But he angered some colleagues. The FBI assigned a string of investigators to check Whitehurst's allegations. The lab still isn't accredited, though FBI sources insist that will occur by the time the bureau moves its 623 employees from cramped quarters at its Washington, D.C., headquarters to a new facility in several years. It is unclear how much damage the lab's problems may have done. Whitehurst's lawyer, Stephen Kohn, argues that the lab's past work brings up to 1,000 cases into doubt.
Defense lawyers tend to agree.
The FBI, however, says that no cases have been compromised, and, of the 50 reviewed so far, prosecutors have found just 20 instances in which prosecutors had to give defendants new information about lab work. None of those disclosures, bureau sources say, have changed a case's outcome. The Oklahoma bombing trial may prove who is right. The defense is expected to attack the FBI's recovery of evidence and tests of bomb residue on a single piece of wood at the crime scene and on McVeigh's clothing. They will also call Whitehurst and try to plant doubt in jurors' minds about the lab's practices in general.