including two more u.s. postal workers and 17 people would become sick after opening or handling letters that contained the deadly anthrax bacteria. after a massive seven-year investigation involving interviews with more than 9,000 people, the fbi finally declared that they knew who did it. based on the totality of the evidence we had gathered against him, we are confident that dr. ivans was the only person responsible for these attacks. he was a government biodefense researcher and federal prosecutors say they had d.n.a. evidence leading to an anthrax vial in his lab. ivins was never charged with any crime because he killed himself in 2008 and so, what many consider to be the largest fbi investigation in history ended with no conviction. bret? bret: kristin, thank you. more on today s arrest with the panel in a bit. in other news, the trump administration is extending an invite to russian president vladimir putin to visit the u.s. early next year. but, after what many saw as
bret: well, the president will be doing a rally in charlotte, north carolina in just a bit. 11 days and counting until the big election night. thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. that s it for this special report, fair, balanced and unafraid. the story, hosted by martha maccallum starts right now. hey, martha. martha: always love the notablnotable quotables. thank you, bret. as bret just said all eyes on charlotte, north carolina this evening. the president is about to speak on a day, well, you know, full, really of october surprises. we have got 11 days to go until the midterm elections. the president will likely address what we learned today, perhaps in some way. we will be watching for that of the ghoulish plans of this man a suspected serial bomber targeting trump critics across the country 56-year-old man from florida preengtly lived in a van covered by pro-trump stickers discovered by former fitness obsessed male stripper with a quote
about the fact that the midterm elections and his campaign and for some very tight races and his prescription drug reduction plan kind of got pushed off the front page. he is doing everything he can to now to get it above the fold. watch for him to open up more than he did in wisconsin the other day. bret: he also said he didn t have any plans to call presidents clinton or obama? no. didn t see a reason to. bret: it took investigators less than a week to catch suspicious mailings to high profile democrats and cnn. law enforcement receiving praise from all corners tonight. several viewers asked whatever happened to the investigation into the letters laced with anthrax as i want to capitoincidentan s.
see that there is no blame. there is no anything. if you look at what happened from steve scalise that was from a supporter of a different party. i think i have been toned down. you want to know the truth. i could really tone it up because as you know the media has been extremely unfair to me and to the republican party. with all of that being said, we are winning so i like that. bret: what about all of this and the developments? let s bring in our panel byron york chief political correspondent of the washington examiner. mollie hemingway senior editor at the federalist and charles ellayna opinion writer at the post. byron? well, we now know who the suspect is is he a strange, unbalanced man, long criminal record as you said who adopted the most extreme displays of trump support. you can see those. i covered a lot of trump rallies in the campaign. there are some of those people at each rally. most of them, of course, entirely harmless. but, there is no doubt that there is politic