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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Brading, Hello and welcome back to

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Speaker 1: the show. My name is Null. Our rider die Matt

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Speaker 1: Frederick is most likely playing Best Fiends while he's on vacation.

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Speaker 1: They called me Ben. We are joined as always with

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Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission controlled decond. Most importantly, you

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Speaker 1: are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff

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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. This is a very

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Speaker 1: interesting episode. It's one that has um fascinated good pal

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Speaker 1: Matt for a number of years. Uh, this episode is

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Speaker 1: something that he cares deeply about. So we're gonna we're

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Speaker 1: gonna do our best to We're gonna do our best

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Speaker 1: to make him proud. Speaking of Matt, you blasted right

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Speaker 1: by this whole Best Fiends business. We got a bombshell

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Speaker 1: yesterday that Matt Frederick has reached level seven hundred and

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Speaker 1: sixty four in the mobile game Best Fiends. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know whether to be proud of him or concerned

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Speaker 1: for him. I mean, that's you know, Uh, he's nothing

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Speaker 1: if not a passionate dude, but I was. I was

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Speaker 1: likewise surprised. Now you know. No, if there's one thing

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Speaker 1: that long time listeners have learned from stuff they don't

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Speaker 1: want you to know, it's this. You can blast by

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Speaker 1: a lot of headlines, you can get a lot of

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Speaker 1: buried leads. The mainstream news is a fickle, ephemeral thing.

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Speaker 1: Some stories that seem pretty innocuous can receive international attention.

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Speaker 1: Like remember when the world was obsessed over figuring out

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Speaker 1: what color address was on Facebook? What was the determination

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Speaker 1: ultimately beij was it read? What were the choices? And

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Speaker 1: how do you even interpret this? Ben with your color deficiency?

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Speaker 1: Did you feel like that story? Now, I wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: participated even if I know what color I think it was.

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Speaker 1: It was blue or it was gold, or was black?

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Speaker 1: There was there was a whole thing. But there are

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Speaker 1: other stories, though, tremendously important stories that seemed to fade

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Speaker 1: from the spotlight, and they're only followed up on by

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Speaker 1: people in specialized internet forums or in specialized trade publications.

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Speaker 1: For example, this this is weird. You know. Today's story

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Speaker 1: comes to us from Josh P. Josh P, you emailed

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Speaker 1: us to ask about the anthrax attacks of two thousand

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Speaker 1: and one. Now, right as we say that, a lot

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Speaker 1: of us in the audience are going huh and tracks.

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Speaker 1: I I kind of remember that, right, I. I know

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Speaker 1: it's a thing, But what do you what do you mean? Well,

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Speaker 1: to answer that question, we have to first tell you

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Speaker 1: what anthrax is. So here are the facts. Yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: just to to get it out of the way. No,

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Speaker 1: not the thrash metal band from the nineties with that

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Speaker 1: ball dude with the amazing goatee that you may have

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Speaker 1: seen on episodes of Beavis and butt Head. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: c d C describes anthrax as a serious infectious disease

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Speaker 1: that's caused by something referred to as gram positive rod

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Speaker 1: shaped bacteria UM referred to as basilis and thracis um,

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Speaker 1: and it is something that can absolutely sicken people when

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Speaker 1: it's inhaled um or when they are they come into

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Speaker 1: contact with infected animals or um you know, food, food stuffs.

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Speaker 1: Another way of looking at it is that it's a

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Speaker 1: a spore forming basilis that is absolutely deadly to humans.

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Speaker 1: And there are three main forms of transmission UH. Cutaneous

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Speaker 1: which is when you um contract it through the skin,

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Speaker 1: gastro intestinal, which of course is when you would ingest

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Speaker 1: it when you know, eating a contaminated food product. And

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Speaker 1: then there is pulmonary, which is mainly what we're going

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Speaker 1: to be talking about today, which is when it is inhaled. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's correct. So so a lot of countries have

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Speaker 1: stockpiled anthrax for a long time. When you hear people

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Speaker 1: talking about bioweapon research, they're usually referring to things like

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Speaker 1: anthrax because picture antax like, um picture it like an

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Speaker 1: agricultural product. With the right know how, you can grow it,

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Speaker 1: you can groom it, and you can um change it

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Speaker 1: into various various mediums of consumption, right like you said,

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Speaker 1: with oral or pulmonary or cutaneous inhalation or ingestion. So,

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Speaker 1: behind the scenes, while everybody is worrying about what color

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Speaker 1: addresses or what the Kardashians are doing, or you know

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Speaker 1: what the newest season of your favorite television show is,

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Speaker 1: governments and private partnerships around the world are constantly experimenting

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Speaker 1: with diseases. They're refining them. You're usually going to hear

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Speaker 1: about these in terms of national defense, right like uh, like,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you know if you went to the c

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Speaker 1: d C. They would say, we're not making bioweapons. We're

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Speaker 1: researching vaccines, right, We're trying to save people, not harm them,

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Speaker 1: That's right. And and you might hear a term like

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Speaker 1: weaponized grade you know, like weapons grade plutonium or weaponized anthrax,

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Speaker 1: and that just means it's refined to the point of

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Speaker 1: being um more easily dispersed, you know, through say air ducts,

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Speaker 1: you know in a building for example, or you know,

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Speaker 1: it's when I say refined, I literally mean made into

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Speaker 1: a fine substance that can be released and become very,

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Speaker 1: very dangerous because it is transmitted through you know, airflow

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Speaker 1: in the case of like a building or even outdoors. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And when we when we talk about these experts who

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Speaker 1: are working on, depending on what you believe, working on

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Speaker 1: either weaponizing diseases or on creating cures for these diseases,

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Speaker 1: they also work on plans on scenarios, right, They work

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Speaker 1: on what's called emergency preparedness plans. Yeah. And the CDC

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Speaker 1: on their website does have an emergency preparedness plan in

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Speaker 1: place for an anthrax attack. But in my opinion, and

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Speaker 1: I'm no expert, it seems pretty broad and kind of vague,

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Speaker 1: almost more of a stop, drop and roll situation than

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Speaker 1: actually some sort of larger government response plan that's that's

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Speaker 1: in place. Uh. And it's interesting and more recent times,

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Speaker 1: focus truly seems to have shifted away from you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: bio terrorism protection and more towards pandemic preparedness. Um. Though

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Speaker 1: based on our current situation, that does not seem to

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Speaker 1: have worked out quite so well. Um, so you know,

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Speaker 1: the jury is still out on that. But bio terrorism

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Speaker 1: was much more of a top of mind thing, uh

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Speaker 1: during these attacks that we're gonna talk about today, right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: fellow conspiracy realist, you may remember this story from several

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Speaker 1: years ago, almost twenty years ago now, Beginning on September

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Speaker 1: two thousand and one, just a week after literally just

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Speaker 1: a week after the infamous terrorist attacks on September eleventh,

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Speaker 1: two thousand one, someone started mailing letters laced with anthrax.

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Speaker 1: They sent the east to several places, ABC, NBC, CBS,

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Speaker 1: the New York Post. American Media. That's that's such a

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Speaker 1: that's such a benign name. American Media is probably best

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Speaker 1: known as the publisher of the National Enquirer, a quite

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Speaker 1: popular tabloid here in the US, and they also sent uh,

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Speaker 1: someone sent these sent anthrax least letters to members of Congress.

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Speaker 1: That's correct, to Democratic Senators Tom Dashell and Patrick Leahy.

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Speaker 1: On October two, two thousand one, um uh, the gentleman

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Speaker 1: at the American Media Building in Florida, which is again

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Speaker 1: the parent company of the National Enquirer and also the Sun.

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Speaker 1: UM a photo editor by the name of Robert Stevens

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Speaker 1: opened um an innocuously labeled envelope and was exposed to

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Speaker 1: anthrax um. There were various methods in these letters of dispersal,

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Speaker 1: but like some of them were more successful than others.

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Speaker 1: And I believe this is one where he pulled something

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Speaker 1: out of the envelope and it actually kind of ejected

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Speaker 1: powder into his face and he really took a deep

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Speaker 1: whiff of this, uh, this substance. Yep, absolutely, that's correct.

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Speaker 1: Two days later, October fourth, two thousand and one, Robert

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Speaker 1: Stevens is diagnosed with what's called inhalational anthrax, meaning it

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Speaker 1: he ingested it just the way you described NOL. Robert

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Speaker 1: Stevens dies the next day October five, two thousand and one,

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Speaker 1: and three days later, authorities in start running tests on

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Speaker 1: his office on his workspace, and they find that his

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Speaker 1: computer keyboard also tests positive for anthrax. This was only

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Speaker 1: the first confirmed death overall so far as we know today.

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Speaker 1: In the anthrax attacks of two thousand and one left

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Speaker 1: seventeen people infected and five people died. Five people died

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Speaker 1: from exposure to anthrax. This became a international story, and

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Speaker 1: the problem with some of these international stories is that

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Speaker 1: for one reason or another, copycats come into play. That's right, Um,

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Speaker 1: there was another copycat crime that occurred when someone else

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Speaker 1: mailed fake anthrax in the form of just a harmless

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Speaker 1: white powder possibly baby powder or something like that, to

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Speaker 1: the New York Times newsroom, and it was opened by

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Speaker 1: a reporter named Judith Miller. Um. And and it really

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Speaker 1: just goes to show, because of what you said, Ben,

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Speaker 1: that this truly, uh just was a massive story because

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Speaker 1: it was in the wake of nine eleven where people

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Speaker 1: were just so on edge already and just really believing

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Speaker 1: that terrorism was coming at us from all directions, and

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Speaker 1: the close proximity to that attack on on the World

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Speaker 1: Trade Center buildings really got people freaked out, and the

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Speaker 1: FBI acted accordingly, launching what they referred to as one

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Speaker 1: of the largest and most complex investigations in the history

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Speaker 1: of law enforcement and involved multiple agencies and thousands of

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Speaker 1: hours of investigative time. So what did they find. Well,

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Speaker 1: we have to remember, as you said, that this occurred

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Speaker 1: right after nine eleven. It is impossible to convey just

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Speaker 1: how um alert, how tense, how crisis ready government agencies were.

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Speaker 1: You have to remember, folks, that war was in the

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Speaker 1: air way before the anthrax. It was already floating around

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Speaker 1: it's and war is its own sort of infectious weapon, right,

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Speaker 1: its own sort of disease. The FBI scrambled and assembled

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Speaker 1: what I think is a terribly named task force, the

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Speaker 1: Amerithrax Task Force. We didn't write that. They wrote that

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Speaker 1: it just does not really roll right off the tug,

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Speaker 1: does it? But you know, name aside, it was a

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Speaker 1: serious business. Roughly twenty five to thirty full time investigators

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Speaker 1: from the FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service and

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Speaker 1: multiple other law enforcement agencies, as well as federal prosecutors

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Speaker 1: from the District of Columbia and the Justice Department Counter

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Speaker 1: Terrorism Section UM and as we said before, thousands of

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Speaker 1: investigator work hours were involved that lead to ten thousand

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Speaker 1: witness interviews on six different continents. Execution of eighty search

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Speaker 1: warrants in the recovery of more than six thousand items

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Speaker 1: of potential evidence during this investigation. And you heard that right,

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Speaker 1: six different continents. So that means that the Amerithrax Task

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Speaker 1: Force literally asked people everywhere except for Antarctica. Somehow the

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Speaker 1: folks in Antarctica slipped under the radar. This this case

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Speaker 1: also ended up issuing more than five thousand, seven hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty subpoenas for grand juries. They collected five thousand,

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and thirty environmental samples from sixty different places

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Speaker 1: they were on the search. This this investigation, in addition

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Speaker 1: to being very expensive, was very thorough. Here's what Here's

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Speaker 1: what they found. Here's how it shakes out. So FBI

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Speaker 1: agents trace the first wave of letters to a single postmark.

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Speaker 1: It's a These letters came from Trenton, New Jersey, and

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Speaker 1: that's the first five letters. They had a theme of sorts.

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Speaker 1: You know, the letters weren't blank. When people opened the envelope,

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Speaker 1: there was something written in there. And we've got we've

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Speaker 1: got the text of these. Um let's let's maybe start

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Speaker 1: with the letters sent to New York Post in NBC

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Speaker 1: absolutely and and By the way, if you want, you

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Speaker 1: can look up images of these. They've been cataloged and

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Speaker 1: photographed and you can see them. They're all handwritten in

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Speaker 1: kind of a weird childish script. It's very Serial Killer esque, honestly,

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Speaker 1: the way the way they appear. Uh. And and the

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Speaker 1: notes really lean into that even further. Um So, the

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Speaker 1: one set to the New York Post in the NBC

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Speaker 1: News had this note nine eleven oh one. Uh, this

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Speaker 1: is next. Take penicillin now cool. Pro tip death to America,

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Speaker 1: death to Israel Allah is great. Okay, it seems to

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Speaker 1: have escalated there to a little different place. But I

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Speaker 1: appreciate the the advice about taking penicillin, and I think

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Speaker 1: that's actually really helpful. You know, they also misspelled penicillin,

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Speaker 1: by the way, it's true. But also by the way,

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Speaker 1: um you know, people think of anthrax and they think, like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, your mind immediately goes to some sort

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Speaker 1: of face melting you know, bio terror product, and it

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Speaker 1: really just sickens you and it can make you nauseous,

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Speaker 1: and it's the respiratory thing that can obviously kill you

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Speaker 1: in the same way that COVID nineteen can. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it can escalate much more quickly. But it is treatable

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Speaker 1: with regular antibiotics. You know, it's not a death sentence

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Speaker 1: always it's caught in enough time. Um. So it's not

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Speaker 1: some kind of magical thing. It literally is just a

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Speaker 1: disease that can be treated with the antibiotics. And we

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Speaker 1: should know instantly. Uh. You know, the FBI investigators had

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Speaker 1: to had to say, well, is this a person writing

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Speaker 1: um English as a second language, you know, or the

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Speaker 1: E s L. Is that why Penicillan's misspelled? And of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, there was a lot of anti Muslim sentiment

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Speaker 1: at the time. The letters sent to Senators Dashel and

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Speaker 1: Leahy said said very similar things. They said, you cannot

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Speaker 1: stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now, are

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Speaker 1: you afraid? Death to America, death to Israel? Allah is great.

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Speaker 1: So clearly they're coming from the same source, just based

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Speaker 1: on the language there. Uh. You know, it is very

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Speaker 1: difficult to describe the level of panic that occurs here.

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Speaker 1: We have to remember this is again a week after

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Speaker 1: the largest attack on American soil in recent US history. Yeah, so,

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the first go to is to investigate

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Speaker 1: al Qaeda. UM. The White House pressured then FBI Director

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Speaker 1: Robert Mueller to establish the letters were a second wave

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Speaker 1: of attacks relating to nine eleven. And it's always tough

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Speaker 1: when you know, the brass kind of tells you what

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Speaker 1: results to get, you know what I mean, because the

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Speaker 1: question is like, you know, sure we can read these

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Speaker 1: and say, okay, is it an s L situation or

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Speaker 1: is it someone trying to write in that voice as

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Speaker 1: to create that effect, you know what I mean, to

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Speaker 1: maybe cause that kind of panic. Um. So, yeah, obviously

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Speaker 1: that didn't pan out, This this notion that this was

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Speaker 1: in fact the second wave, but that was what everyone thought.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was just the first place your mind

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Speaker 1: would go. Hence the hysteria that was just you know,

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Speaker 1: in the air in our country at that time. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Muller was definitely under pressure. But you know what,

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Speaker 1: from from his estimation, the facts just weren't there. There

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Speaker 1: wasn't There was one potential link one of the nine

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Speaker 1: eleven terrorists was exposed to anthrax at some point, but

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Speaker 1: that was that was pretty much all they could find.

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Speaker 1: The initial actual suspects of the investigation ended up all

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Speaker 1: being domestic US residents. There were probably about a hundred

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Speaker 1: people or so who would have to know how, Uh,

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Speaker 1: just to know how alone, just the expertise, not even

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Speaker 1: the motivation of the opportunity. The FBI first turned to

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Speaker 1: a man named Stephen J. Hat Phil Dr. Hatfill is

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Speaker 1: alive today. He is a pathologist, he's a bioweapons expert,

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Speaker 1: and the FBI ruined his life. Yeah, for all intents

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Speaker 1: and purposes. In mid two thousand two, the FBI served

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Speaker 1: him with a search warrant of his home wearing hazmat suits, uh,

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Speaker 1: investigating whether he was, in fact this anthrax killer, as

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Speaker 1: as was dubbed in the media at the time. Um,

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Speaker 1: he was at that point considered a major person of interest.

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Speaker 1: His phone was tapped, he got fired from his job

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Speaker 1: at Science Applications International Corporation. UM. Yeah, like you said, Ben,

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Speaker 1: I mean this really, you know, in the terms of

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Speaker 1: the court of public opinion and just his other associations professionally,

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Speaker 1: this absolutely railroaded him. Um. He did ultimately get exonerated. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He was very very public exoneration. UM. There's a great

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Speaker 1: clip of him where he says, you know, now I

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Speaker 1: can look my fellow amer Kins in the eye and

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Speaker 1: say unequivocally I am not the anthrax killer, you know.

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Speaker 1: And uh, he he definitely got some money where his

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Speaker 1: mouth was, in the form of five point eight million

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Speaker 1: from the Justice Department. Uh, and in two other undisclosed

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Speaker 1: settlements from some of these other agencies that were involved. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It was very clear that they were acting on spurious

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Speaker 1: uh evidence at best, and and made really jump the

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Speaker 1: gun on nailing this guy in the way they did. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I like they bring up the court of public opinion.

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Speaker 1: One of those groups that reached an undisclosed settlement with

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Speaker 1: him was Conde Nast. It's a huge player in the media.

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Speaker 1: They owned Reddit, for instance, so so Hafel. Luckily, if

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Speaker 1: you're listening, Dr Hatfield, we are glad that you were

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Speaker 1: able to be exonerated for a crime that you clearly

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Speaker 1: did not commit. But it's tough to recover from that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. And he was ultimately found innocent of

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Speaker 1: this crime. The primary conclusion of the FBI, the official story,

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Speaker 1: is this. They concluded that a scientist named Bruce Ivan's

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Speaker 1: acting alone was the source of the entirety of the

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Speaker 1: anthrax attacks, and he has if you're a if you're

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Speaker 1: a profiler, he has all of the right red flags

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Speaker 1: in all of the right places. He worked directly with

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Speaker 1: antax He was one of those people that we mentioned

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Speaker 1: at the top of the show who develops vaccines. So

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Speaker 1: he was working with anthrax um officially to develop vaccines

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Speaker 1: in case, uh, some other government had a weaponized strain

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Speaker 1: that they deployed in the US or in a battlefield.

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Speaker 1: And Ben wasn't he even involved in the investigation to

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Speaker 1: a degree? Yeah, he volunteered, right, He volunteered to test samples.

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Speaker 1: He sent samples from his own lab. He was around

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Speaker 1: fifty five years old when the anthrax attacks occurred. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He said, you know, I will help you determine the

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Speaker 1: origin of the powder. Because everybody in the scientific community,

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Speaker 1: everybody in the FBI, they knew only a few people

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Speaker 1: in the world would even understand the science evolved here.

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Speaker 1: So remember that part for later, folks. This guy volunteered

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Speaker 1: to help the FBI determine the origin of the powder.

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Speaker 1: And let's not forget how much pressure the FBI was under,

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Speaker 1: especially since this public exoneration and having that egg on

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Speaker 1: their face from wasting all those millions of dollars and

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Speaker 1: thousands of hours, you know, focusing on the wrong purp

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Speaker 1: um dr Ivan's was literally right under their noses. I

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Speaker 1: mean he was working, you know, in their labs essentially.

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Speaker 1: I mean he was an agent of the government. Um

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Speaker 1: and he you know, it was kind of a goofball.

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Speaker 1: He he was, he was he was sort of a

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Speaker 1: kook really like he was described as being a bit

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Speaker 1: arrogant um and and something of a flamboyant figure. And uh,

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Speaker 1: you know that that was a term that was thrown around.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if there if that's meant to be

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Speaker 1: a pejorative or just that he was kind of a

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Speaker 1: little bit of cookie. That's kind of the vibe that

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Speaker 1: I got, but not necessarily a red flag in terms

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Speaker 1: that he seemed like some kind of sociopath. He would

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Speaker 1: send these like chipper emails with bad dad jokes, which

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Speaker 1: I can get behind, um as he talked through the

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Speaker 1: dangers of of anthrax. But he was uh by some

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Speaker 1: seene as being a bit disturbed. Yes that's correct, behind

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Speaker 1: those puns, behind those cheerful exclamation marks and tangents in

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Speaker 1: his emails which the FBI obtained. Of course, he had

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Speaker 1: a lot of trauma. His therapists said that he had

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Speaker 1: a traumatic childhood and was described as disturbing, and he himself,

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Speaker 1: as an adult, seemed to be disturbed. He was a

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Speaker 1: married man, but back in nineteen seventy six he was

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Speaker 1: jilted by a fellow grad student who would go on

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Speaker 1: to be a colleague in this field, a doctor, Nancy Haywood.

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Speaker 1: And since he was jilted again back in nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 1: he had apparently become obsessed with her old sorority Kappa

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Speaker 1: Kappa Gamma, and sororities in general. One of Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he would sit outside of sorority houses, just sit in

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Speaker 1: this car and he would, um, you know what, he

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Speaker 1: met a colleague who was affiliated with a sorority, he

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Speaker 1: would instantly start, I don't know, like pressuring them, cracking down.

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Speaker 1: He he got weird with it. Yeah, but there's also

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Speaker 1: part of me that like, is he just socially awkward

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Speaker 1: and maybe a bit on the spectrum, or is this

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Speaker 1: stalkery kind of ape behavior in saying what's your secret password?

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Speaker 1: What's your secret handshake? Um, it seems kind of like

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Speaker 1: a goofball way of flirting, like saying, ha ha, what's

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Speaker 1: your secret handshake? You know what I mean? As opposed

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Speaker 1: to something genuinely creepy. But he was described as as

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Speaker 1: having an interest intellectually in secret things. Yeah he uh

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Speaker 1: this this recollection comes from one of his former bosses,

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Speaker 1: Dr Priscilla Weirrick. She had a she was in a

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Speaker 1: sorority in college chi Omega, and she said that he

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Speaker 1: was doing exactly what you described, nol. He was always saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, what's your what's your secret password, what's your

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Speaker 1: secret handshake? So she thought that he was just maybe,

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Speaker 1: as you said, a guy was a little bit off,

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Speaker 1: brilliant but a little bit awkward, who was really interested

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Speaker 1: in secret things. The person we mentioned earlier, Dr Nancy Haywood,

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Speaker 1: is the person who actually brought Dr Bruce Ivans to

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Speaker 1: the attention of the FBI. So what was their official conclusion.

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Speaker 1: We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor and

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Speaker 1: we're back. So so, Noel, officially, there's no reason for

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Speaker 1: us to look into this for stuff they don't want

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Speaker 1: you to know, because the FBI has an official conclusion. Right,

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Speaker 1: Nothing I trust more than an official FBI conclusion. Ben,

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Speaker 1: Let me tell you so, Yeah, it's true. Today, the

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Speaker 1: FBI's official position is that Dr Bruce Ivan's was a

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Speaker 1: lone wolf um acted without any influence outside of his

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Speaker 1: own troubled mind, and that he executed these anthrax attacks alone.

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Speaker 1: And there's some things that check out here. He had

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Speaker 1: the know how, he had the access. Uh, he had

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Speaker 1: the opportunity to do these things. But he never confessed.

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Speaker 1: And to boot he's not in prison. Uh. Dr Bruce

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Speaker 1: Ivans took his own life. He was discovered on July

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Speaker 1: unconscious in his home and taken to the hospital. He

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Speaker 1: had overdosed apparently on um thailand all three, I think

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Speaker 1: is what it's called. It's a combination of thailand all

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Speaker 1: encoding that you'd get for a toothache or a minor surgery,

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Speaker 1: but taken in large doses. Actually the tail and all

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Speaker 1: that kills you. Yeah, yep. He died at Frederick Memorial

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Speaker 1: Hospital on July twenty nine, two thousand and eight. The

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Speaker 1: FBI had found their bad guy. They would never have

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Speaker 1: to investigate further. They they established, to their you know,

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Speaker 1: to their satisfaction, the timeline. They established that he did,

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Speaker 1: as you said, have the expertise. Uh. They established that

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Speaker 1: he did have the opportunity do what A note, by

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Speaker 1: the way, there was no official autopsy, there's not one.

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Speaker 1: There's not one on the record, because again there's this

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Speaker 1: pressure we got to close the case. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: it's something that's very familiar to fans of shows like

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Speaker 1: The Wire. The FBI, UH found their guy, but their

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Speaker 1: guy didn't have a day in court. No, with Ivan's dead,

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Speaker 1: the FBI would never have to prove their case to

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Speaker 1: a jury. And we're gonna get into, you know, what

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Speaker 1: their case was as as we progress with this episode.

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Speaker 1: But what if, Ben, what if the official story kind

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Speaker 1: of peters out in oh eight? What if another story

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Speaker 1: begins UM, because the case against Bruce Ivans isn't nearly

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Speaker 1: as ironclad as the news media and the press conferences

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Speaker 1: and briefings from the FBI would have had UM viewers

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Speaker 1: and citizens of the United States believe, you see, one

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Speaker 1: thing that was missing from the FBI's case, one of

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Speaker 1: several things was a real motive. There wasn't one established.

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Speaker 1: And this means that in the almost a decade between

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Speaker 1: when these attacks occurred and when this podcast publishes, theories

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Speaker 1: have proliferated. Speculation thrives even now about what actually happened.

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Speaker 1: The big question, the big what if here is what

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Speaker 1: if after millions of dollars and thousands of hours, the

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Speaker 1: FBI nailed the wrong man. Here's where it gets crazy. No,

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Speaker 1: let's like what motivation? Right? I love that you pointed

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Speaker 1: out the flamboyant thing, but the FBI didn't ever have

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Speaker 1: like a clear discernible reason. Yeah. And another thing we

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Speaker 1: we know from like murder shows is you know, some

425
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: murders don't have to have a motive. It's not like

426
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: a requirement. But with such an analytical guy like this

427
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 1: and such a pointed, targeted attack, a motive. I would

428
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: like to hear a little bit more about a motive,

429
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, I mean, these were

430
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 1: very specific individuals, politicians, news outlets that these letters were

431
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: sent to um seemingly for what you know, we really

432
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: just don't have it. The guy just crack And if so,

433
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: why such a specific, targeted and pointed attack. Again, we're

434
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: not owed a motive. It's not a necessity to you know,

435
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: convict somebody of a crime. The possible motivations, like the

436
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: idea that emailed anthrax to NBC is a way of

437
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: punishing them for UH. Journalist Gary Matsumoto's work on his

438
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: lab that fell apart because Matsumoto worked at ABC not NBC. Um,

439
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: and he had written some not very flattering stories about

440
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: some of some of Ivan's research spend. Isn't that right? Yeah, yeah,

441
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: that's correct. He did. Uh, he did an investigation into

442
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: the actual lab that Dr Bruce Ivans was working at.

443
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 1: But again he worked for ABC not NBC, so that

444
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: that motivation doesn't add up because if Ivan's did this,

445
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: he would have at least been aware of which news

446
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,959
Speaker 1: organization this journalist was working for at the time. Additionally,

447
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: Dr Ivan's passed a Lie detector test a polygraph polygraphs

448
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: we should mention here. Um, I get a brain stuff

449
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:44,160
Speaker 1: episode about this. I think they're not scientifically sound, but

450
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: it is rare for a guilty person to pass Lie

451
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: detector test usually unless you know a few handy tricks here.

452
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: They are really quick. Not saying that you should ever

453
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 1: lie on a poly raff but if you want to

454
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: pass a polygraph test, again, because they are not scientifically sound,

455
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: you can employ any number of tricks, including doing some

456
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 1: things to mess with your own body temperature such as meditation, etcetera.

457
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: You can. Uh, this is is fairly explicit, but back

458
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: in the day people used to just really flex their

459
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: ke gold muscle for an extended amount of time. That'll

460
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: do it. You can put thumb tacks in your palm

461
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: or in your shoe, of course. Uh, there there are

462
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: a number of ways to invalidate it, because it's all

463
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: about sort of messing with that base level, that baseline, right, um,

464
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: And then you know, because what's the polygraph of not

465
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: just kind of a slightly you know, more complex like

466
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: stress tests. So if you can establish a baseline using

467
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: that thumb tack in your palm, that's you know, sort

468
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: of an elevated baseline, then everything else is going to

469
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: kind of you know, be affected by that absolutely. And

470
00:31:55,080 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: and we also know that during the investigation, even right

471
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: after the conclusion of the investigation and right after it

472
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: was re examined first in two thousand eight, then in

473
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, a lot of people, people in power,

474
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: some like victims of these attacks, did not believe the

475
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: FBI's conclusion. They thought it didn't add up. Yeah. Even

476
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: Senator Patrick Leahy, who you'll remember was the target of

477
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: one of the attacks, testify that he did not believe

478
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: that Ivan's acted alone, though Senator Dashel, who was the

479
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: other political target, did did not agree with that assessment.

480
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: So in two thousand eight, FBI Director Robert Mueller, you know, figured, Okay,

481
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 1: if there's doubt, you know that's being publicly stated, let's

482
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this. And he called for

483
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: an independent review of the investigation by the National Academy

484
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: of Sciences, and that review found that prosecutors had largely

485
00:32:55,600 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: overstated the case in the certainty of their findings. UM.

486
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: Members of that committee said that, uh, there were some

487
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: newly available methods for testing these these samples of of

488
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: anthrax to prove the FBI's case much more definitively UM

489
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: or lead to some other suspects. But UM, they were

490
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: not interested in exploring such such tests. UM. They relied

491
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: on some I believe it was a sort of a

492
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 1: fingerprint to trace it back to what they referred to

493
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: as a flask of anthrax that Ivan's had control over.

494
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: And it's it has a coded UM kind of I

495
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: d that I'm having a hard time finding right now,

496
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: but it's like two letters of dash and three numbers UM.

497
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: And the technique involved tracing these particular mutations UH that

498
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: they could you know, kind of match up with the

499
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: with the actual UH flask that were it originated. And

500
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: apparently they tested more than a thousand samples throughout this

501
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: investigation and only eight of them had tested positive for

502
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 1: four of these mutations found in the germs that were

503
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: sent to Congress and in the news media. So uh,

504
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: there this caused an issue. Even in the early stages

505
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: of the investigation, there was a group of scientists known

506
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: as the Red Team that said the FBI should do

507
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: more basic research into why those mutations might have arisen,

508
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: that it wasn't a foregone conclusion just because the mutations existed,

509
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,920
Speaker 1: that they necessarily were uh you know, traced back to

510
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 1: that original flask um and that this woman named Jennifer Smith,

511
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 1: who is a senior manager at the FBI's lab um.

512
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: She expressed those concerns and didn't feel that the FBI

513
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: had a kind of full understanding of how these mutations

514
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:52,879
Speaker 1: might have arisen and how this would be seen by

515
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 1: a judge, and how it could potentially be thrown out entirely.

516
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: The sciences vital here that specific let's say brand or

517
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 1: type of anthrax flask r m R ten twenty nine. Uh.

518
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:15,800
Speaker 1: The reason we know this is because everything is should

519
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:20,760
Speaker 1: be obsessively documented in the in the field of biohazard

520
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 1: research or bioweapons. Right, if you are working UM in

521
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,720
Speaker 1: in the kind of lab or situation that Dr Ivans

522
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 1: was working in at the time, your interactions with every

523
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: single version of every single contagion has to be documented, right,

524
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,239
Speaker 1: so that we know, looking at the records, we know

525
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: every time the guy was in his lab. We know

526
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 1: that his time in the lab on weekends and nights accelerated. Right,

527
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: He was spending a lot of time there before the

528
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:59,720
Speaker 1: attacks occurred, and we should know everything the guy touched

529
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 1: it even now, even in just just like the experts

530
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, all we find large groups of people,

531
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: including some of the doctor's colleagues and some of his

532
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: professional rivals, who are convinced that this man was innocent.

533
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: And you know, the basis for their belief is not

534
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: that they are in a Bruce Edward Ivan's fan club.

535
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: In fact, one of the reasons that a lot of

536
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 1: people say he's innocent is that they say the attacks

537
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: were too sophisticated for this guy to have figured out himself.

538
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:38,359
Speaker 1: The argument is basically, yes, he had to know how

539
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 1: and the expertise to UM experiment with anthrax and maybe

540
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: even to grow this particular strain, but he had no

541
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: training in the delivery of bio weapons, which I think

542
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: goes right to your earlier point about how botched this

543
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:58,800
Speaker 1: attack was. Yeah, that's true, and that that on honestly

544
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: to me in some way as makes it seem like

545
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: it could have been him, because if it were executed

546
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: by a more you know, savvy group than they maybe

547
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: would have had a better delivery method because you know,

548
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: anthrax is toxic up to the tiniest particles, and like

549
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: we said at the top of the show, you know,

550
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: if dispersed through a ducts of of an office building

551
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 1: could potentially infect thousands of people. Um and as we know,

552
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 1: the fatality count and even just the people that were

553
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 1: sickened by these was relatively quite low, you know, so

554
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: definitely didn't seem like it went as planned. But at

555
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:39,720
Speaker 1: the same time, the spores of anthrax were like Walter

556
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,800
Speaker 1: White breaking bad level, like strong, high quality, uh you

557
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: could you know, call them something along the lines of

558
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:50,800
Speaker 1: weapons grade, which is you know, sort of a vague

559
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: term that doesn't necessarily mean one thing, but it's the

560
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,720
Speaker 1: type basically, the you know, the finest uh anthrax grade

561
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: that can be produced for bio weapons programs in either

562
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 1: the US or somewhere like Russia. I want to I

563
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: want to interject here. Yeah, the reason I think Breaking

564
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,320
Speaker 1: Bad is a great comparison. Uh, this is like the

565
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 1: blue myth level of weaponized anthrax. And there's a there's

566
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: a scary thing here that often gets ignored in this story,

567
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: which is this the sports van tax. Not to get

568
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:24,399
Speaker 1: too far in the weeds. They were only one point

569
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 1: five to three micrometers wide individual spores, and it is

570
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: fine grade. You're correct, it is Walter White level. This

571
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: type of anthrax is smaller than the officially acknowledged or

572
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:44,240
Speaker 1: even open secret level bio weapons created by the US

573
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 1: or by Russia. That should disturb people because that means

574
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 1: that someone somewhere is making something that neither world power

575
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: there acknowledges, which isn't that much of a stretch. We

576
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 1: know that governments hold back technology all the time, you know,

577
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: and keep it for a military use. Uh And and

578
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: they wouldn't necessarily want to broadcast that they have that.

579
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: That's not something that they just like announced, Hey we

580
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: made a scarier version of anthrax. You guys like check

581
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: it out, But no, it's it's it's true. And and

582
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 1: and again when we say fine grade, we literally are

583
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: talking about the particulate size, because that's what allows it

584
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: to be just dispersed, like the wind can pick it

585
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: up like a you know, dandelion down and just carry

586
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 1: it across the land, infecting you know, everything in its

587
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: path potentially, and obviously you have to breathe it in.

588
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 1: But these are you know that they could be you know,

589
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 1: just millions of tiny, tiny, tiny particles in an envelope

590
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: of full of powder, a powdered version of this stuff, right,

591
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: and and you're opening it indoors, and there are a

592
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: lot of people around, so yeah, you know, at the

593
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: risk of sounding cold, it is surprising that only seventeen

594
00:39:55,080 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: people were infected. There's another problem with this official conclusion,

595
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 1: and that's this, uh dr Ivan's colleagues and people familiar

596
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: with the lab can confirm that the lab equipment site

597
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: in the FBI conclusion, the lab equipment that he would

598
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 1: have to have used to create this stuff and to

599
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: disperse it, that lab equipment was not working. He did

600
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: not have the capability to make the spores if he

601
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: were using the equipment in that lab, full stop. It

602
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: was there. Yes, you had to know how, but that

603
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: equipment was broken down at the time, you know what

604
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:47,399
Speaker 1: I mean, you can see how this gets messy so quickly. Yeah,

605
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: you absolutely can. And just again to to clarify, like

606
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: the we're talking about the flask that would be sort

607
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: of like the mother right, Like that's sort of the

608
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: origin material for what he would have used too then

609
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,600
Speaker 1: I guess propagate them or grow them into you know,

610
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: a more usable version of of of anthrax and then

611
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:08,399
Speaker 1: you know, make it into the powder. Um. So yeah,

612
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: that would require a lot of know how and a

613
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 1: lot of very exphisticated equipment. And if it wasn't working

614
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 1: in his lab, what did he like have a secret

615
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: lab like at his house? I mean maybe you know,

616
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 1: who are we to say? But it definitely was highly

617
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 1: unlikely that he made it with its broken down equipment

618
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: at his lab. And numerous government officials and scientists also

619
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: believe that this official story doesn't add up. And and

620
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: there are numerous theories that have kind of circulated in

621
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 1: the years since this, uh, this conclusion about dr ivans,

622
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: And we're gonna get into all of those after a

623
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:55,720
Speaker 1: quick word from our sponsor, and we're back. Yes, the conspiracies,

624
00:41:55,800 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 1: the theories, the speculation thrives and proliferates, and to clear

625
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:05,359
Speaker 1: the people who are proposing these alternative conclusions or these

626
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,839
Speaker 1: problems with the official investigation. They're not what you would

627
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 1: call tinfoil hat people. They include people who were working

628
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: with the FBI and the investigation. They include uh, scientists,

629
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: they include experts and antrax uh and and they have

630
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: a lot of valid concerns here. Dr Ivan's, as I

631
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: believe we said at the top, was only one of

632
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: at least a hundred people who could have worked with

633
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 1: this specific brand of antrax. Of course, r M R

634
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: ten twenty nine um not the sexiest name, but it's

635
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 1: a technical term first superior to r M R ten. God,

636
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: I mean, really it was. It was a good year.

637
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:52,239
Speaker 1: Don't even talk to me about ten. Are you kidding? Ten?

638
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: Come on, that's that's the connois sours choice apparently, But

639
00:42:57,360 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: he was like he was not the only person who

640
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:03,719
Speaker 1: would have touch this. Also, the FBI did not have

641
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:08,359
Speaker 1: a peer review of their conclusions of the scientific end

642
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: of it during their investigation. The science, in short, to

643
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:16,280
Speaker 1: be very clear, the science was not there. Yeah, taking

644
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: it a step further, even a twenty eleven review of

645
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: the investigation was not able to rule out the possibility

646
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 1: that someone or some group other than Ivan's committed the crime.

647
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 1: The Government Accountability Office or GAL as I like to

648
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: call it because I'm an acronym junkie, UH found this

649
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,320
Speaker 1: quote the FBI lacked a comprehensive approach or framework that

650
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: could have ensured standardization of the testing process. We jumped

651
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 1: into that a little early when we were talking about

652
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: testing for that mutation or those mutations, and how people

653
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: even within the FBI's lab kind of warned them against,

654
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 1: you know, jumping to conclusions about what could have caused

655
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: those mutations. They could have been something outside of what

656
00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: they were using it as I kind of a foregone

657
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: conclusion and tracing it back. It's sort of like, I

658
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:03,919
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe this is a stretch, and science people

659
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: please debunk the crap out of me, because I'm just

660
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: sort of spitballing here. But it reminds me of the

661
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: way certain ballistics technology have kind of been debunked, where

662
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: you can, you know, say the striations or whatever like

663
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: on a particular bullet could have only been generated by

664
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: this one gun. And there's a version of that technology

665
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:23,959
Speaker 1: that was in fact debunked, and it caused some people

666
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 1: to be exonerated because they were convicted using that kind

667
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 1: of spurious um conclusion derived from, you know, something that

668
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: could have been caused by other factors. So they go

669
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 1: on to say the Government Accountability Office. As a result,

670
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: each of the contractors developed their tests differently, and one

671
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,319
Speaker 1: contractor did not conduct verification testing, which is a key

672
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 1: step in determining whether a test will meet a user's requirements,

673
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:54,919
Speaker 1: such as for sensitivity or accuracy. Broken test sounds familiar, unfortunately,

674
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: and these are days of pandemic. So if there are

675
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:02,520
Speaker 1: problems with the f eyes official investigation, does that mean

676
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:06,800
Speaker 1: there are problems with the FBI's official conclusion. The answer

677
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 1: there logically is yes. So now we have to ask

678
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 1: what actually happened, and that means that we have to

679
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: look at the conspiracies there. There's what you know, that's

680
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 1: that's pretty interesting because a lot of people don't know this.

681
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 1: But before Vice President Mike Pence was uh in office

682
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 1: in the US, he was also he had a different

683
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,839
Speaker 1: career as a prominent radio host and then he moved

684
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: into politics. He had some stuff to say about this investigation. Right, yeah,

685
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,480
Speaker 1: he did. He kind of just made some sort of

686
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: shot in the dark kind of claims. Um released some statements, uh,

687
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: saying some pretty interesting things about this substance. Um. He

688
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: essentially said, quote in a statement, Um, the material found

689
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,840
Speaker 1: in my office and in others in Capital Hill was

690
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:05,440
Speaker 1: finally milled weapons grade anthrax that had been this is

691
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:10,959
Speaker 1: the key part genetically modified to increase it's virulence. Huh

692
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: what does that mean, ben, genetically modified? I mean, it's

693
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 1: it's the same, it's the same thing, right, He's he's

694
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: arguing that this was weaponized. And again we have to

695
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:28,880
Speaker 1: remember that this this stuff was officially better than anything

696
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: the US or Russia or China could make. Uh, he

697
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,880
Speaker 1: was I think at that point he was in a

698
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 1: he was a representative, right, he was a congressional representative

699
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: before he became governor of Indiana, before he became vice president.

700
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: That's right. And and you know, I mean it's he's

701
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: the notion that it was quote unquote weapons grade obviously

702
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: is is true to a degree, though the term is

703
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 1: a little bit dubious in terms of like how it's used.

704
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 1: The idea of weapons grade there isn't really a standard

705
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: as to what constitutes weapons. Great Anthrax of the l

706
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 1: A Times reported in an article by David Willman from

707
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: July six, UM And they spoke to UM a researcher

708
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 1: at Johns Hopkins University named Steven L. Salzburg, who was

709
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: actually part of the first team to check out the

710
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: material for the U. S. Government, And he said, that's

711
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: just wrong. That's simply wrong. And we knew at the

712
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: time that it was wrong. Uh. He's speaking, of course,

713
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: of of Pence's claims UM. And then Pence even kind

714
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 1: of doubled down further and said something to the effect of, oh,

715
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 1: it was coded with a chemical of some kind. Like

716
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: he definitely added some more uh fuel to this fire

717
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: in saying UM. In a two thousand two letter to Ashcroft,

718
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 1: the Attorney General, Um that the spores had been quote

719
00:47:55,960 --> 00:48:00,080
Speaker 1: coated with a chemical UM and that had also and

720
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:04,319
Speaker 1: disproven by scientists at the SANDA National Laboratory in New

721
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: Mexico a few months before. He told Ashcroft that that's right,

722
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: and I'm I don't know, I'm fascinated by this idea

723
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 1: of it being genetically modified. UM. And it's interesting too

724
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:20,759
Speaker 1: because Colin Powell, who is a Secretary of State. He

725
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 1: used this, as you know, we know was a thing,

726
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of weapons of mass destruction. He

727
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,360
Speaker 1: used this as another call to kind of go to

728
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: war with Iraq, um to support military action against Iraq

729
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: that you know, tying this these anthrax attacks. Uh, and

730
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: as as we did nine eleven, which we now know

731
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:44,239
Speaker 1: really wasn't the case at all, and we used that

732
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: as an excuse to go to war with Iraq, and

733
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: that sort of got us embroiled in the Middle East

734
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:50,840
Speaker 1: in the way that we're still kind of dealing with today.

735
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: Still friends with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Though you

736
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 1: want to kill some journalists you wanted to Uh, you

737
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: want to support some terrorists, that's fine. We'll see how

738
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:04,360
Speaker 1: old prices affect that geopolitical relationship. But that's a story

739
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: for another day. You're right, Uh, you know, people immediately

740
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 1: tied this to terrorism. Death to America, death to Israel

741
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 1: is great, so on. Uh. We also have to remember

742
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: that at this time, millions of innocent Americans are being

743
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: vilified in the media for their religious beliefs. Right. It's

744
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: as dumb and disgusting as any other sort of prejudice. Um.

745
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 1: So when we're when we're talking about the belief of

746
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 1: terrorism or something, you know, the the idea that religiously

747
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 1: motivated terrorists might have perpetrated the anthrax attacks. We're specifically

748
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: talking about Al Qaeda. We're not talking about some general,

749
00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 1: amorphous thing. We're talking about a real, concrete, discrete, uh,

750
00:49:56,080 --> 00:50:01,319
Speaker 1: existing organization that did have a track record, a rap

751
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 1: sheet of committing terroristacks. Absolutely, and let's also remember that

752
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 1: this was used as kind of, you know, a media device.

753
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: Powell held a press conference where he had a vial

754
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: of white powder in his hand, a small amount, and

755
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: he said that a teaspoons size quantity of anthrax um

756
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 1: in one of the letters had you know, driven Washington

757
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: into a state of chaos, killed and killed two postal

758
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:35,399
Speaker 1: workers um. And he suggested very pointedly that Irraq had

759
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:40,359
Speaker 1: stockpiled enough anthrax to quote Phil tens upon tens upon

760
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of teaspoons. So, I mean, he's definitely

761
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:49,200
Speaker 1: trying to stir up some this. It's definitely it's a

762
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 1: it's a fearmongering move, is what it is. And maybe

763
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: it's well intentioned, but it seems to me, like, you know,

764
00:50:55,560 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: a pretty callous maneuver. I'm just laughing because I think

765
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:05,439
Speaker 1: that's a fantastic example of the of just how far

766
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 1: we in the United States will go to avoid using

767
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:14,719
Speaker 1: the metric system. It's true, though, he's like, he's like

768
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 1: put it in. A number of people can understand. Tens

769
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: upon tens upon tens upon tens. If each if each

770
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:26,200
Speaker 1: sport of anthrax was the size of an oreo, and

771
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: you stack them on top of each other, they could

772
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 1: reach you know whatever. Uh, as long as we don't

773
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:34,279
Speaker 1: use the metric system. That's one of the that's one

774
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: of the big rules. But but there's another conspiracy here,

775
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 1: the idea that uh that the idea that the threat

776
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: came closer to home, the idea that this was a

777
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 1: false front, or that some faction of the U. S

778
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:53,880
Speaker 1: Government actually planned this attack. You can imagine that for

779
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 1: the people who believe nine eleven itself was a false flag,

780
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 1: the anthrax attacks two thousand and one, we're just another

781
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:05,760
Speaker 1: planned event or another sequence and a larger plan, another

782
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: inside job. You know. This school of thought frames those

783
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:12,759
Speaker 1: attacks as a plan B, a backup measure just in

784
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: case nine eleven was not uh, not enough of a

785
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:21,000
Speaker 1: push to make the public and the government move forward

786
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 1: with certain actions. Then this, this sort of the equivalent

787
00:52:25,880 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: of a double tap, would ensure that the public moved

788
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:35,440
Speaker 1: in the direction that these powers, whoever they are, wanted.

789
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:42,840
Speaker 1: You know, It's it's strange because there's something comforting this

790
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:46,040
Speaker 1: this weird walk with me, or there's something comforting about

791
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 1: the idea that there is a grand design, you know

792
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: what I mean, the idea that there that the same

793
00:52:53,840 --> 00:53:00,040
Speaker 1: people who cannot get their stuff together on any of

794
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:05,359
Speaker 1: in Tuesday are somehow also capable of this Rube Goldberg

795
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 1: esque control of the past, the future, and the present.

796
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. I I feel like

797
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 1: the idea that they're super villainy at work and a

798
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 1: grand conspiracy is much work comforting than the other side

799
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: of the coin, which is that it's just chaos, right

800
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 1: right that that maybe there's another conspiracy theory, is that

801
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: the FBI is covering up for governmental incompetence, Like what

802
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,839
Speaker 1: what about that political pressure? Like what what if they

803
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 1: just you know what if they had people breathing down

804
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: their next saying clothes this case. Now, find me a

805
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 1: person who's the creepiest guy that we know has touched anthrax.

806
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 1: This is the lowest hanging fruit possibility of them all.

807
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes the most sense. You know, you

808
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:56,959
Speaker 1: want to say face. You want to get the job done,

809
00:53:57,200 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: even if it means putting away the wrong guy. You know,

810
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 1: maybe they even had a hand in his suicide. You know,

811
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 1: crazier things have been reported, you know, in terms of

812
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 1: the government's involvement and assassinating folks and you know, trying

813
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:13,440
Speaker 1: to cover that up. You know. So I just I

814
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: have no problem believing this, and I find the false

815
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:20,319
Speaker 1: flag narrative to be just such a go to kind

816
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: of loony tunes one. Like people are saying that about

817
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 1: the COVID situation right now, that like it's fault like

818
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:27,520
Speaker 1: you know, some people that don't believe that it's real,

819
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: Like I equate it to like Holocaust denial or something.

820
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 1: It's like, dude, there's bodies piling up, they're making like

821
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: you know, ice skating rinks in New York and to

822
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:39,359
Speaker 1: make shift morgues like it's real, you know, like move on, Yeah,

823
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 1: I would say, you know what to that point, the

824
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: US government is such a byzantine, complicated, maze like structure

825
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:53,720
Speaker 1: with so many people involved in so many groups involved.

826
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:58,959
Speaker 1: That it is completely possible for factions of the US

827
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: government to do things that the you know, the other

828
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: groups in the government don't know about or would object to.

829
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: Like the c i A is the go to example there.

830
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 1: They they're doing all sorts of dirty stuff, and there

831
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:14,640
Speaker 1: are people who are supposed to have oversight of that

832
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 1: organization and they have no idea what's going on. You know,

833
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:21,439
Speaker 1: they're in the dark. Uh. And the FBI has done

834
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:25,840
Speaker 1: some some very filthy things too in the past, so

835
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:28,920
Speaker 1: I I can see where this is coming from. At

836
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 1: this point, there is no conclusive proof that anyone affiliated

837
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: with the government in a law enforcement capacity conspired to

838
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: mail anthrax to people. But the problem remains. This is

839
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:48,839
Speaker 1: the biggest problem here. The science, the science upon which

840
00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: the FBI's conclusion depends is not itself sound. Regardless of

841
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 1: whether you think the FBI found their culprit or whether

842
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: you you know, what, if you think that some government

843
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: agents actually conducted this attack, or if you think that

844
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 1: political pressure rushed the investigation, there's one thing for sure,

845
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:14,320
Speaker 1: and that is numerous experts, not just dr Ivan's colleagues,

846
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: agree the FBI has never conclusively proven dr Ivan's was

847
00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: on the man behind the mail and all that lab work,

848
00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:29,759
Speaker 1: that that is what the case hinges on, and it's

849
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 1: not it's not solid. There's a really fantastic series on

850
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:36,759
Speaker 1: pro Publica, one of which is was FBI science good

851
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:40,839
Speaker 1: enough to I D Anthrax Killer? Um? And we talked

852
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 1: about this a little bit earlier, but just to hit

853
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:47,800
Speaker 1: home again, UM, to quote the article, investigators had invented

854
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:50,320
Speaker 1: a new form of genetic fingerprinting for the case, testing

855
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:54,240
Speaker 1: anthrax collected from US and foreign labs from mutations detected

856
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: in the attack powder. Out of more than a thousand samples,

857
00:56:57,520 --> 00:57:00,920
Speaker 1: only eight tested positive for four mutations found in the

858
00:57:01,000 --> 00:57:04,040
Speaker 1: deadly germs sent to Congress in the news media. UM.

859
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 1: Even so, the outside scientists, quote known as the Red team, uh,

860
00:57:09,040 --> 00:57:11,120
Speaker 1: just saying this is a quote, urged the FBI to

861
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:13,880
Speaker 1: do more basic research into how and when the mutations arose,

862
00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:17,760
Speaker 1: to make sure the tests were sound and the results unchallengeable.

863
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 1: And they didn't do that. So you know, Uh, this

864
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: review UM showed the FBI definitely overstated its case and

865
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: possibly would not have gotten a conviction. In fact, seems

866
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 1: to me quite likely would none have gotten a conviction

867
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 1: UM against Ivan's because they based their uh conclusions on

868
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: some pretty shaky science. And what does Dr Ivans think.

869
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:49,280
Speaker 1: We'll never know because again, he died of an overdose

870
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:51,800
Speaker 1: of tyler All codeine or as he said, an old

871
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: tailer all three that was ruled a probable suicide. So

872
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 1: he never got his day in court. Uh And technically

873
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:04,560
Speaker 1: in this country, uh, days in court are you know,

874
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 1: they're a thing. They're a tradition that we like to

875
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: say we practice, but you know what I mean, it's

876
00:58:11,520 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: a formality. At times it seems really just kind of

877
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 1: like a smoke screen of Hey, look, justice is being

878
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 1: carried out, you know, but it quite often is not.

879
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 1: You know, there there is that court of public opinion.

880
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: Um and and this is really all Dr Ivan's truly

881
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 1: got tried in um and he was pilloried and he

882
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,800
Speaker 1: um you know, lost his life because of it. And

883
00:58:34,160 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 1: you know, he may have been a weirdo and he

884
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:38,600
Speaker 1: may have had a hand in this, but I don't

885
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 1: buy that he was acting alone, if he had anything

886
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:45,720
Speaker 1: to do with it at all. Yeah, yeah, that's the issue.

887
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 1: Let's you know, there's one person that we should introduce

888
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: here at the towards the end of this episode, and

889
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:58,680
Speaker 1: that is Claire Fraser Liggett. She was a pivotal member

890
00:58:59,080 --> 00:59:01,880
Speaker 1: of the amerathra X. I can't believe that's the real name,

891
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:06,480
Speaker 1: the Amorial Trax investigation. Uh. She was a genetic consultant

892
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: working with the FBI, one of those people who helped

893
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:14,800
Speaker 1: nail down the specific type of anthrax. Let's let's give

894
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:18,120
Speaker 1: the last word to her again. This is an expert.

895
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 1: This is one of the protagonists, right, This is a

896
00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:25,760
Speaker 1: person who is attempting to solve this case. And she says, quote,

897
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 1: this was not an airtight case by any means. You know.

898
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 1: I think that for an awful lot of people, there

899
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 1: is a desire to really want to say that, yes,

900
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:38,440
Speaker 1: Ivan's was the perpetrator, this case can reasonably be closed

901
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:40,840
Speaker 1: and we can put this tragic chapter in US history

902
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:44,480
Speaker 1: behind us. But I think part of what's driving that

903
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 1: is the fact that if he wasn't the perpetrator, then

904
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:51,560
Speaker 1: it means that person is still out there. So if

905
00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:55,760
Speaker 1: not Bruce Ivans, then who That's the question we leave

906
00:59:55,800 --> 00:59:58,400
Speaker 1: you with today, Um, what what do you think? Please

907
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:01,040
Speaker 1: let us know. You can write to us in the

908
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:04,160
Speaker 1: usual usual places, the social media's or where some form

909
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 1: of conspiracy stuff or conspiracy Stuff show. You can also

910
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 1: find us as individuals on social media. I am on

911
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: Instagram at how Now Noel Brown, and you can find

912
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:17,320
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Ben Bully hs W. You can

913
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 1: also find me on Instagram in a burst of creativity,

914
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:24,360
Speaker 1: calling myself at Ben Bully. Do you hate social media?

915
01:00:24,640 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 1: Totally get it? Why not leave us a message, give

916
01:00:28,440 --> 01:00:30,600
Speaker 1: us a call. You can reach us at one eight

917
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:35,200
Speaker 1: three three st d w y t K. Feels weird.

918
01:00:35,240 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 1: We're not saying it together, and you know, I miss

919
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: when Matt says this. I hope he likes this episode.

920
01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 1: I do too. I really hope he likes this episode.

921
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 1: And it's a bummer that he isn't here for it,

922
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:45,400
Speaker 1: but I hope we didn't. Proud And speaking of Matt,

923
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:47,919
Speaker 1: if you call that number that we just mentioned even

924
01:00:48,000 --> 01:00:51,400
Speaker 1: now while Matt's on vacation, uh you may well. He

925
01:00:51,520 --> 01:00:54,280
Speaker 1: may give you a call back. No promises, but he's

926
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 1: been known to do it. He's a lovely man and

927
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:58,160
Speaker 1: would love to talk to you. Consider you know, I

928
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 1: wouldn't even say that's a problemise. I would say consider

929
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 1: it a warning. Be careful exactly exactly, so do let

930
01:01:05,280 --> 01:01:07,240
Speaker 1: us know, and while you're at it, let us know

931
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: if there are any other stories of scientists who have

932
01:01:12,880 --> 01:01:16,560
Speaker 1: died under mysterious circumstances. If there's another angle of the

933
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:20,360
Speaker 1: anthrax attacks that you feel like your fellow listeners should

934
01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:23,480
Speaker 1: know about. Uh, you can tell us. As NL said,

935
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 1: on social media. You can also find us on your

936
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:30,360
Speaker 1: your local telephone. UH. And if you say, hey, I

937
01:01:30,480 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: hate phones, Hey I hate social media, but I have

938
01:01:34,080 --> 01:01:37,200
Speaker 1: something you need to know. We are all ears, we're

939
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:41,040
Speaker 1: all eyes. You can reach us seven any day of

940
01:01:41,080 --> 01:01:43,360
Speaker 1: the year, any time of the day at our good

941
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 1: old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at iHeart

942
01:01:46,880 --> 01:02:07,520
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff they don't want you to

943
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 1: know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more

944
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,

945
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.