In his announcement that John Durham is investigating the deaths by torture of two CIA detainee, Eric Holder suggested that John Durham reviewed information that had not been reviewed by the prosecutors who had earlier declined to prosecute the cases. That review included both information and matters that had never previously been examined by the [...]

At 10, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the extension of Robert Mueller’s term at FBI by two more years. You’ll no doubt hear Ranking Member Chuck Grassley make all sorts of complaints about FBI in his wonderful grouchy Iowa voice. You’ll hear Jim Comey recount the dramatic hospital confrontation from 2004. But you’re unlikely [...]

Slightly over a week after McClatchy focused new attention on evidence that Bruce Ivins may not have been able to produce the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks, and just days after Jerrold Nadler called attention to the FBI’s obfuscations about the technical data McClatchy used, the LAT has decided to ignore such technical problems [...]

It seems we’re going to be discussing anthrax in detail again. And in anticipation of those discussions, I wanted to challenge the notion that the circumstantial evidence against Ivins remains strong. The whole case depends on the FBI’s contention that a flask Ivins had–RMR-1029–was “the murder weapon.” But in fact, the FBI only has proof [...]

That’s a very good question, Congressman Nadler: On September 16, 2008, the House Committee on the Judiciary, on which I sit, conducted an oversight hearing of the FBI at which you testified. At that hearing, I asked you the following: “[W]hat was the percentage of weight of the silicon in the powders that your experts [...]

I’ve been reading the National Academy of Sciences Anthrax Report and noted something odd in follow-up to the McClatchy report of the other day describing unexplained tin and silicon in one of the anthrax samples. (Here’s Jim White’s post on the report.) As McClatchy reported, there’s some weird data about silicon and tin in some [...]

Our country apparently has a new standard for justice: innocent until a secret study–headed by a guy who may have had some responsibility for screwing up an earlier investigation and conducted entirely after your death–finds you were psychologically capable of committing a crime. The LAT reports on a just such a report conducted on Bruce [...]

Adam Schiff–a CA Democrat (!)–just filed a bill aiming to not only give prosecutors 4 days to question “terror suspects” before bringing them to court, but also expressing the will of Congress to let them delay Mirandizing suspects “as long as is necessary.” The bill filed Thursday by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) would change federal [...]

Jeff Stein had a piece on the response to the WaPo article on intelligence contracting the other day that started with this question: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long wanted more members of Congress to know what’s going on at the CIA, but why doesn’t she announce a full-fledged investigation into the intelligence contractor mess, [...]

As you all presumably know, I’ve been in the city of sin all week, doing two days of training and then, yesterday, attending some really good panels at Netroots Nation. One highlight of the week for me will surely be my panel Saturday at 1:45 Las Vegas time (4:45 ET). Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Center for [...]