FBI: Anthrax Suspect's Abortion Stance Eyed As Motive

Dina Temple-Raston / NPR
Bruce Ivins may have targeted Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy with anthrax-laced letters in 2001 because he saw them as bad Catholics owing to their votes in favor of abortion, officials close to the investigation say. A day after the FBI effectively closed one of its longest and most complicated investigations in a decade, more detail about Ivins is beginning to dribble out. Ivins had been working at an Army lab in Maryland, and among the projects he was working on was a patented anthrax vaccine. There was some speculation that Ivins had targeted Daschle and Leahy because he saw them as holding up funding that would have helped pay for his research into an anthrax vaccine. Now, officials close to the investigation say another possible motive could have been that Ivins saw the senators as bad Catholics because of their votes in favor of abortion. In an unusual presentation Wednesday, the Justice Department went public with evidence it says shows that Ivins was the man behind the anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 others. Ivins committed suicide last month, so there will be no trial to prove their allegations and no opportunity for Ivins to defend himself.
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Related:
Anthrax Suspect Passed 2 Polygraphs
Handwriting analysis also failed to tie Ivins to letters
Casting further doubt on the FBI's anthrax case, accused government scientist Bruce Ivins passed two polygraph tests and a handwriting analysis comparing samples of his handwriting to writing contained in the anthrax letters, U.S. officials familiar with the investigation say. The Justice Department yesterday closed the case, announcing the late "Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks." Ivins passed the first polygraph to satisfy a security requirement prior to working with the FBI as part of a team of scientists at the Fort Detrick, Md., lab who originally helped analyze the anthrax letters. He passed a second exam after he became a suspect.

The Anthrax Follies and the Bizarro Effect
The case against Bruce Ivins is pathetic
By Justin Raimondo / Antiwar.com
The release of the FBI's "evidence" against Bruce Ivins, the now-deceased Ft. Detrick scientist targeted by the FBI as the alleged culprit in the 2001 anthrax letters case, demonstrates either (1) the FBI is covering for the real culprits, or (2) what we are witnessing is a dramatic drop in the intelligence of the average FBI official – maybe it's something in the water.

Posted by Editor at August 8, 2008 08:08 AM