Reuters : Anthrax suspect must have had help: U.S. senator

Anthrax suspect must have had help: U.S. senator

By Randall Mikkelsen | September 17, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senator targeted in the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks said on Wednesday he is convinced that the man believed to have carried it out did not act alone.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, voiced doubts to FBI Director Robert Mueller at a hearing in which other lawmakers called for a stepped-up review of the FBI's case against U.S. Army scientist Bruce Ivins.

Last month the FBI and Justice Department said Ivins, an anthrax expert who killed himself in July, was solely responsible for the mailing of anthrax-laced envelopes to politicians and media organizations shortly after the September 11 attacks.

The mailings killed five people and sickened 17. One of the letters was addressed to Leahy, but it was misdirected to another building and he was unharmed.

"If he (Ivins) was the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress or the American people," Leahy told Mueller. "I believe there are others out there. I believe there are others who can be charged with murder."

Leahy did not explain his views, and a spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for elaboration.

FBI officials have said the investigation is over and would be formally closed soon. But Mueller told Leahy the bureau would remain open to considering new evidence that pointed to additional suspects.

"We have looked at every lead and followed every lead to determine if anyone else was involved and will continue to do so," Mueller said.

Ivins' death and the FBI's disclosure that new DNA analysis techniques helped crack the case have sparked questions over the reliability of the evidence against Ivins. His lawyer says he was innocent.

Mueller on Tuesday announced that the FBI had asked the National Academy of Sciences to review the scientific evidence, but some lawmakers said it was not enough.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa sought a congressional probe, and Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania urged Mueller to let Congress name some members of the review panel.

"There has to be some alternative process capable of ensuring, in a way that a trial could have, that the FBI got it right," Grassley said.

FBI investigators mistakenly focused for years on another scientist, Steven Hatfill. Hatfill was never charged and the government agreed in June to pay him $5.85 million to settle a lawsuit. Hatfill was seen in the audience for Wednesday's hearing but he did not address the lawmakers.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

NY Daily News : FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials

FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK | DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU | August 2, 2008

WASHINGTON - In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.

After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.

"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.

On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together."

But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. "Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."

jmeek@nydailynews.com

NYT : F.B.I. Chief Challenges Gonzales’s Testimony

F.B.I. Chief Challenges Gonzales’s Testimony

By DAVID STOUT | Published: July 26, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 26 — The dispute over the truthfulness of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales reached a new intensity today as the F.B.I. Director, Robert S. Mueller 3rd, contradicted Mr. Gonzales’s sworn testimony before a Senate committee.

Mr. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee that the Bush administration’s secret eavesdropping program was the main topic at an encounter in the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on March 10, 2004, contrary to what Mr. Gonzales told a Senate panel on Tuesday.

At the time, Mr. Gonzales was the White House counsel, and Mr. Ashcroft was recovering from gall bladder surgery. That March night, Mr. Gonzales went to the hospital room with Andrew H. Card Jr., then White House chief of staff.

In his testimony before the Senate panel on Tuesday, Mr. Gonzales said the subject in the hospital room was “intelligence activities” under debate in the administration, but not the secret eavesdropping program.

But Mr. Mueller contradicted that version of events today, several hours after four Senate Democrats called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether Mr. Gonzales perjured himself before Congress.

Mr. Mueller was testifying at an F.B.I. oversight hearing when he was questioned by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas.

“Did you have an understanding that the conversation was on T.S.P.?” the Congresswoman asked, using the shorthand for terrorist surveillance program.

“I had an understanding the discussion was on an N.S.A. program, yes,” Mr. Mueller replied, using the abbreviation for the National Security Agency. A moment later, he added that the discussion was on the warrantless eavesdropping program “that has been much discussed, yes.”

The conflict in accounts could be significant, because Mr. Gonzales’s critics have accused him of trying to convey the false impression that the N.S.A. program had spawned no serious dissension within the Bush administration.

But former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey has testified that Justice Department lawyers were balking at recertifying the program early in 2004 and that he thought Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card rushed to the hospital to persuade Mr. Ashcroft, who was not at full capacity, to overlook his own objections to the program.

Mr. Mueller said that after receiving a call from Mr. Comey he went to the hospital, arriving shortly after Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card left, and that after he spoke with Mr. Ashcroft he understood that the N.S.A. program was indeed the focus of the dramatic bedside encounter.

There have been repeated instances in which lawmakers have questioned Mr. Gonzales’s competence and his recollection of events. But today’s developments seemed to mark a shift toward suggestions that he actually committed crimes in testifying before Congress.

The four senators who sought a special counsel are all members of the Judiciary Committee. They urged Solicitor General Paul D. Clement in a letter to name an independent counsel from outside the Justice Department. “It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements,” the senators wrote.

While the four were asking for a special counsel, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, announced that a subpoena was being issued to Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser, to provide information on the firings last year of nine federal prosecutors. The White House has asserted executive privilege in resisting Congressional demands for testimony by present and former presidential aides.

The request that the solicitor general name a special counsel to investigate Mr. Gonzales marked a new stage in the long-running controversy over his stewardship of the Justice Department. Mr. Gonzales’s most outspoken critics suggested today that the attorney general might have committed crimes, including perjury and obstruction of justice, when he testified about President Bush’s domestic-surveillance program and the dismissal of the nine United States attorneys.

The four senators — Charles E. Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — zeroed in today on Mr. Gonzales’s testimony that there had been no internal dissent over the president’s warrantless eavesdropping program and that an emergency meeting at the White House in March 2004 concerned subjects other than the secret eavesdropping operation.

“Both of those statements appear to be false,” Mr. Schumer said today. “We know from senators who were there, and we know from a letter from John Negroponte,” he went on, referring to the former director of national intelligence. “It’s in black and white.”

The letter from the four senators was addressed to the solicitor general because Mr. Gonzales has recused himself, as has the outgoing deputy attorney general, Paul J. McNulty.

A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said on Wednesday that Mr. Gonzales stood by his testimony. And the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said today that Mr. Bush still stood by Mr. Gonzales.

After Mr. Gonzales’s most recent testimony on Tuesday, Justice Department aides acknowledged in a background briefing for reporters that the attorney general had caused confusion by his “linguistic parsing.” A special counsel, if one is named, would presumably try to determine if any of Mr. Gonzales’s ambiguous statements were outright lies.

Senator Feinstein said today that Mr. Gonzales has often given “misleading and often untrue statements to Congress,” and that she had never seen “an attorney general so contemptuous of Congress and his role as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.”

A spokesman for the Democratic majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, told The Associated Press that Mr. Reid supported the request for a special counsel.

Senator Leahy said he was subpoenaing Mr. Rove because “the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing” of the federal prosecutors last year. A subpoena is also being issued for J. Scott Jennings, a White House political aide, Mr. Leahy said.

United States attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, and the people in those posts typically change when administrations change. But once installed, United States attorneys have traditionally been free of explicit political interference. Democrats have asserted that the nine who were let go last year may have been victims of cynical political calculations.

Mr. Leahy has said explicitly that he simply does not trust Mr. Gonzales. Today, Mr. Leahy sent a letter to Mr. Gonzales inviting him to change his testimony to cleanse himself of any possible perjury charges, and to do so by the end of next week.

Aboard Air Force One on the way to Philadelphia today, the White House spokesman, Mr. Snow, said that, contrary to the Democrats’ assertions, Mr. Gonzales has been consistent and that “the president supports him.” Mr. Snow suggested that what some see as deliberate inconsistencies in Mr. Gonzales’s accounts may be a reflection of the complexity of the issues being discussed.

President Bush was accompanied on his visit to Philadelphia by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Specter has been as critical of Mr. Gonzales as have the Democrats, and he told reporters that he might talk to the president today about his concerns, The Associated Press reported.

Later, after returning to Washington, Mr. Specter declined to discuss what he and the president had talked about. Asked whether he supported the call for a special counsel, which was led by Senator Schumer, Mr. Specter said he did not.

Regarding Mr. Gonzales’s testimony, Mr. Specter said: “There are very complex questions that have to be answered on looking at the record. But Senator Schumer’s not interested in looking at the record. He’s interested in throwing down the gauntlet and making a story in tomorrow’s newspapers.”

Mr. Specter pointed out that Senator Leahy had not signed the letter to the solicitor general.

NYT : F.B.I. Chief Gives Account at Odds With Gonzales’s

F.B.I. Chief Gives Account at Odds With Gonzales’s

By DAVID JOHNSTON and SCOTT SHANE | July 27, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 26 — The director of the F.B.I. offered testimony Thursday that sharply conflicted with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’s sworn statements about a 2004 confrontation in which top Justice Department officials threatened to resign over a secret intelligence operation.

The director, Robert S. Mueller III, told the House Judiciary Committee that the confrontation was about the National Security Agency’s counterterrorist eavesdropping program, describing it as “an N.S.A. program that has been much discussed.” His testimony was a serious blow to Mr. Gonzales, who insisted at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that there were no disagreements inside the Bush administration about the program at the time of those discussions or at any other time.

The director’s remarks were especially significant because Mr. Mueller is the Justice Department’s chief law enforcement official. He also played a crucial role in the 2004 dispute over the program, intervening with President Bush to help deal with the threat of mass resignations that grew out of a day of emergency meetings at the White House and at the hospital bedside of John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general.

In a separate development, Senate Democrats, who were unaware of Mr. Mueller’s comments, demanded the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether Mr. Gonzales committed perjury in his testimony on Tuesday about the intelligence dispute. The Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, issued a subpoena to Karl Rove, the White House senior political adviser, and another presidential aide, J. Scott Jennings, for testimony about the dismissal of federal prosecutors, another issue that has dogged Mr. Gonzales.

White House officials said the Democrats had engaged in political gamesmanship.

“What we are witnessing is an out-of-control Congress which spends time calling for special prosecutors, starting investigations, issuing subpoenas and generally just trying to settle scores,” said Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman. “All the while they fail to pass appropriations bills and important issues like immigration reform, energy and other problems go unanswered.”

The conflict underscored how Mr. Gonzales’s troubles have expanded beyond accusations of improper political influence in the dismissal of United States attorneys to the handling of the eavesdropping program, in which Mr. Gonzales was significantly involved in his previous post as White House counsel.

“I had an understanding that the discussion was on a N.S.A. program,” Mr. Mueller said in answer to a question from Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas, in a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.

Asked whether he was referring to the Terrorist Surveillance Program, or T.S.P., he replied, “The discussion was on a national N.S.A. program that has been much discussed, yes.”

Mr. Mueller said he had taken notes of some of his conversations about the issue, and after the hearing the committee asked him to produce them.

An F.B.I. spokesman declined Thursday night to elaborate on Mr. Mueller’s testimony.

In a four-hour appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Mr. Gonzales denied that the dispute arose over the Terrorist Surveillance Program, whose existence was confirmed by President Bush in December 2005 after it had been disclosed by The New York Times. Mr. Gonzales said it centered on “other intelligence activities.”

Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said Thursday night that Mr. Gonzales had testified truthfully, saying “confusion is inevitable when complicated classified activities are discussed in a public forum where the greatest care must be used not to compromise sensitive intelligence operations.”

The spokesman said that when Mr. Gonzales had said there had been no controversy about the eavesdropping operation, he was referring only to the program to intercept international communications that Mr. Bush publicly confirmed.

“The disagreement that occurred in March 2004 concerned the legal basis for intelligence activities that have not been publicly disclosed and that remain highly classified,” Mr. Roehrkasse said.

The four senators seeking an inquiry into Mr. Gonzales’s testimony sent a letter to the Justice Department saying “it is apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements.”

The senators asked for the appointment of a special counsel. While the Justice Department is not obliged to act on their request, the letter reflected the chasm of distrust that has opened between lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee and Mr. Gonzales.

The senators who signed the letter were Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Dianne Feinstein of California, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Ms. Feinstein, Mr. Feingold and Mr. Whitehouse are members of the Intelligence Committee and have been briefed on the intelligence programs at issue.

The senators’ letter was sent to Paul D. Clement, the solicitor general, because Mr. Gonzales is recused from investigations of his own conduct. In addition to his statements to Congress about the intelligence controversy, the letter raised the possibility that Mr. Gonzales had lied about the prosecutor firings.

In what amounted to a warning to the attorney general, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sent Mr. Gonzales the transcript of Tuesday’s hearing, asking him to “mark any changes you wish to make to correct, clarify or supplement your answers so that, consistent with your oath, they are the whole truth.”

Similar requests are routinely sent to witnesses after hearings, but Mr. Leahy’s pointed language underscored his view of the seriousness of the dispute over Mr. Gonzales’s veracity.

Still, neither Mr. Leahy nor Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee’s top Republican and a tough critic of Mr. Gonzales, joined in the call for a perjury investigation.

“I don’t think you rush off precipitously and ask for appointment of special counsel to run that kind of an investigation,” Mr. Specter said.

Doubts about Mr. Gonzales’s version of events in March 2004 grew after James B. Comey, the former deputy attorney general, testified in May that he and other Justice Department officials were prepared to resign over legal objections to an intelligence program that appeared to be the N.S.A. program.

Mr. Gonzales’s testimony Tuesday was his first since Mr. Comey’s account drew national attention. He stuck to his account, repeatedly saying that the dispute involved a different intelligence activity.

Mr. Gonzales described an emergency meeting with Congressional leaders at the White House on March 10, 2004, to discuss the dispute. That evening, he and the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., went to the hospital bedside of Mr. Ashcroft in an unsuccessful effort to get his reauthorization for the secret program.

Lawmakers present at the afternoon meeting have given various accounts, but several have said that only one program, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, was discussed.

In addition, in testimony last year, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who was the N.S.A. director when the program started and now heads the Central Intelligence Agency, said the March 2004 meeting involved the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Guardian : FBI Director Contradicts Gonzales

FBI Director Contradicts Gonzales

By LAURIE KELLMAN and LARA JAKES JORDAN | Associated Press Writers | July 26, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said Thursday the government's terrorist surveillance program was the topic of a 2004 hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials, contradicting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sworn Senate testimony.

Mueller was not in the hospital room at the time of the dramatic March 10, 2004, confrontation between then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and presidential advisers Andy Card and Gonzales, who was then serving as White House counsel. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee he arrived shortly after they left, and spoke with the ailing Ashcroft.

``Did you have an understanding that that the conversation was on TSP?'' asked Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. TSP stands for terrorist surveillance program.

``I had an understanding the discussion was on a NSA program, yes,'' Mueller answered.

Jackson asked again: ``We use 'TSP,' we use 'warrantless wiretapping,' so would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?''

``The discussion was on a national NSA program that has been much discussed, yes,'' Mueller responded.

The NSA, or National Security Agency, runs the program that eavesdropped on terror suspects in the United States, without court approval, until last January, when the program was put under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

On Tuesday, Gonzales repeatedly and emphatically denied that the dispute was about the terrorist surveillance program.

Mueller also affirmed, under lawmakers' pointed questioning, that Ashcroft sided against the two White House officials and with then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who believed the eavesdropping program was illegal.

Mueller's testimony cast fresh doubt on Gonzales' credibility. Hours earlier, Senate Democrats called for a perjury investigation against Gonzales and subpoenaed top presidential aide Karl Rove in a deepening political and legal clash with the Bush administration.

``It has become apparent that the attorney general has provided at a minimum half-truths and misleading statements,'' four Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement.

They dispatched the letter shortly before Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced the subpoena of Rove, the president's top political strategist, in remarks on the Senate floor. The White House has claimed executive privilege to block congressional demands for documents or testimony by some current and former presidential aides. President Bush, meanwhile, has continued to support Gonzales.

Democrats issued a list of examples of what one called Gonzales' ``lying'' before Congress.

``We have now reached a point where the accumulated evidence shows that political considerations factored into the unprecedented firing of at least nine United States attorneys last year,'' said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In response, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, ``Every day congressional Democrats prove that they're more interested in headlines than doing the business Americans want them to do.''

The call for a perjury probe focuses on conflicts between testimony Gonzales gave the Judiciary Committee in two appearances, one last year and the other this week. That issue revolves around whether there was internal administration dissent over the president's warrantless wiretapping program.

Also at issue, Democrats say, is a conflict between Gonzales' testimony that he had not spoken with other witnesses about the firings and his former White House liaison's account of an ``uncomfortable'' conversation in which the attorney general reviewed his recollection of the events and asked her opinion.

``There's no wiggle room,'' said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the four lawmakers to sign the letter. ``It's not misleading. Those are deceiving. Those are lying.''

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters, ``I'm convinced that he's not telling the truth,'' based on conversations with Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

As for the firing of the prosecutors, e-mails released by the Justice Department show Gonzales' aides conferred with Rove on the matter.

Leahy also said he was issuing a subpoena for J. Scott Jennings, a White House political aide. The deadline for compliance by Rove and him was set for Aug. 2.

``For over four months, I have exhausted every avenue seeking the voluntary cooperation of Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings, but to no avail,'' the Vermont lawmaker said. ``They and the White House have stonewalled every request. Indeed, the White House is choosing to withhold documents and is instructing witnesses who are former officials to refuse to answer questions and provide relevant information and documents.''

The call for a perjury investigation marked yet another complication for Gonzales, whose fitness to serve has been criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike.

In a separate letter Thursday to Gonzales, Leahy said he would give the attorney general eight days to correct, clarify or otherwise change his testimony ``so that, consistent with your oath, they are the whole truth.''

In their letter to Solicitor General Paul Clement, the four senators wrote that Gonzales' testimony last year that there had been no internal dissent over the president's wiretapping program conflicted with Comey's testimony and with Gonzales' own statements this week before the Judiciary Committee.

They also said Gonzales falsely told the panel that he had not talked about the firings with other Justice Department officials. His former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, told the House Judiciary Committee under a grant of immunity that she had an ``uncomfortable'' conversation with Gonzales in which he outlined his recollection of what happened and asked her for her reaction.

Clement would decide whether to appoint a special prosecutor because Gonzales and outgoing Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty have recused themselves from the investigation that involves them. The Justice Department's No. 3 official, Associate Attorney General William Mercer, is serving only in an acting capacity and therefore does not have the authority.

At issue is what was discussed at a March 10, 2004, congressional briefing. A letter from then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte said the briefing concerned the administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration.

Gonzales, at Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, testified that the issue at hand was not about the terrorist surveillance program. Instead, he said, the emergency meetings on March 10, 2004, had focused on an intelligence program that he would not describe. He said the meeting prompted him to go to Ashcroft's bedside to recertify the surveillance program, but he denied pressuring Ashcroft to do so. Ashcroft, recovering from gall bladder surgery, refused.

Associated Press Writer Jennifer Loven contributed to this story.