Thread by @JoshRosenau

If indeed the FBI is the only agency willing to tote the lab escape line on the origin of COVID, it's worth reviewing all the ways they screwed up the investigation of the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, and misled the public about that investigation. pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…

I mean, in the naughties, the FBI realized they lacked expertise in microbiological investigations. They turned to the Army’s biowarfare lab for advice. A while later, the exact expert who they first turned to at USAMRIID, was the guy they fingered as the murderer.

First they let op-ed columnists and political pressure manipulate them into blaming another guy, a virologist (!) who ultimately sued and got a $5.6 million settlement out of their harassment and false accusations. (He now touts hydroxychloroquine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Anyway, they tried to concoct new scientific tools to identify the lineage of anthrax used in the attacks. Years later, a review by the National Academy of Sciences found that the technique didn’t work. Empirically, they got inconsistent results from retests of the same samples.

They also failed to standardize how samples were obtained, rendering results unreliable.

So, having barked way up the wrong tree, they wound up focusing on the USAMRIID vaccine scientist they first turned to for guidance. They used selective records from his lab to suggest he worked unusual hours, when a fuller review found he always worked long hours, and…

…and the extra time they claimed he spent couldn’t have been sufficient to accomplish what the FBI claims he did. They also searched his basement and found ladies’ underwear, which somehow was pertinent to his supposed campaign of bioterrorism.

Anyway, they hounded him into committing suicide. Then days later made their allegations public. Reviews by the NAS, GAO, and journalists poked enormous holes in the case. So most likely the FBI spent nearly a decade and maybe billions of dollars, and never solved the case.

Embarrassing!

So what have we learned? The FBI lacks internal expertise on microbiology, and is predisposed to go beyond the data and accuse insiders based on scant and flawed evidence.

So yeah, curious how they came to “moderate” confidence that COVID was a lab escape.