Daschle: Too Early To Assume Anthrax Case Solved
The FBI has indicated that it may release as early as this week some of the evidence it amassed against Bruce Ivins, the government scientist who committed suicide before prosecutors could charge him in connection with the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Five people died and more than a dozen others were sickened after letters carrying anthrax were sent through the postal system to congressional offices and media organizations.
One of those letters was addressed to then-Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota. One of his office workers opened it, and 20 members of his staff tested positive for anthrax exposure.
Daschle tells Renee Montagne that some of the circumstantial evidence suggested in news coverage of Ivins is "potentially encouraging."
But he cautions that the government had similar evidence against another scientist once under suspicion, Steven Hatfill, who ended up winning a settlement from the Justice Department of more than $5 million.
"I think it's premature to come to any conclusions," Daschle says. "What I do wish is that they would be more forthcoming, more open — at least those of us who were directly affected, provided a little bit better information so we have some understanding of these circumstances."
Daschle says the government hasn't made an effort to keep him up-to-date on the investigation.
"I haven't had a briefing from the FBI or anybody else for now over five years. I assume that others who were involved have had a similar set of circumstances," he says.
Daschle says he would like to see closure in the case.
"This has been a very tough ordeal for people that have been affected and it would be nice to say that, at long last, after all these many, many years, we have finally brought this to closure," he says. "After the experiences, the fits and starts of the investigation over the course of the last several years, that's harder to do now, but it would be nice to be able to do that at some point in the near future."
In the years since the anthrax attacks, the country seems to have become better prepared to handle a biological attack, he says.
"I mean, you can't go through an airport and not be familiar with the extraordinary practices now employed," he says. "I don't think we've probably accomplished all that we set out to accomplish. I don't think we're there yet. We've got a long way to go, but certainly we've taken a lot more precautions and we're doing things differently in mailrooms and in airports all over the country."
Anthrax Indictment May Have Been Weeks Away
Government investigators tell NPR that they were still several major legal steps away from indicting army researcher Dr. Bruce Ivins for the 2001 anthrax attacks when he killed himself this past week.
While they had written up the case and told officials at the Department of Justice they were prepared to go forward, the department had not yet approved the case. What is more, the evidence against Ivins had not yet been presented in its entirety to a grand jury and jurors had not yet been asked to vote on an indictment. That process could have taken weeks.
There had been some media reports saying that Ivins killed himself on Tuesday because he had been told that he was going to be indicted imminently. People close to the case told NPR that the FBI had a discussion with Ivins' lawyer and had presented him with some of the evidence in the case.
But the idea at the time was to convince Ivins' lawyer that it was in his client's best interest to admit to mailing envelopes with anthrax in the fall of 2001. People close to the investigation said it wasn't so much a plea discussion as the FBI making clear that they were steaming toward an indictment of Ivins.
The FBI is expected to provide a briefing on the evidence as early as midweek. The timing depends on a number of factors.
The case has to be formally closed before the FBI is no longer bound by grand jury secrecy requirements.
The bureau also has a blanket rule about not discussing pending cases. Normally, a case is closed by presenting evidence to the appropriate U.S. attorney and getting him or her to sign off on the case. Because the anthrax case is so high profile, officials said it is likely that Attorney General Michael Mukasey will have to sign off on closing it.
Once that happens, the FBI is expected to brief the anthrax victims who survived the attack and the families of the five people who died in the spate of anthrax mailings that took place in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
FBI Director Robert Mueller had promised the families that they would be briefed on the case and would not have to read about it in the papers. He is trying to make good on that promise, but can't do so until the case is closed and the grand jury restrictions are lifted.
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