In Bizarre, Soviet-Style Move, White House Threatens to Veto Intelligence Budget Unless FBI's Anthrax Frame Up Is Accepted → Washingtons Blog
In Bizarre, Soviet-Style Move, White House Threatens to Veto Intelligence Budget Unless FBI's Anthrax Frame Up Is Accepted - Washingtons Blog

Monday, March 15, 2010

In Bizarre, Soviet-Style Move, White House Threatens to Veto Intelligence Budget Unless FBI's Anthrax Frame Up Is Accepted


In a bizarre, Soviet-style move, the White House has threatened to veto the intelligence budget unless everyone accepts the FBI frame up of Dr. Bruce Ivins.

As Bloomberg writes:

President Barack Obama probably would veto legislation authorizing the next budget for U.S. intelligence agencies if it calls for a new investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, an administration official said.

A proposed probe by the intelligence agencies’ inspector general “would undermine public confidence” in an FBI probe of the attacks “and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions,” Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.

Given that an FBI investigation into a specific crime has nothing to do with the budget or any of OMB's other core responsibilities, it seems that Orszag simply drew the short straw for this little assignment.

As I wrote Thursday:

The FBI says that the anthrax case is closed, and that they have proved that Dr. Bruce Ivins did it.

But Congress is not convinced.

On March 3, 2010, Representative Holt called for a new investigation:

Last week, [Congressman Holt] succeeded in including language in the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Bill that would require the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community to examine the possibility of a foreign connection to the 2001 anthrax attacks.

“The American people need credible answers to all of these and many other questions. Only a comprehensive investigation—either by the Congress, or through the independent commission I’ve proposed in the Anthrax Attacks Investigation Act (H.R. 1248)—can give us those answers,” Holt said in a letter to the Chairmen of the House Committees on Homeland Security, Judiciary, Intelligence, and Oversight and Government Reform.

[Here's the letter.]

Dear Chairmen Thompson, Conyers, Reyes, and Towns,

I am writing to ask that your committees, either individually or jointly, conduct a probing investigation of our government’s handling of what has been known as the “Amerithrax” investigation.

As you are aware, last week the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it was formally closing its investigation into the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, commonly known as the “Amerithrax” investigation. The Bureau has maintained since his suicide in 2008 that the late Dr. Bruce Ivins was their principal suspect in the attacks, a conclusion reaffirmed by the FBI when it closed the case last week—despite the fact that the FBI’s entire case against Ivins is circumstantial, and that the science used in the case is still being independently evaluated.

To date, there has been no comprehensive examination of the FBI’s conduct in this investigation, and a number of important questions remain unanswered. We don’t know why the FBI jumped so quickly to the conclusion that the source of the material used in the attacks could only have come from a domestic lab, in this case, Ft. Dietrick. We don’t know why they focused for so long, so intently, and so mistakenly on Dr. Hatfill. We don’t know whether the FBI’s assertions about Dr. Ivins’ activities and behavior are accurate. We don’t know if the FBI’s explanation for the presence of silica in the anthrax spores is truly scientifically valid. We don’t know whether scientists at other government and private labs who assisted the FBI in the investigation actually concur with the FBI’s investigative findings and conclusions. We don’t know whether the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Postal Service have learned the right lessons from these attacks and have implemented measures to prevent or mitigate future such bioterror attacks.

The American people need credible answers to all of these and many other questions. Only a comprehensive investigation—either by the Congress, or through the independent commission I’ve proposed in the Anthrax Attacks Investigation Act (H.R. 1248)—can give us those answers.

As you may know, my interest in this matter is both professional and personal. The attacks originated from a postal box in my Central New Jersey congressional district and they disrupted the lives and livelihood of my constituents. For months, Central New Jersey residents lived in fear of a future attack and the possibility of receiving cross-contaminated mail. Mail service was delayed and businesses in my district lost millions. Further, my own Congressional office in Washington, D.C. was shut down after it was found to be contaminated with anthrax.

Given its track record in this investigation, I believe it is essential that the Congress not simply accept the FBI’s assertions about Dr. Ivins alleged guilt. Accordingly, I ask that your committees investigate our government’s handling of the attacks, the subsequent investigation, and any lessons learned and changes in policies and procedures implemented in the wake of the attacks.
The next day, Representative Jerrold Nadler - Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties - joined in Holt's call for a new investigation:
Despite the FBI’s assertion that the case of the anthrax attacks is closed, there are still many troubling questions. For example, in a 2008 Judiciary Committee hearing, I asked FBI Director Robert Mueller whether Bruce Ivins was capable of producing the weaponized anthrax that was used in the attacks. To this day, it is still far from clear that Mr. Ivins had either the know-how or access to the equipment needed to produce the material. Because the FBI has not sufficiently answered such questions, I join Congressman Holt in urging an independent investigation of the case.
Maryland Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett and other congressmen have also joined in the call for a new investigation.

In fact, the only airtight case is against the FBI.

For more on the anthrax attacks, see this.

Update: Glenn Greenwald provides a concise summary of the issue:

The administration is ... threatening to veto the bill because it contains funding for a new investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks, on the ground that such an investigation -- in the administration's words -- "would undermine public confidence" in the FBI probe of the attacks "and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions."

As I've documented at length, not only are there enormous, unresolved holes in the FBI's case, but many of the most establishment-defending mainstream sources -- from leading newspaper editorial pages to key politicians in both parties -- have expressed extreme doubts about the FBI's case and called for an independent investigation. For the administration to actively block an independent review of one of the most consequential political crimes of this generation would probably be its worst act yet, and that's saying quite a bit.

7 comments:

  1. So the FBI is discredited. It would not be the first time the FBI or any other "law enforcement or intelligence" entity in the US engineered a false prosecution, cover up or committed murder.

    What is difference? Keep your eyes open for further "discrediting actions" that might pave the way for a new type of federal police force.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Welcome to the CorpoFascist Dictatorship that was once a beacon of light to the rest of the world. The fascist Bush criminals were given their orders to pillage and destroy the only part of the world they could care less about. Now the Obama bunch are again following orders, from above, not to do or say anything about what went on during the stupid years Bush and Co led this country into the ditch.

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://archive.wbai.org/
    .
    Art's magazine Tuesday March 16, 2010 2:00pm
    Arts
    .
    minute 17:30 on...
    noha boyd. fbi insights.
    .

    ReplyDelete
  4. Reminds me, sadly, of the fall of the Weimar republic.... Krystallichtnacht, the fall of the brownshirts and 'night of the long knives'. After all, the prior group was corrupt, what may we replace them with? Ahh, let's give them more power, and put them under the sole oversight of the president!

    The sad truth is, that power, when wielded, is very difficult to put down. The hammer keeps getting bigger, and everything looks like a nail.

    Even the innocent.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Discredit, then set up again in a different guise. I see another form of the KGB coming.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The facts are:
    911 is an inside job (MIHOP LIHOP)
    The anthrax is American
    The investigations in both cases cannot be trusted, the guilty parties are both foreign and domestic. They represent the easily manipulated patsies and the counter intelligence behind the compartmentalized idiots that willingly agree to remain ignorant to the agenda of the new world order ''ancient call'' proclaimed by leaders like the Skull and Bone heads Bush 1 and 2, Clinton and now Barak Hussein Obama.

    One need only look at how the global economic controlled demolition transpired from the inside and the fact that not a single person or institution has been held to account.
    The military force now in the Middle East is now in it's planned position and the legal means to carry out fascism has now been established because of the anthrax case and 911. The next stage in this plan is as obvious as the Iran Contra, S&L, BCCI, INSLAW etc... and the setting up of the Sha, Saddam Hussein, Noriega etc... all for the sake of a counter intelligence plan to expose all nations to the condition at hand, a military defense for ''zero interest''. Following the money from the funding of fascism to communists, to theocratic Middle East nightmares is as basic as understand the first third party of the United States, the Antimason Party, one need only consider the builders of the tomb measured to the stars and history.

    Our country has no active defense for the Constitution, we are in fact subject to the will of insiders hell bent on their own global intent to establish a new world order system without respect for individual liberty, freedom, justice or life. The call of ''democracy'' has been used to usurp law and order for the sake of socialism, which is disguising the fact that global business interests are sealing labor unto a principle inversion.
    The bottom line is this, it is time to reconstitute our Republic but, there is no ability to do so with the current political and economic structure short of bloodshed or by means of a non violent non compliant population willing to stand fast in protest.

    This country has lost it's way and is now at the point of sealing it's fate to a global agenda that stems from a strong delusion which lacks foundation for labor and the future it would produce apportioned to it's defense. There is nothing sustaining the Union but the lack of resolve and the mark of debt upon a once free and prosperous people.

    Judgment shall come any day now.
    A fool remains silent and a slave.
    May the flames of judgment engulf those whom well represent corruption without a call to repent and may the pillar of fire come quickly upon them. Woe to anyone still in agreement with this corrupt government, for the innocent shall again suffer as a generation lost in the wilderness, until a declaration is proclaimed by the few that shall rise in agreement as the Constitution demands now.

    The anthrax case is a call, if not to arms, by virtue of the modern revelation of greater intelligence, the call to gather in agreement and sustain a position, that provides no support economically to sustain this government, is now at hand.

    Stand fast, do no harm and make straight the way of God in Christ.

    ReplyDelete
  7. thanks bro this information, visit back to download ebook gratis :)

    ReplyDelete

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