The were evidently "out of the loop" and didn't have a clue as to what other labs had determined.
I think that this is totally true, but that could just as easily be as much an issue of politics as an issue of competence. This would be especially be true if high powers were interested in obscuring the true nature of "Amerithrax".
In order to believe it is "just as easy," you have to believe it is EASY to have a MASSIVE conspiracy where many FBI agents, many scientists from many agencies and non-government areas, and many people from the Bush Administration are ALL deliberately conspiring together to cover up the MURDER of five innocent Americans. And after six years, not one of them has gone to the media with the truth.
Is it really "just as easy" to believe that as to look at the facts which say that some people made some simple mistakes and false assumptions in the extremely intense days right after the discovery of the anthrax letters?
Wouldn't you be doing as Francis Boyle is doing: Assuming that there are so many evil people in America that a criminal mastermind can just pick an choose who he wants to help him with his evil plan, and everyone will gladly join up and keep silent about it?
I have no reason to believe that is true. While there have been conspiracies, I don't believe it's that easy to get people to cover up the murder of innocent Americans. And anyone who tries will just have to talk with one person who cannot go along, and that person will forever have the information needed to blow the conspiracy apart and put all the conspirators in jail -- unless you assume, of course, that everyone in the media and in the legal system will also gladly join the conspiracy.