FBI official leading anthrax probe off the case

NBC ^ | 9/19/06 | Jim Popkin

[TrebleRebel]

Agency says it remains committed to solving the 5-year-old mystery

WASHINGTON - The top FBI official in charge of the investigation into the deadly anthrax attacks has left the case, NBC News has learned. Richard "Rick" Lambert had been the inspector of the so-called AMERITHRAX case since September 2002, and had run every aspect of the five-year-old investigation. Just last month, he was transferred to the Knoxville, Tenn., field office of the FBI as its special agent in charge, according to the FBI.

Lambert was the public face of the case, and his transfer is sure to fuel speculation that the massive investigation has stalled. No one has been arrested, five years after the first anthrax-laden envelopes were mailed from a New Jersey post office, and officials familiar with the case tell NBC News that no criminal charges are expected to be filed anytime soon.

Lambert was not available for comment Monday, but an FBI official tells NBC it's unfair to read too much into his transfer. The case "is not stuck in the mud," the FBI official says, adding that it's standard practice in the FBI to rotate senior officials on and off major cases. (A series of senior FBI agents ran other high-profile investigations, including the hunts for serial bomber Eric Rudolph and the Unabomber, "Ted" Kaczynski.)

Later Monday, the FBI plans to issue a press statement stating that hard work on the case continues. The FBI will say that it is one of the largest, most complex cases in its history and the the FBI is "committed to solving the case."

[TrebleRebel]

DC to Knoxville - he must be thrilled.

[TrebleRebel]

Followed today by the latest spin:


FBI Statement on the Status of the Investigation into the 2001 Anthrax
Mailings

Today, Joseph Persichini, Jr., Acting Assistant Director of the FBI's
Washington Field Office, made the following statement:
The investigation into the deadly 2001 anthrax attack is one of the
largest and most complex investigations ever conducted by law
enforcement. Today, the FBI's commitment to solving this case is
undiminished. The men and women of the FBI and the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service assigned to the case remain fully committed to
bringing the perpetrator(s) of these murderous attacks to justice.
While no arrests have been made, the dedicated investigators who have
worked tirelessly on this case, day-in and day-out, continue to go the
extra mile in pursuit of every lead. From the Director to the
investigating agents and inspectors, there is confidence the case will
be solved.

Second, while not well known to the public, the scientific advances
gained from this investigation are unprecedented and have greatly
strengthened the government's ability to prepare for - and prevent -
biological attacks in the future. Since the first anthrax mailing,
investigators have worked hand in hand with the scientific community to
both solve this case and to be best positioned in the event of a future
attack.

Despite the frustrations that come with any complex investigation, no
one in the FBI has, for a moment, stopped thinking about the innocent
victims of these attacks, nor has the effort to solve this case in any
way been slowed.

[TrebleRebel]

Second, while not well known to the public, the scientific advances gained from this investigation are unprecedented and have greatly strengthened the government's ability to prepare for - and prevent - biological attacks in the future.

Gee, I feel safe just knowing this.

[bnelson44]

So is it domestic anthrax?

[TrebleRebel]

......his transfer is sure to fuel speculation that the massive investigation has stalled.

That's a contradiction in terms. How can something that hasn't moved in the first place stall?

[tomzz]

Saddam Hussein and nobody else was behind the anthrax attacks. The evidence is so overwhelming that only someone in a state of denial could miss it.

Nobody doubts or questions any of the basic claims:

1. The anthrax attacks followed 9/11 by days. A disgruntled white guy trying to do that and pin it on the 9/11 hijackers would not have had the necessary time.

2. The one "disgruntled white guy" they tried to investigate noted that if he were stupid enough to do that he'd either be dying of anthrax as they spoke or would have the serum antibodies in his blood and he offered to take a blood test on the spot, fibbies facilities or his, and that was unanswerable.

3. The first cases turned up ten miles down the road from where the jackers were staying.

4. The last previous case of anthrax in a human in the US had been thirty years prior to that.

5. The Czechs are sticking with their story about Atta meeting with one of Hussein's top spies in Prague shortly before 9/11 and pictures of the two together have been published on the web.

You do not need to be Albert Einstein to put this easy a puzzle together.

The one argument I've seen anybody make against this overwhelming circumstantial case is that Bush and co would have been shouting it from the rooftops were it true. That is basically an argument from incredulity which does not wash given the facts. Bush and company do not figure they need this to win elections and they do not want anybody thinking that somebody did something like this and it was two years before we could act due to the condition in which SlicKKK KKKlintler had left the US military.

[jpl]

ROFL. It doesn't exactly sound much like a promotion or a pat on the back, does it?

I noticed a couple of days ago that everyone's favorite "Fake Detective" seems to still think that the Feds are in the process of gathering evidence against a specific "culprit" (not Hatfill).

I wonder if he ever pauses for a moment to wonder just how it is that, in this day and age of leaks where nothing seems to stay a secret for very long, the identity of this culprit and the nature of the evidence has been kept under wraps so successfully.

[TrebleRebel]

LOL, yeah I caught that too. The real culprit is so secret that no single person even knows his name. 20 senior FBI agents just have a letter each and any day now they will be brought into the same room to play scrabble and arrest warrant will be written.

[oceanview]

ping.

[Ben Hecks]

3. The first cases turned up ten miles down the road from where the jackers were staying.

.....in Florida and in New Jersey. The mathmatical odds that this was coincidental must be pretty high.

[Allan]

On a related issue
I heard just a couple days ago
the FBI still does not have a functioning computerized data base.

[Shermy]

I'm confused. Wasn't a fellow named Mason appointed after Harp left? Just after the Science article which, reading between the lines, caused them to retest the anthrx?

"AMERITHRAX"

The "profile" even guided the name of the investigation!

[Cicero]

The whole FBI is broken, and Bush hasn't done anything to fix it. Mueller is hopeless. His speciality is handing out medals to clintonoids.

I'm sure there are still some good agents working there, but they are not the guys in charge. Here we are, six years after the election, and bill clinton might as well still be running it.

[mission9]

Maybe if one or two "persons of interest" had the opportunity to experience "water-boarding" then the investigation would have been complete three years ago. Could some body call Graham, Warner or McCain?

[mtbopfuyn]

Gee, you don't suppose the reason for no arrests might be the culprits become nothing but ashes in a few airline disasters?

[jpl]

In Louis Freeh's book My FBI, he devotes an entire section in there to the efforts made to upgrade the Bureau's antiquated computer technology. Efforts which have failed over and over and over again to this day.

The FBI used to be a truly great organization at one time (in spite of some of Hoover's negative tendencies), but they've fallen so far behind the CIA and especially the NSA that it's really kind of pathetic. And it's not the rank-and-file agents that are to blame, it's the culture of the Bureau leadership that has sucked for a long time now.

[Strategerist]

Gee, you don't suppose the reason for no arrests might be the culprits become nothing but ashes in a few airline disasters?

Physically impossible for them to be the actual mailers, of course, because no letters were mailed till 9/18.

[Strategerist]

Actually the first cases turned up in New York City - a number of people had symptoms of cutaneous anthrax(misdiagnosed) before the guy in Florida that died. The Florida letter and the 4 NY Media letters were almost certainly mailed the same day.

And actually there was time between when Florida was IDed in the media as where the hijackers lived and trained and when the anthrax was mailed - the ENTIRE plot couldn't have been cooked up after 9/11 but the choice to send a letter to Florida very clearly could have been caused by a desire to create a hijacker link.

[cgk]

The case "is not stuck in the mud," the FBI official says

Sheesh. I'd hate to hear which cases are stuck in the mud. DB Cooper, perhaps?

[Shermy]

Remember the drum maker in the New York area who caught anthrax? Here's another in Scotland, unfortunately dead-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/5334696.stm

"...The anthrax testing on Mr Norris' house has been completed The results of anthrax tests at a home in the Scottish Borders are expected within four to six weeks...
Mr Norris died in July and diagnosis indicated the most likely cause was an infection caused by anthrax... Mr Norris was an artist who made musical instruments with materials which included untreated animal hides.