In an article published Wednesday evening on their website, McClatchy points out yet another failing in the FBI’s Amerithrax investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people. The article focuses on the fact that the FBI was able to get a clear genetic fingerprint of a bacterial contaminant that was found in the attack material mailed to the New York Post and to Tom Brokaw (but not to either Senator Daschle or Senator Leahy). This contaminant, Bacillus subtilis, is used in some cases by weapons laboratories as an anthrax simulant, because its behavior in culture and in drying the spores is very similar to Bacillus anthracis but it is easier to handle because it is not pathogenic. I covered the FBI’s failure to link this B. subtilis contaminant to Ivins in this diary in February of 2010.

Both the New York Times and McClatchy report that Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) has written a letter to the FBI, blasting them for requesting a delay in the release of the final report from the National Academy of Sciences panel that has been reviewing the scientific analyses used in the FBI’s Amerithrax Investigation of the 2001 Anthrax mailings. It appears that in requesting the National Academies to delay release of its final report, the FBI has released an additional 500 pages of documents to the panel, but only after having seen the draft final report from the panel.