Salon Radio: Charles Grassley on the anthrax investigation
(updated below - Update II)

In the interview, Sen. Grassley reveals that the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Pat Leahy (of which Grassley is a member), will now hold hearings to investigate the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins. Grassley demands that the FBI send officials who are able and willing to answer all questions, and also calls for full and complete public disclosure of all of the evidence in the FBI's possession regarding its investigation. I also discuss with Grassley whether the environment created by Congress over the last seven years (first under GOP control and now under Democratic control) -- whereby the Executive has virtually unlimited power and Congress has meekly relinquished its prerogatives -- is to blame for the FBI's stonewalling and refusal to account thus far to Congress for what it has done in the anthrax case.
The interview is roughly 15 minutes, and a transcript will be posted shortly.
UPDATE: Nature, the preeminent journal of science, has an Editorial today (headlined: "Case Not Closed") echoing Sen. Grassley's demand for "a full congressional or independent enquiry into this case"; arguing that "the absence of such a full disclosure can only feed suspicions that the FBI has again targeted an innocent man in this case"; and pointing out -- regarding the FBI's partial, one-sided disclosure of scientific claims earlier this week -- that "neither the conclusions drawn from the scientific analysis, nor such crucial legal elements as the veracity of the provenance and handling of samples, have been tested in court. So far only one side of the story has been heard: that of the prosecution."
UPDATE II: The transcript is here.
Currently in Glenn Greenwald's Blog
- Why do Feinstein and Wyden sound much different on the torture issue now?
- The two Senators spent the year emphatically insisting that the CIA's interrogators comply with the Army Field Manual. With Democrats in control, they're not so emphatic any longer
- Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 13:44 EST
- Nepotistic succession in the political class
- A large, and rapidly growing, percentage of high elected officials are part of politically powerful families. What accounts for this anti-democratic dynamic?
- Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 15:21 EST
- Salon Radio: Cato's Gene Healy on domestic troop deployments
- What is behind the Pentagon's new plan to deploy 20,000 U.S. Army troops inside the U.S., and what are the risks and dangers?
- Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 21:23 EST
- Eric Holder, Jack Quinn and the Rich pardon
- It's premature to criticize Obama for his establishment-soothing appointments. But it's just as premature to heap praise on him for those appointments.
- Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 15:29 EST




