Dark Winter and the 2001 Anthrax Attacks

• 1:29:36Electoral college votes in mid-December, but resolution could come in January or even on inauguration day itself.
• 1:29:51Transition Integrity Project gamed out scenarios in June where there was no president-elect and hinted the military might have to step in.
• 1:30:44John Podesta played Joe Biden in those simulations; organizers included prominent Republicans, defense officials, and Silicon Valley billionaire-funded think tanks.
• 1:31:49Rosa Brooks, who co-founded the project, researches the murky line between military and police in war zones.
• 1:32:03More chaos in the post-election period justifies maximum federal order as the antidote to maximum chaos.
• 1:32:56Dark Winter was a bioterror simulation in June 2001 that predicted anthrax being sent through the mail to media members and an initial narrative blaming Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
• 1:33:54The anthrax used in the attacks was a strain exclusive to the US military, so it had to come from a US military lab or contractor.
• 1:34:25Jerome Howard apparently had foreknowledge of anthrax; he told people at Dick Cheney's office on 9/11 to take antibiotics to prevent anthrax infection.
• 1:35:00PNAC neocons like Cheney and Rumsfeld went on national media constantly talking about anthrax, while journalist Judith Miller wrote articles seeding the narrative between 9/11 and the attacks.
• 1:35:46The FBI's lead investigator Richard Lambert filed a whistleblower lawsuit saying the anthrax investigation was a giant cover-up, and the suspect Bruce Ivins died by suicide before trial.
• 1:36:18The anthrax attacks remain effectively unsolved; companies that stood to benefit most from anthrax had revealing motives at the time.

Dark WinterAnthrax attacksBruce IvinsRosa BrooksTransition Integrity ProjectNew America FoundationJohns Hopkins Center for Health SecurityProject for a New American CenturyDick CheneyAmerithraxJohn PodestaMichael SteeleRichard LambertNils GilmanDonald RumsfeldJerome HowardEric SchmidtAl-QaedaHillary ClintonBill GatesJudith MillerSaddam HusseinReid HoffmanJoe BidenBruegel Institute