WASHINGTON — The chief judge of Washington’s federal courthouse today unsealed hundreds of pages of documents in the FBI’s nearly seven-year investigation of anthrax mailings that killed five people.
The move by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth came after consultation with Amy Jeffress, a national security prosecutor at Justice, and as FBI Director Robert Mueller prepared to brief the families of anthrax victims on details of the case.
The documents that Lamberth authorized to be released include at least 14 search warrants aimed at Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins, whom federal investigators were closing in on as he committed suicide last week. The records include the government summaries used to justify the search warrants, the warrants themselves and summaries of what FBI agents seized in each search.
Among other things, the papers are expected to reveal how the FBI narrowed the scope of its investigation to the Fort Detrick scientist.
The evidence that Lamberth authorized to be made public should answer many questions in the bizarre investigation. Still, skeptics may never be satisfied if the documents fail to show conclusively that Ivins was solely responsible for mailing the anthrax letters that killed five and sickened 17.
The judge indicated that it would take until at least midday or early afternoon today to clear the clerical hurdles to a full public release of the documents, which were to be posted on both the Justice Department’s and federal courthouse’s websites.
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