Wilkes, Anthrax & Mailsafe

* the San Diego Union Tribune continues it's sterling work into Cunningham et al:

"Julie Doolittle was working at Buckham's offices in 2002 when Buckham introduced Brent Wilkes to her husband. Federal contracts for his flagship company, ADCS Inc., were drying up, partly because the Pentagon had been telling Congress it had little need for the company's document-scanning technology. So Wilkes was trying to get funding for two new businesses.

One was tied to the 2002 (ed: 2001) anthrax scare, when tainted letters were sent to Capitol Hill. Wilkes' idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

He called his proposed solution MailSafe – similar to the names of several anti-anthrax companies launched at that time – and began vying for federal contracts, even though the company had little to its name other than a rudimentary Web site.

The House Administration Committee, on which Doolittle sat, oversees the congressional mail system. Doolittle told his colleagues about MailSafe and introduced them to Wilkes, but the project never got off the ground."

this is kinda interesting. as i noted here, both michael mack and joel combs worked on anthrax issues

From Combs' GroupW bio: "Issues Advocacy - Mr. Combs has created coalitions and key associations for clients with subject matter expertise in Information Technology, postal issues in the wake of the Anthrax attacks..."

This is from Mack's GroupW website bio:

"Issues Advocacy - Mr. Mack has also created coalitions and key associations for clients with subject matter expertise in information technology, U.S. Postal Service reform in the wake of the Anthrax attacks..."

Incidentally, there was someone by the name of Michael Mack who worked for Pitney Bowes in "Business Recovery and Secure Mail Solutions" in 2002 who said "Recent world events and the threats of anthrax contamination have heightened awareness among high level business executives about the criticality of their communications processes,'' (link) - i'm not sure it is the same guy - but it sure sounds like it.

Do those bios only refer to the failed MailSafe thing? or were they otherwise involved on anthrax related stuff? The earliest record i could find of Mack at GroupW was 2003 - was he recruited for MailSafe and then shuffled to GroupW when Mailsafe failed to gain any traction?

I always assumed that Wilkes recruited Mack through the Young Republicans, and because he worked for Bill Thomas (Chariman of the Ways and Means Committee).

It's probably nothing, but Wilkes et al was so spooked up that it is possibly interesting...

FWIW - the mailsafeinc.com domain name was registered just weeks after the anthrax attacks (and sep11) - good to see that they were thinking business about how to keep people safe.

Also, Laura notes:

"And where was Mail-Safe going to be based? How about Ohio. And who chairs the House Administration committee? Bob Ney."

And, FWIW, this cached version of the frontpage of the Wilkes Corp website from July 2005 says :

"MailSafe offers mail decontamination, digital capture, and electronic distribution to government and commercial entities. MailSafe is revolutionizing the way America gets its mail."

Which is weird, cos the business never seemed to get anywhere - including even getting a website...

I don't if any of this means anything - or just more weirdness from Wilkes et al

(btw - what's the story on the anthrax thing? do we think Hatfill is guilty? was it more 'strategy of tension'?)