On that day, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold an oversight hearing on the FBI, and Director Robert Mueller III is scheduled to attend.

It is a regularly scheduled oversight hearing, not one called specifically to examine the anthrax investigation, and will likely cover several topics, depending on the interests of the attending senators, said Susan Sullam, a spokeswoman for Sen. Benjamin Cardin, who sits on the committee.

Cardin, a Democrat, likely will attend the hearing, and there is a strong possibility that the anthrax case will be one of the issues the committee asks Mueller about, she said.

Ivins, who spent three decades as a civilian microbiologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, committed suicide July 29, and shortly afterward, media reports revealed that authorities were preparing to charge him in relation to the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people and hospitalized 17 others.

Last week, the Department of Justice released affidavits and search warrants detailing its case against the scientist, though it admitted it had only circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime.

Ivins' coworkers and attorney have maintained that he was innocent.

The DOJ is moving to close its investigation into the anthrax mailings "soon," but could give no specific timeline beyond that, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the department.

He said the department had not determined what additional information from the case it might ask the courts to unseal after the case is closed.

The Army announced last week it was assembling a task force to look into lab security and safety practices at USAMRIID. The Army's public affairs office was unable to provide any information Friday afternoon regarding what progress had been made in setting the task force's membership and outlining its scope.

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