidence and changed the focus of the investigation to Bruce Ivins.
From page 266 of my book:
----------------
The media saw a change in command as further evidence that the investigation had gone nowhere and wasn't likely to get anywhere in the future, since a new leader would have to spend a lot of time just getting familiar with what had gone on before.
-----------------
In reality, the change allowed the Amerithrax team to FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE instead of following Lambert's BELIEFS.
The idea that Mr. Lambert later somehow inexplicably decided that some mythical Joe Blow was a better suspect ISN'T EVEN LOGICAL. It's just another silly Truther fantasy that cannot be disproved.
Ed
No only the finger ...... and In 2008, the government settled Hatfill's lawsuit for $4.6 million
ReplyDeleteThis is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation — and nearly destroyed an innocent man.
Hatfill became "the subject of a flood of news media coverage beginning in mid-2002, after television cameras showed Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in biohazard suits searching his apartment" and then Attorney General John Ashcroft named him "person of interest" in the investigation on national television. Hatfill's home was repeatedly raided by the FBI, his phone was tapped, and he was extensively surveilled for more than two years; he was also fired from his job at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). "At a news conference in August 2002, Hatfill tearfully denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters and said irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks had destroyed his reputation." Hatfill filed a lawsuit in 2003, accusing the FBI agents and Justice Department officials who led the criminal investigation of leaking information about him to the press in violation of the federal Privacy Act
-- by ERIC LICHTBLAU "Scientist Officially Exonerated in Anthrax Attacks"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/washington/09anthrax.html?_r=0
Hatfill's story "provides a cautionary tale about how federal authorities, fueled by the general panic over terrorism, embraced conjecture and coincidence as evidence (The New York Times stated in their paper that Hatfill had obtained an anti-anthrax medicine (ciprofloxacin) immediately prior to the anthrax mailings), and blindly pursued one suspect while the real anthrax killer roamed free for more than six years. Hatfill's experience is also the wrenching saga of how an American citizen who saw himself as a patriot came to be vilified and presumed guilty, as his country turned against him."
-- by David Freed "The Wrong Man"
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-wrong-man/308019/
More than one person said that the doctor Hatfill should be guilty.
"Mr. Lambert was the leading FBI agent pointing the finger at Dr. Steven Hatfill during the time he was in charge of the Amerithrax investigation (from April 2003 to August 2006)" but before was Don Foster, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Special Agent Van Harp, Attorney General John Ashcroft on August 6, 2002.....pointing the finger at Dr. Steven Hatfill
Joseph from Spain,
DeleteYes, I know that Barbara Hatch Rosenberg was the first - or among the first - to point the finger at Hatfill. I think she and the other conspiracy theorists somehow convinced Lambert. That's the only explanation I see, since there was never any real evidence against Hatfill, and there was very good (but not conclusive) evidence that he was NOT involved. So, all they had was some very smart "experts" who BELIEVED that Hatfill was most likely the culprit.
"Anthrax Truthers" are always claiming to be right because other people believe the same thing as they believe.
Ed
Mr Lake
Delete__David Freed wrote that Donald Wayne Foster was the first. Hatfill says he believes Rosenberg was made aware of him by a former acquaintance, a defense contractor with whom Hatfill had clashed over a proposed counter-anthrax training program intended for the U.S. Marshals Service.
Foster, a professor of English at Vassar College and a self-styled literary detective, had since consulted with the FBI on investigations of the Unabomber and Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park bombing, among other cases. Later he was asked to analyze the anthrax letters for insights as to who may have mailed them. Foster would detail his efforts two years later in a 9,500-word article for Vanity Fair ("The message in the anthrax" n 180, october 2003)
__Surveying the publicly available evidence, as well as documents sent to him by the FBI, Foster surmised that the killer was an American posing as an Islamic jihadist. Only a limited number of American scientists would have had a working knowledge of anthrax. One of those scientists, Foster concluded, was a man named Steven Hatfill, a medical doctor who had once worked at the Army’s elite Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), which had stocks of anthrax.
Foster tried to match up Hatfill's travels with the postmarks on the anthrax letters, and analyzed old interviews and an unpublished novel by Hatfill about a bioterrorist attack on Washington: He discovered that Hatfill had been in Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) during an anthrax outbreak there in the late 1970s, and that he’d attended medical school near a Rhodesian suburb called Greendale—the name of the invented school in the return address of the anthrax letters mailed to the Senate. “When I lined up Hatfill’s known movements with the postmark locations of reported biothreats,” Foster later wrote, “those hoax anthrax attacks appeared to trail him like a vapor cloud.”
Meanwhile, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a passionate crusader against the use of bioweapons, was also convinced that an American scientist was to blame for the anthrax attacks. In an interview with the BBC in early 2002, she theorized that the murders were the result of a top-secret CIA project gone awry, and that the FBI was hesitant to arrest the killer because it would embarrass Washington.
Foster says he met Rosenberg over lunch in April 2002, “compared notes,” and “found that our evidence had led us in the same direction.” Weeks dragged on while he and Rosenberg tried to interest the FBI in their theories, but the bureau remained “stubbornly unwilling to listen.” Two months later, her “patience exhausted,” Rosenberg, according to Foster, met on Capitol Hill with Senate staff members “and laid out the evidence, such as it was, hers and mine.” Special Agent Van Harp, the senior FBI agent on what by then had been dubbed the “Amerithrax” investigation, was summoned to the meeting, along with other FBI officials. Exactly a week after the Rosenberg meeting, the FBI carried out its first search of Hatfill’s apartment, with television news cameras broadcasting it live. Harp would dismiss the timing of the search as coincidental.
__Hatfill subsequently sued Donald Foster, Condé Nast Publications, Vassar College, and The Reader's Digest Association, seeking $10 million in damages, claiming defamation. The case was settled by Condé Nast in 2007 for an undisclosed amount.
End. Foster ceased any public discussion of the case.
In this case of textual analysis the main problem stems from a naive use of measures and numbers as an always valid certificate of "objectivity" and "systematicity", though moving from the sharable principle to contain bad, offhand evidence-detached analyses spoiled by the «human tendency to read textual material selectively, in support of expectations rather than against them».
JSP
Joseph from Spain,
DeleteI'm not sure what to make of your post. I don't know if David Freed is right or wrong. All I know is what the facts and evidence say. Click HERE for the Hatfill Timeline.
It says that Rosenberg began pointing the finger at someone in November 2001.
On January 4, 2002, she got Nicolas Kristoff of the New York Times to join her cause. And they were talking about a specific individual.
Foster's name doesn't show up in the Timeline until January 23, 2002.
And according to your article, Foster and Rosenberg didn't meet until April 2002.
So, Foster and Rosenberg may BOTH have been looking at Dr. Hatfill. But, what I see says that Rosenberg was first and Foster joined her in April 2002.
David Freed's 2010 article (click HERE to read it) doesn't say that Foster was first. It's merely ABOUT Foster and Hatfill's lawsuit against him.
So, I don't know what it is you're trying to argue.
Ed
Hello Mr lake
DeleteYes, this is confusing.
This version gives more importance to the research conducted by people outside the FBI. Seems as if the FBI not known what to do in this situation.
Yes, BOTH have been looking at Dr. Hatfill and Freed´s article does not say that Foster was first.
JSP
For the record, The New York Times has published an article about Lambert's lawsuit. It's written by Scott Shane. Here are a couple quotes:
ReplyDelete--------------------------
Mr. Lambert, who was himself criticized for pursuing Dr. Hatfill for so long, has now offered, in his lawsuit and in an interview, an insider’s view of what hampered the investigation.
“This case was hailed at the time as the most important case in the history of the F.B.I.,” Mr. Lambert said. “But it was difficult for me to get experienced investigators assigned to it.”
He said that the effort was understaffed and plagued by turnover, and that 12 of 20 agents assigned to the case had no prior investigative experience. Senior bureau microbiologists were not made available, and two Ph.D. microbiologists who were put on the case were then removed for an 18-month Arabic language program in Israel.
----------------------------
Mr. Lambert says the bureau also gathered a large amount of evidence pointing away from Dr. Ivins’s guilt that was never shared with the public or the news media. Had the case come to trial, he said, “I absolutely do not think they could have proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” He declined to be specific, saying that most of the information was protected by the Privacy Act and was unlikely to become public unless Congress carried out its own inquiry.
-----------------------------
In other words, he will provide no facts or evidence to support his claims.
Ed
For what it's worth, Richard Lambert gave a presentation titled "Amerithrax Solved" to the East Tennessee's section of AACE International on September 22, 2008.
ReplyDeleteHere's a description of the event:
-----------------------------------
The East Tennessee Section’s September meeting was held at the Outback Restaurant in Knoxville, TN. Mr. Richard Lambert, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Knoxville Field Office, presented “Amerithrax Solved”. Mr. Lambert a Texas native has degrees in English and political science from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, and degrees in Law and Public Administration from the University of Houston. He has held a number of positions with the FBI since joining in 1988, and had oversight of the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax bio-terrorism attack in 2001. The anthrax attacks occurred over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two U.S. Senators. killing five people and infecting 17 others. Mr. Lambert shared an overview of the investigative process that included multiple parallel investigations, included over 300 persons of interest, and lasted seven years. Numerous agents were involved in the investigation and the FBI used a very scientific approach including anthrax DNA testing to narrow the suspects down to one person who unfortunately committed suicide before being indicted. Mr. Lambert shared with us that the case was not air tight, but assured us that the FBI did identify the responsible person. Since the case is now closed Mr. Lambert was able to share knowledge that was only recently released to the public. This was a very interesting presentation with a number of follow up questions.
----------------------
Ed
R. Rowley attempted a response to the above comment last night. Here it is in its entirety:
Delete--------------------
Doesn't sound AT ALL as though Lambert had a personal favorite 'alternative suspect/s', but rather that he was going along, in 2008, with the Task Force's claims.
That raises two (2) interesting questions:
1) did Lambert learn more about exculpatory evidence related to Ivins in subsequent years?
2) would Lambert have publicly announced the weaknesses in the Case, had he not filed his lawsuit?
------------------------
It should be obvious that Mr. Lambert was telling the official story to the group at the Outback Restaurant. He was still with the FBI at the time, so telling the crowd that the FBI got the wrong guy would have been stupid. He was "going along with the Task Force's claims."
The point of the post was that Mr. Lambert uses different stories for different audiences. Plus, he wasn't as bitter and resentful then as he is now after having lost his job with the DOE.
In answer to Mr. Rowley's questions:
1. There's no reason to believe that Mr. Lambert learned anything new about Ivins after he left the FBI.
2. No, I don't think Mr. Lambert would have said anything publicly about Ivins if he wasn't so bitter and angry over being fired. Legal "wrangling and the lawsuit it generated became the vehicle for public exposure of long-festering criticisms Lambert had previously made as a G-man through established channels." (That quote is from HERE.
Ed
I just deleted a silly attempted post from R. Rowley where he argues that it is possible that, even though Richard Lambert was no longer part of the Amerithrax investigation, he could have had inside knowledge of what was going on and could have developed some theory that someone other than Hatfill OR Ivins was a good suspect. OR that true exculpatory evidence proving Ivins to be innocent was being covered up.
DeleteIt's just another example of Mr. Rowley arguing his BELIEFS without even a shred of evidence to support such BELIEFS.
And that is why I summarize his more absurd posts and no longer allow him to post here directly.
Ed
Regarding this part of Mr. Lambert's lawsuit from page 25:
ReplyDelete-------------------------
(g) the FBI Laboratory’s deliberate concealment from the Task Force of its discovery of human DNA on the anthrax-laden envelope addressed to Senator Leahy and the Lab’s initial refusal to perform comparison testing;
-------------------------
That incident is described in David Willman's book on pages 203 and 204:
-----------------------
Lambert's zeal to bridge the gap of evidence against Hatfill wound up pitting him against the scientists of the FBI laboratory in Quantico. One confrontation centered on an almost infinitesimal speck of dead skin found on the envelope addressed to Senator Leahy.
......
The lab resisted [testing the speck], warning Lambert that applying WGA to the speck was not apt to identify the perpetrator - but was far more likely to point toward someone completely unconnected to the crime, such as a mail handler or a person who helped manufacture the envelope.
...............
If the anthrax case ever went to trial, an irrelevant identification with WGA could boomerang: A defense attorney could use the evidence to point jurors away from the accused and toward a mythical villain, still at large.
....
The lab did what Lambert wanted.
In January 2004, preliminary results suggested that the DNA speck was left by a woman. ....... But for Lambert the finding did not rule out Hatfill's girlfriend, Peck Chegne -- and he demanded more of the whole genome [WGA] testing.
................
The skin was traced to a female technician who had accidentally contaminated the evidence soon after its arrival at the FBI lab......
--------------------------
So, that part of Lambert's lawsuit is just more bitching and complaining that the FBI people he had to work with weren't up to his standards.
Ed
Of course, someone totally ignorant of how investigations work might argue that the Leahy letter never went to Quantico, so they couldn't have tested the speck and Willman's research must be wrong.
DeleteIn reality, of course, the letter went to USAMRIID and USAMRIID did SWABBINGS The swabs were then sent to other labs for DNA testing - particularly WGA (Whole Genome Amplification), which USAMRIID had no capability of doing. Quantico was probably the lab that determined to which lab the swabs would be sent.
Ed
Hello Mr Lake
ReplyDeleteAnd the Justice Department lawyers ?
I found this:
"Justice Department Filing Casts Doubt on Guilt of Bruce Ivins, Accused in Anthrax Case" by Mike Wiser, PBS Frontline, Greg Gordon, McClatchy
Newspapers, and Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica, July 18, 2011,
http://www.propublica.org/article/justice-department-filing-casts-doubt-on-guilt-of-bruce-ivins-accused-in-an
Justice Department lawyers retracted statements that question the FBI's finding.
The court papers were filed by lawyers in the Justice Department’s Civil Division who are defending the government against a wrongful-death suit brought by the family of Robert Stevens, a photo editor at the Sun. Stevens was the first to die from a tainted letter, and his family has accused federal officials of lax procedures that allowed someone to make a germ weapon using anthrax from a government laboratory.
Finally, do you know what happened?
JSP
Joseph from Spain,
DeleteThe Justice Department fixed that minor erroneous comment that Propublica made such a fuss about.
The Stevens lawsuit was settled out of court on Nov. 29, 2011, and Mrs. Stevens was paid $2.5 million. Click HERE for a news report about the settlement.
Ed
Hello My Lake
DeleteThanks.
Attorney Richard Schuler said he and Stevens are satisfied with the settlement that was acknowledged by federal attorneys in court papers filed Monday.
BUT Schuler said he isn't convinced Ivins was solely responsible. If Ivins did turn the anthrax spores into powder while working at the biological weapons lab in Fort Detrick, Md., he would have needed far more than the 21 hours the FBI said he spent concocting the toxin on weekends before the attacks.
"He would have had to start a lot earlier than the FBI says and done it over a period of years," he said also.
So it seems that in court the FBI really would struggle to establishing his theory about Ivins.
JSP
Joseph from Spain,
DeleteAttorney Schuler is a lawyer, not a scientist. His opinion about how long it would take to make the anthrax powders is of no value. He's simply believing the opinions friends of Ivins who somehow think that Ivins would have had to use STANDARD PROCEDURES to make the powders.
Ivins didn't use standard procedures to make the spores from scratch. The evidence says Ivins used spores he took out of the trash. The evidence says Ivins didn't dry the spores using "standard procedures," he just let the spores dry by themselves in the heated air inside a biosafety cabinet.
In court, the DOJ prosecutor would have had unbiased experts testify to how easy it would have been for Ivins to make the spores. Once they did that, the defense has no way to claim it would have been difficult.
Ed
Someone calling himself "Anonymous" just attempted a post that asked only, "Ed, so what do you make of Mike Morell's new book?
ReplyDeleteI assume the post was from "DXer," since it makes no sense. However, I cannot be certain, so I'm not just ignoring it even though Mike Morell's new book has not yet been released. It is titled The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism--From al Qa'ida to ISIS
What can one "make" of a book that hasn't yet been released?
It looks like it could be an interesting book, but I am working on writing a novel, and I don't have time to read any books. If Morell's book is made available for Kindle at my local library, I'll probably download it and read it when and if I get a chance.
Ed