evanmorris.com
From the daily archives: Sunday, August 10, 2008
Open Questions on a Closed Case – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com
… The investigators fail to address another underlying problem with their anthrax match: that Dr. Ivins was an investigator in the case before he was a suspect. After the anthrax attack, Dr. Ivins himself worked directly with the evidence. The F.B.I. asked Dr. Ivins to help them with the forensics in the case by analyzing the contents of suspicious letters. And he did so for years, until the authorities began to suspect that the anthrax spores used in the mailings might have originated from his lab.
Dr. Ivins, for instance, was asked to analyze the anthrax envelope that was sent to Mr. Daschle’s office on Oct. 9, 2001. When his team analyzed the powder, they found it to be a startlingly refined weapons-grade anthrax spore preparation, the likes of which had never been seen before by personnel at Fort Detrick.
It is extremely improbable that this type of preparation could ever have been produced at Fort Detrick, certainly not of the grade and quality found in that envelope.
But even leaving that aside, there are important questions left unanswered. First, isn’t it possible that the manipulation of the contents of the anthrax letters in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory might have contaminated the work environment enough to potentially jeopardize the integrity of subsequent samples taken from the lab? Might that perhaps explain why the anthrax powder used in the attacks was later found to have the same DNA footprint as the other anthrax preparations in Dr. Ivins’s lab? At the very least, wouldn’t this call his guilt into doubt?
It was as if a gun used in a murder was unintentionally returned to the scene of the crime several days after the murder. What are the legal implications of such a possibility? Wouldn’t a court be especially cautious in considering evidence involving a weapon in such circumstances?
Josh Marshall on the bit of the Edwards mess that is actually relevant to the American public:
… I don’t think I have anything to add to the obvious. Fundamentally, it’s between him and his wife and their family. And I wish them the best.
But this decision on his part involved several overlapping betrayals. And the one that is very much a public matter is his betrayal of his supporters and, really, all Democrats nationwide — one that continued at least until he dropped out in the spring. Edwards made a strong run for the presidency knowing full well that he was carrying on an affair, at least in the early stages of the campaign, which could come to light in the midst of the general election and fatally damage all Democrats’ hopes for regaining the presidency. Just think how fun this weekend would be if John Edwards had won the nomination. Indeed, it seems clear that the aftermath of the affair was such that the chances of its coming to light were substantial. It’s a level of recklessness and selfishness that I probably shouldn’t but still do find shocking.
today’s moodcat
