FBI’s genetic tests didn’t nail anthrax killer, GAO says

By Greg Gordon, Mike Wiser and Stephen Engelberg
McClatchy Washington Bureau, PBS’ “Frontline” and ProPublica, December 19, 2014

WASHINGTON — For a second time in three years, an inquiry cast doubt Friday on the FBI’s assertion that genetic testing had cinched its conclusion that a now-dead Army bioweapons researcher mailed anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized the East Coast in 2001.
The long-awaited report from the Government Accountability Office found that the FBI’s exhaustive, cutting-edge attempt to trace the killer with matches of genetic mutations of anthrax samples at times lacked precision, consistency and adequate standards.