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Authorities probing the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks fixed on now-cleared scientist Steven J. Hatfill primarily because confidential informants said they had talked with him about his purported involvement in Rhodesian bioweapons initiatives, according to court documents released yesterday. The documents cover searches of Hatfill's residence, his car, a rental storage facility in Florida and property owned by his then-girlfriend. But they are perhaps most notable for the sparseness of their details and for the lack of a direct connection between the scientist and the notorious crime.

The Justice Department released nearly 100 documents Tuesday that it used to falsely link scientist Steven J. Hatfill to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Search warrants and documents detailing what was recovered show the FBI seized clothing, financial records, VHS tapes, books and other papers from Hatfill's home in Frederick, Md., his car, and a locker he rented in Ocala, Fla.The court documents also show the FBI searched the car and Washington apartment of an unnamed person, seizing notebooks, files, envelopes, hair brushes and bobby pins. The evidence presumably belongs to Hatfill's then-girlfriend Peck Chegne. Hatfill originally was named a person...

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Washington, D.C., office was shuttered in 2001 after anthrax spores were found, so he’s “very sensitive” to the investigation into the crime, he said. Now, Cummings said he supports a review of the investigation. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., proposed legislation in September to create a congressional commission to investigate the attacks and the federal government’s response. “Whatever we have to do to get to the bottom of this anthrax issue, we need to do it,” Cummings said. Holt’s bipartisan commission would mirror the 9/11 commission and make recommendations on how to prevent such attacks and...

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Washington, D.C., office was shuttered in 2001 after anthrax spores were found, so he’s “very sensitive” to the investigation into the crime, he said. Now, Cummings said he supports a review of the investigation. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., proposed legislation in September to create a congressional commission to investigate the attacks and the federal government’s response. “Whatever we have to do to get to the bottom of this anthrax issue, we need to do it,” Cummings said. Holt’s bipartisan commission would mirror the 9/11 commission and make recommendations on how to prevent such attacks and...

A federal judge today ordered the Justice Department to release documents that explain why investigators suspected Steven J. Hatfill in the 2001 anthrax mailings. Hatfill has since been exonerated.

It was an open-and-shut case, the FBI said. But three months after agents pinned the post-9/11 anthrax mailings on Army scientist Bruce Ivins - who committed suicide as the FBI closed in on him - his former colleagues have approached a lawyer to sue the feds for fingering the wrong man...

The FBI has posted a $100,000 reward for help in finding who sent identical letters containing what turned out to be a harmless white powder to banking offices across the country. All 50 letters, which were sent between Oct. 17 and 18, were postmarked Amarillo, Texas. FBI today released the text of the letters on its Web site: "STEAL TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE'S MONEY AND NOT EXPECT REPERCUSSIONS. IT'S PAYBACK TIME. WHAT YOU JUST BREATHED IN WILL KILL YOU WITHIN 10 DAYS. THANK (Redacted) AND THE FDIC FOR YOUR DEMISE."

Panic swept America. By including a deadly bioagent in something we welcome into our homes and workplaces every day — the mundane U.S. mail — someone (or several someones) evoked the same sorts of fears provoked two decades earlier by the Tylenol poisonings in Chicago. Anthrax mailings eventually killed five people and sickened 17 others..So: Was Bruce Ivins the one and only anthrax killer? Or is he a convenient scapegoat for embarrassed investigators who, having wrongly suspected Hatfill, don't deserve the public's confidence that they got this right?

A recent New York Times editorial criticizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation about its seven-year probe into the mailing of anthrax-laden letters to members of Congress, prominent media figures and others is a direct attempt to plant doubt in the minds of its diminishing readership. The editorial read, “None of the investigators’ major assertions, however, have been tested in cross-examination . . .” Sorry, that test is moot when the suspect kills himself. Dr. Bruce Ivins, a mentally unbalanced scientist at the U.S. Army’s laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland, killed himself once he was informed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office...

Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy urged the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington on Thursday not to throw out her case seeking a reporter’s privilege to keep her sources confidential. Locy became embroiled in the legal battle after reporting about Steven Hatfill, the former Army scientist who was investigated in the 2001 anthrax attacks but whose name has since been cleared. When Locy refused to give up her confidential sources in Hatfill's ensuing Privacy Act suit against the government, the U.S. District Court in D.C. held her in contempt. She appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals.

"I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact," Mr. Leahy said. "I believe there are others who can be charged with murder." Mr. Leahy's skepticism was echoed by GOP Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa)...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department made public on Friday a plan to expand the tools the Federal Bureau of Investigation can use to investigate suspicions of terrorism inside the United States, even without any direct evidence of wrongdoing.......

In a letter to Mueller sent ahead of a Sept. 16 hearing on "troubling issues" about the FBI, panel chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) asked Mueller to answer several questions about the bureau's anthrax investigation. Conyers asked for the identities of White House officials who wanted the agency to link the anthrax attacks to al Qaeda or Iraq, why army scientist Bruce Ivins retained his security clearance at Fort Detrick despite being a suspect in the probe, and why another Fort Detrick scientist, Steven Hatfill, was the focus of the investigation despite evidence pointing elsewhere...

Federal and local law enforcement agencies today issued a $20,000 reward for information about a 2005 anthrax hoax at Savannah River Site. The Atlanta Field Office of the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office jointly issued the reward to aid their investigation into discovering the identity and location of the person initiating the hoax against officials at SRS and the federal Department of Energy, according to an FBI press release.

Investigators were at an impasse when a lucky discovery narrowed the hunt for the culprit who mailed the deadly spores.

On Wednesday, August 8, 2008, the Department of Justice held a news conference announcing that Bruce E. Ivins, a former anthrax researcher for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was the sole person responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks. Headed by U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor and FBI Assistant Director Joseph Persichini, the presentation was noteworthy for often not answering relevant questions, but instead referring reporters to several dozen court documents they had just been provided. After hurriedly reading one of these documents I decided to hedge my strong conclusion in an essay that the FBI had...

When Norm Covert, a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer, and attorney Barry Kissin, liberal activist opposing Detrick's biolab expansion, agree that Bruce Ivins was not the anthrax killer, either the world's spinning off its axis, or the truth is staring us so hard in the face we'd have to be blind to miss it. Covert's piece this week in thetentacle.com establishes what many in our community, including scientists and support staff at USAMRIID, past and present, know: Bruce Ivins had nothing to do with preparing or sending the anthrax letters. --

HOW QUICKLY we forget. In the aftermath of 9/11, after the memorials, the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, and the transit bombings in London and Madrid, the anthrax scare slipped from public consciousness. Now, long articles detail the results of a troubled investigation into the anonymous anthrax-tainted letters of the fall of 2001. With the cruel elegance of a Greek tragedy, Bruce Ivins, the scientific adviser on the matter, became the prime suspect in the case, and its final victim as well, when he killed himself on July 29. Suddenly anthrax is back in the news, and we remember those...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that Steven Hatfill was not involved in anthrax mailings for which he was listed six years ago as a person of interest. The Justice Department agreed in June to pay $4.6 million to settle Hatfill's lawsuit against the government, but until Friday the government had not exonerated him, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported. "We have concluded, based on laboratory access records, witness accounts and other information, that Dr. Hatfill did not have access to the particular anthrax used in the attacks, and that he was not involved in...

WASHINGTON - Before killing himself last week, Army scientist Bruce Ivins told friends that government agents had stalked him and his family for months, offered his son $2.5 million to rat him out and tried to turn his hospitalized daughter against him with photographs of dead anthrax victims. The pressure on Ivins was extreme, a high-risk strategy that has failed the FBI before. The government was determined to find the villain in the 2001 anthrax attacks; it was too many years without a solution to the case that shocked and terrified a post-9/11 nation. The last thing the FBI needed...

We have forgotten so much about the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that many people may not remember the deadly anthrax spores that were mailed to various prominent people in politics and in the media during that time. None of the intended victims was killed by the anthrax but five other people were, including two postal workers, who apparently became victims because they handled the mail containing anthrax spores. In the instant search for someone to blame, biologist Steven J. Hatfill was publicly named as "a person of interest" in the case by government officials. He...

Dr Bruce Budowle has been in the FBI for over 20 years, heading one of its forensic laboratories. He looks back to the mysterious and still unsolved case of the anthrax envelopes which followed 9/11 and which moved bioterrorism combat to a new level. *** Robyn Williams: The shape of sleuthing to come, Angela van Daal at Bond University in Southern Queensland. She has been looking after Bruce Budowle, an FBI veteran of 20 years who's head of their lab in Virginia and is sometimes called the FBI's top scientist. He's not only involved in forensics but also in the...

Former Agent Explains What Went Wrong in the Investigation The anthrax investigation, almost from the beginning, was hampered by top-heavy leadership from high ranking, but inexperienced FBI officials, which led to a close-minded focus on just one suspect and amateurish investigative techniques that robbed agents in the field the ability operate successfully. I saw it firsthand as one of the FBI agents assigned to the anthrax case and directly involved in the investigation of Dr. Steven Hatfill. While I cannot comment on the guilt or innocence of Hatfill, I think I have a sense of some of the things that...

Steven Hatfill finally has his life back. Thanks to FBI incompetence, he also has $5.8 million. ... It's worse because it is a virtual confession that the anthrax case is cold. Throughout one of the largest investigations in law-enforcement history, agents were fixated on a "lone wolf" theory that Director Robert Mueller's FBI, for all intents and purposes, now admits was wrong. Helped along by a sympathetic press corps, the obsession with a domestic perpetrator has ended up in a dead end. *** So the FBI needed to cast a wider net all along – which still remains urgent. In...

If the left wants an example of the Bush Administration’s incompetence in the war on terror, they’ve got it in the case of former government scientist Dr. Steven Hatfill, who was falsely accused of the anthrax murders. The U.S. Government “has determined that settlement is in the best interests of the United States and has agreed to pay Dr. Hatfill and his attorneys $2.825 million dollars and purchase for Dr. Hatfill an annual annuity of $150,000,” the Department of Justice said in a statement released on Friday, June 27. But there was no apology for ruining an innocent person’s life...

WASHINGTON -- The federal investigation into the deadly anthrax mailings of late 2001 was undermined by leaks and a premature fixation on a single suspect, according to investigators and scientists involved in the case. More than six years after the mailings, no one has been charged, and the top suspect, former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill was all but exonerated Friday when the U.S. Justice Department agreed to pay him $5.82 million to settle a lawsuit.

(Washington, D.C.) – The following is a statement from Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12) in reaction to today’s announcement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that it had agreed to pay former Army biowarfare expert Dr. Steven Hatfill $5.8 million in a settlement related to the FBI’s previously naming Hatfill a “person of interest” in the investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks on the United States. The attacks originated from a postal box in Holt’s central New Jersey congressional district, disrupting the lives and livelihoods of many of his constituents: “As today’s settlement announcement confirms, this case was botched from...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced Friday that it would pay $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Steven J. Hatfill, a former Army biodefense researcher intensively investigated as a “person of interest” in the deadly anthrax letters of 2001. The settlement, consisting of $2.825 million in cash and an annuity paying Dr. Hatfill $150,000 a year for 20 years, brings to an end a five-year legal battle that had recently threatened a reporter with large fines for declining to name sources she said she did not recall. Dr. Hatfill, who worked at the Army’s laboratory at Fort Detrick...

The Justice Department on Friday agreed to pay more than $5.8 million to Steven Hatfill, the former government scientist once branded by the Justice Department a person of interest in the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001. The legal settlement to Hatfill, in cash and an annual payments, signals the end of a civil lawsuit Hatfill brought against the Justice Department and FBI, accusing them of violating his privacy rights by improperly leaking sensitive information about the anthrax investigation to reporters. "I think it's a gratifying end to a very sad chapter in [Hatfill's] life and that of the FBI and...

On Friday, the government filed this statement of the facts in its memorandum in support of its motion for summary judgment in a civil rights and Privacy Act lawsuit brought by Dr. Steve Hatfill. “The anthrax attacks occurred in October 2001. Public officials, prominent members of the media, and ordinary citizens were targeted by this first bio-terrorist attack on American soil. Twenty-two persons were infected with anthrax; five died. At least 17 public buildings were contaminated. The attacks wreaked havoc on the U.S. postal system and disrupted government and commerce, resulting in economic losses estimated to exceed one billion dollars....

WASHINGTON — The FBI has narrowed its focus to "about four" suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.

Press freedom shouldn't mean defending the guilty at all costs Steve Chapman | March 27, 2008 Years ago, Ray Donovan, Ronald Reagan's Labor Secretary, was prosecuted for corruption, only to be acquitted. After the verdict, Donovan asked plaintively, "Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?" Steven Hatfill knows where to go to get his reputation back. But upon arriving there, he finds the door blocked by someone who says her privileges are more important than his good name. That someone, of course, is a journalist. And, not surprisingly, she enjoys the broad support of other journalists,...

WASHINGTON - A federal judge said Tuesday he will hold a former USA Today reporter in contempt if she continues refusing to identify sources for stories about a former Army scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said reporter Toni Locy defied his order last August that she cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill in his lawsuit against the government. Walton indicated he would impose a fine until she divulged her sources, but that he would take a few more days to decide whether to postpone the penalty as she pursues an appeal. The...

Judge Threatens Contempt in Anthrax Case By HOPE YEN – 1 hour ago WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge said Tuesday he will hold a former USA Today reporter in contempt of court if she continues refusing to identify sources for stories about a former Army scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said reporter Toni Locy defied his order last August that she cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill in his lawsuit against the government. Walton indicated he would impose a fine until she divulged her sources, but that he would take a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge says he will hold a former USA Today reporter in contempt if she continues refusing to identify sources for stories about a former Army scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks. At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said that reporter Toni Locy (LOW-see) must cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill in his lawsuit against the government. Hatfill is suing the Justice Department, saying the agency violated the federal Privacy Act by giving the media information about the FBI's investigation of him. In addition to Locy, the judge is considering whether...

Hatfill's lawyers alleged that the three officials who leaked investigative details to the news media were Roscoe C. Howard Jr., who from 2001 to 2004 served as U.S. attorney for District of Columbia; Daniel S. Seikaly, who served as Howard's criminal division chief; and Edwin Cogswell, who formerly served as a spokesman for the FBI. .... U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the lawyers for the government and for Hatfill to seek "mediation" over the next two months. The prospects of a mediated settlement notwithstanding, Walton said he expected a trial could begin in December. Hatfill's lawyers, Grannis and...

Anthrax: Source of Fishy, Shaggy Dog Stories Pleads Fifth December 20th, 2007 by Ross E. Getman In October 2007, the former Criminal Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, Daniel Seikaly, was deposed in the civil rights action by Steve Hatfill about whether he was the source of leaks relating to Steve Hatfill in connection with Newsweek and Washington Post stories about the use of bloodhounds and the draining of ponds in Frederick, Maryland. Attorney Seikaly pled the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination in connection with most substantive questions. Attorney Seikaly has had a very distinguished career....

WASHINGTON --A former Army scientist asked a federal judge Tuesday to hold two journalists in contempt for refusing to identify the government officials who leaked details about the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. Steven J. Hatfill, who worked at the Army's infectious diseases laboratory from 1997 to 1999, was publicly identified as a "person of interest" in the attacks. He is suing the Justice Department, accusing the agency of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving reporters information about him. Five journalists are under court order to reveal their sources. In court documents Tuesday, Hatfill asked for a contempt...

JUST WHEN YOU thought it was safe again for journalists to talk to confidential sources inside government, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. has ordered five reporters - Allan Lengel of the Washington Post; Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, both of Newsweek; Toni Locy, formerly of USA Today; and James Stewart of CBS News - to disclose the names of government sources to whom they promised confidentiality. The order comes in a civil suit filed by Steven Hatfill, the bioterrorism expert whom federal investigators suspected was behind the 2001 anthrax mailings. A former federal employee, Hatfill claims that the Justice...

Five reporters must reveal their government sources for stories they wrote about Steven J. Hatfill and investigators' suspicions that the former Army scientist was behind the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, a federal judge ruled yesterday...

Judge: Reporters Must Reveal Sources in Anthrax Leak Case WASHINGTON (AP) -- Five journalists must identify the government officials who leaked them details about a scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks, a federal judge said Monday. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the reporters to cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill, who accused the Justice Department and FBI of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving the media information about the FBI's investigation of him. The reporters named in the opinion are Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek, Allan Lengel of The Washington Post, Toni Locy, formerly...

WASHINGTON - Five journalists must identify the government officials who leaked them details about a scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks, a federal judge said Monday. U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the reporters to cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill, who accused the Justice Department and FBI of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving the media information about the FBI's investigation of him. The reporters named in the opinion are Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman of Newsweek, Allan Lengel of The Washington Post, Toni Locy, formerly of USA Today, and James Stewart, formerly of CBS News....

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA STEVEN J. HATFILL, M.D., : : Plaintiff, : : Civil Action No. 03-1793 (RBW) v. : : ALBERTO GONZALES, et al., : : Defendants. : ________________________________ MEMORANDUM OPINION Currently before the Court is the plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Further Testimony from Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman, Allan Lengel, Toni Locy, and James Stewart [D.E. # 157]. Also before the Court are several motions to quash subpoenas by1 various media companies: American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post, and Newsweek, Inc.’s Motion to Quash [D.E. # 152]; Motion by...

Plaintiff Was Called 'Person of Interest' Lawyers for former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill urged a judge yesterday to order several journalists to disclose the names of law enforcement sources who leaked details of the investigation of Hatfill in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, has not been charged in the attacks, in which five people were killed and 17 were sickened by anthrax bacteria mailed in envelopes. In a lawsuit, he accuses the Justice Department of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving the news media information about the FBI's investigation of him. To help...

Tables Turned In Anthrax Investigation"Person Of Interest" Files Lawsuit Against FBI March 9, 2007 (CBS) They followed him. They brought bloodhounds into his home. The attorney general identified him to the world as a "person of interest" in the first major bioterrorism attack in the nation's history. But five years after letters sent through the U.S. mail containing anthrax killed five and injured 17, the FBI has yet to charge Dr. Steven Hatfill. In 2003, he sued the government. The resulting depositions of FBI personnel and law enforcement records obtained by 60 Minutes provide an inside look into one of...

(CBS) They followed him. They brought bloodhounds into his home. The attorney general identified him to the world as a "person of interest" in the first major bioterrorism attack in the nation's history. But five years after letters sent through the U.S. mail containing anthrax killed five and injured 17, the FBI has yet to charge Dr. Steven Hatfill. In 2003, he sued the government. The resulting depositions of FBI personnel and law enforcement records obtained by 60 Minutes provide an inside look into one of the FBI's biggest investigations ever and raise the possibility that the bureau may have...

Hatfill Settles $10M Libel Lawsuit By JOSH GERSTEIN Staff Reporter of the Sun February 27, 2007 A former Army scientist named by investigators as a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks, Dr. Steven Hatfill, has settled his $10 million libel suit against Vanity Fair and Reader's Digest after the two magazines agreed to retract any implication that the bioweapons specialist was behind the deadly anthrax mailings. A statement issued today by a lawyer for Dr. Hatfill, Hassan Zavareei, said the case "has now been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of all the parties." He did not indicate whether...

A former Army scientist's work and his public advocacy for bioterrorism defense led to the dismissal of his libel suit charging the New York Times with publishing columns unfairly linking him to the 2001 anthrax attacks. In a 28-page opinion released yesterday, Judge Claude Hilton of Alexandria, Va., concluded that the scientist, Steven Hatfill, was a public official and a public figure. Those findings set a high bar for Mr. Hatfill's suit, requiring him to present evidence that the author of the columns, Nicholas Kristof, knew that the columns were false or had strong reason to think they were untrue....

The Hatfill v The New York Times lawsuit has been dismissed in a Summary Judgment. Here's the Docket entry which appeared today (January 12, 2007): ORDER It appearing to the Court that Dft's Motion for Summary Judgment should be granted, it is hereby ORDERED that this matter be STRICKEN from this Court's trial docket. An appropriate Memorandum Opinion and Order shall issue. Signed by Judge Claude M. Hilton on 1/12/07. Copies sent. (tarm, ) (Entered: 01/12/2007) Conspiracy theorists should line up in three lines and restrict themselves to no more than 5 theories per person. Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal judge has ruled The New York Times may not rely on information from a columnist's confidential sources in its defense against a libel lawsuit filed over the newspaper's coverage of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Former Army scientist Steven Hatfill, once identified by authorities as a "person of interest" in the anthrax mailings that killed five people in late 2001, is suing the Times for libel for a series of articles written by columnist Nicholas Kristof. U.S. Magistrate Judge Liam O'Grady issued the ruling Friday as a sanction against the newspaper for refusing to disclose the...