Lawmakers Are Seeking Answers in Anthrax Case

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Source: WP

FBI's Mueller to Be Queried by House Panel About Evidence Against Researcher



The strength of the government's evidence against Bruce E. Ivins, who died before prosecutors publicly labeled him the lone culprit in the 2001 anthrax-by-mail attacks, will be tested anew today when FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III appears before the House Judiciary Committee.

Authorities have released scores of pages from search warrants that they executed in an attempt to link Ivins, a bioweapons researcher at the Army lab at Fort Detrick, Md., to poison-laced letters that killed five people and sickened 17.

The case relies on a patchwork of circumstantial and scientific evidence tracing anthrax spores back to a beaker in Ivins's lab and a series of work logs, unusual e-mails and behavior patterns that Ivins exhibited. It adds up, officials argue, to a portrait of a man who had the know-how, motive and opportunity to pull off the largest biological attack in U.S. history.

But the material and a series of private briefings by Justice Department and FBI officials have yet to convince a small but vocal group of lawmakers that the government has solved the case.

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (Mich.) and two other Democrats on the panel have signaled they will scrutinize the FBI's work today. This month, they wrote Mueller asking about missteps in identifying the anthrax strain used in the attacks and tracing it back to Ivins.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502996.html?hpid=moreheadlines