August 6, 2008 Judge agrees to unseal documents in anthrax probe

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chief judge of Washington's federal
courthouse on Wednesday unsealed hundreds of pages of documents in
the FBI's nearly 7-year investigation of anthrax mailings that
killed five people.

The move by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth came after
consultation with Amy Jeffress, a national security prosecutor at
Justice, and as FBI Director Robert Mueller prepared to brief the
families of anthrax victims on details of the case.

The documents that Lamberth authorized to be released include
more than a dozen search warrants aimed at Army microbiologist
Bruce Ivins, whom federal investigators were closing in on as he
committed suicide last week. Among other things, the papers are
expected to reveal how the FBI narrowed the scope of its
investigation to the Fort Detrick, Md., scientist.

The evidence that Lamberth authorized to be made public should
answer many questions in the bizarre investigation. Still, skeptics
may never be satisfied if the documents fail to show conclusively
that Ivins was solely responsible for mailing the anthrax letters
that killed five and sickened 17.

The judge indicated that it would take until at least midday or
early afternoon Wednesday to clear the clerical hurdles to a full
public release of the documents, which were to be posted on both
the Justice Department's and federal

The anthrax letters were mailed in 2001, not long after the
terror attacks of Sept. 11, and shook a nation already traumatized
by the attacks in New York and Washington.

The government's briefing for victims and their survivors at FBI
headquarters came eight days after Ivins killed himself as
prosecutors prepared to charge him with murder.

Ivins' lawyer has maintained that the brilliant but troubled
62-year-old scientist would have been proved innocent had he lived.
And some of Ivins' friends and former co-workers at the Fort
Detrick biological warfare lab in Frederick, Md., say they doubt he
could or would have unleashed the deadly toxin.

But the FBI is ready, nevertheless, to end the "Amerithrax"
investigation by outlining its evidence against Ivins, according to
two U.S. officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

The Justice Department "has a legal and moral obligation to
make official statements first to the victims and their families,
then the public," Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday.
"And that's the order in which we're going to do it."

Officially, the case will stay open for an undetermined but
short period of time. That will allow the government to complete
several legal and investigatory matters that need to be wrapped up
before it can be closed, the officials said.

The case may turn on a couple of key points, including:
-An advanced DNA analysis that matched the anthrax used in the
attacks to a specific batch controlled by Ivins. It is unclear,
however, how the FBI eliminated as suspects others in the lab who
had access to it.

-Ivins' purported motive of sending the anthrax in a twisted
effort to test a cure for it, according to authorities. Ivins
complained of the limitations of animal testing and shared in a
patent for an anthrax vaccine. No evidence has been revealed so far
to bolster that theory.

-Why Ivins would have mailed the deadly letters from Princeton,
N.J., a seven-hour round trip from his home. In perhaps the
strangest explanation to emerge in the case so far, authorities
said Ivins had been obsessed with the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma
for more than 30 years. The letters were sent from a mailbox two
blocks from the sorority's office, which is across the street from
Princeton University.

Investigators can't place Ivins in Princeton but say the
evidence will show he had disturbing attitudes toward women. Other
haunting details about Ivins' mental health have emerged, and his
therapist described him as having a history of homicidal and
sociopathic thoughts.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)