Posted on 03/09/2007 8:41:11 AM PST by jpl
(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 a cold case on its hands.
Correspondent Lesley Stahl's report, which contains revelations from those depositions, will be broadcast this Sunday, March 11, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Hatfill, a scientist who worked at an Army laboratory where the strain of anthrax used in the attacks was stored, is the only "person of interest" named publicly in the case. He has maintained his innocence all along.
Hatfill is suing the government for destroying his reputation by, among other things, naming him "a person of interest." According to depositions taken for Hatfill's suit and obtained by 60 Minutes, the FBI official who oversaw the investigation says the bureau was looking at many more people.
"There were 20 to 30 other people who were also likewise identified as 'persons of interest' in the investigation,' " the FBI's Richard Lambert says under oath.
60 Minutes has learned that today at least a dozen of those other people still have not been eliminated as so-called "persons of interest."
Hatfill charges in his suit that the FBI leaked information about him that was distorted and damaging. After the deadly mailings, evidence-sniffing bloodhounds reportedly "went crazy" at Hatfill's apartment, according to a Newsweek story.
60 Minutes has learned that the bloodhounds reacted similarly at the home and office of another scientist, too. And two of the dogs have been wrong on a number of occasions, including a serial rape case in which a man in California was arrested and jailed, based largely on the evidence from the dogs. He was ultimately exonerated with DNA evidence.
To quell the leaks, FBI Director Robert Mueller instituted a tactic known as "stovepiping," whereby the various squads assigned to the case stopped sharing information with one another.
In his deposition, the FBI's Lambert said he opposed Mueller's order because barring investigators from exchanging information " would inhibit our ability to 'connect the dots' in a case of this magnitude " just as it had leading up to 9/11.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, agrees that stovepiping undercut the investigation. He also charges that the FBI used the leaks to cover a lack of progress in the case.
"I believe they wanted the public to believe that they were making great progress in this case," he tells Stahl. "It's just turning out to be a cold case."
60 Minutes has also learned that the FBI's biggest hope to crack the case turned out to be a dead end created by one of its own investigators.
Early on in its investigation, the bureau was able to lift trace amounts of DNA from one of the envelopes used in the attacks. Agents hoped this forensic evidence would hold the key to solving the crime. But the amount of DNA recovered was so minute the bureau decided not to test it, fearing that doing so would use up the sample without yielding results.
The FBI then improved its DNA-testing technology so it could accurately test the microscopic sample. They then discovered that the DNA belonged to one of its own investigators who had contaminated the envelope.
After arguing about the anthrax investigation on the Internet for five and a half years, it's almost impossible to offend me. I've been called every name in the book. I've even been threatened with a lawsuit because I disagreed with nonsense printed by a so-called "journalist". I sometimes get called names ten times a day -- or more.
I keep all my e-mails. As of this moment, I have 30,228 emails in my archives, not including those exchanged with the media or with the FBI, which I file separately.
I could go through them and easily find hundreds of insults hurled at me because I've stated that Dr. Hatfill is innocent since mid-2002 (which people are gradually beginning to realize is true).
I could find more hundreds of insults hurled at me because I stated that there was no "sophisticated silica coating" on the anthrax spores (which an FBI scientist clearly stated last fall was a solid FACT).
And I could probably find thousands of insults hurled at me because I could provide solid FACTS which clearly show that al Qaeda was NOT behind the anthrax attacks. I also save copies of these FreeRepublic threads on that subject.
It's fascinating to me how people rationalize things in order to continue believing what they want to believe. They seem to feel because I cannot prove that it is impossible for al Qaeda to have been behind the anthrax attacks, their beliefs are as valid as any FACTS. They also seem to believe because all the facts about the case are not known, someday facts could be found which prove them to be right. As long as they can't be proven wrong, people can rationalize anything.
Look, I live in a Moslem neighborhood. These guys all have a "connection" to New Jersey, and we're way down here in Virginia.
We even had an AlQaida sympathizer shot down on the basketball court in an adjoining (heavily Afghan) community, and a couple of guys prosecuted in that paint-ball military training deal.
The local Moslem restaurants, sweet shops and halal butchers all carry Islamic newsletters published by a mosque in New Jersey. Sometimes they have newsletters from North Carolina.
There's really nothing special about New Jersey in all of this. After all, the primary actors in the 9/11 attack were living in Florida, and the ground support team that assisted them in mounting their attack on DC were over here in Northern Virginia.
What you are looking at is the Interstate 95 corridor. These guys are strung out all along it from Massachusetts to Florida.
There are articles done by the Washington Post that are NOT available elsewhere. I know. I looked for them. Much of their stuff didn't even make their website.
I don't need a "theory" to respond to that. The FACTS are clear.
FACT #1: Bob Stevens was the 8th person to show symptoms of anthrax infection as a result of the anthrax mailings. If you believe he was the first, you are woefully mistaken. Joanna Huden at the New York Post was first. A list of the victims in the order they showed symptoms can be viewed by clicking HERE. The fact that Bob Stevens was the first to be diagnosed does NOT mean he was the first to be exposed.
Fact #2: There was a trail of anthrax spores in the postal system from New Jersey to Florida. The CDC showed that trail on a chart which can be viewed by clicking HERE. That trail is consistent with the letter going from New Jersey to Florida, NOT from Florida to New Jersey.
Since we do not know what articles you are talking about, there's no way to contradict what you say.
In contrast it's possible to go to the USPS records and tell exactly what vehicle at what time transported a load of "flat trays" from West Palm Beach to the Philadelphia BMC, and then which vehicle at what time transported the same load of "flat trays" from Philadelphia BMC to major mailers in Central New Jersey. I was able to narrow the field down to 4 mailers who might have gotten those contaminated trays (with the letters still in them).
Even the one week difference in cancelations clearly indicates a "beat" you would expect from a mailer pulling trays off a stack.
Check through your materials to find out which "shaker" or "culling belt" was "contaminated" with Anthrax. If you don't find one in New Jersey that's because those pieces came into the post office with OTHER MAIL already in trays, or with other mail in a general "mixed" tray entered by the mailer at the same time he entered his regular bulk and presort rate mail. That tray was taken over to 010, pulled, the few pieces stacked and faced, and then dropped right into cancelation feed.
You really have to get down and dirty to find the specific tracings of the pieces to understand what was happening to them and where they came from. That requires a vast amount of postal knowledge beyond what that chart shows.
well, I would say this - what return address do you think they would have put on the letters, their own? I mean, why did they even put a return address on the letter. so the return address had to be a "stunt".
The return address was a stunt. I will give you the
specifics tomorrow about the area. Its' very late right
now and we are all about to LOSE a hour! EGADS....JJ61
as in lose AN hour.
Tell me something I don't know.
**This was an Iraqi operation. Thats what I believe**
I tend to agree with you. Could have been a bin Laden operation though.
Was this the reason Atta took extraordinary efforts to spend a few hours in Prague meeting with the Iraqi intelligence operative? The man later kicked out of Czechoslavakia because of his activities?
Is that where the anthrax came from?
Piffle.
Another 800,000 people in the USPS would have died. Tens of millions of postal customers, particularly in the East Coast, would have died.
Not a chance. This is absolute hysterical nonsense. I'd call it psuedo-science but it's not even that.
Psuedo implies a grain of truth after all.
Your post has about as much factual information in it as Al Gores movie.
I'd suggest that ten more minutes planning and these guys would have pulled off the largest mass murder in history.
I'd suggest you're full of crap. The odds of a snowball surviving in Hell are greater than this event turning into the 'largest mass murder in history'.
Absolute unadulterated 100% refined BS...
L
More hysterical made up muawiyah BS. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:the Postal Service employs about 619,000 individuals.
So you're suggesting that a few grams of anthrax, which wasn't even 'highly refined' btw, could somehow magically wipe out every single US Postal Service employee in the entire Nation along with a goodly number of their friends and family?
It's people like you rattling around the gene pool who make it necessary for people like me to figure on a sizable number of panicked numbnuts doing incredibly stupid things during emergencies.
Geez man get a frigging grip.
L
Don't you look at FACTS at all? There was a THREE week span between the cancellations on September 18 and the cancellations on October 9.
You totally distort things to make a point, and when it's shown that you are totally WRONG in what you say, you just ignore it and move on to something else.
Your beliefs just do not stand up to the KNOWN facts.
They didn't put a return address on the media letters. So, yes, why did they put a return address on the senate letters?
muawiyah says the letters were mailed in Florida, and it was just PURE ACCIDENT that they were postmarked in New Jersey, and it was a PURE COINCIDENCE that there was a New Jersey return address on the senate letters. Could anyone in their right mind believe such a thing?
And why did the culprit put a scrambled return address on the senate letters? Why wouldn't al Qaeda just use the real address of a real grade school? Why scramble the address so there would be no possibility that the anthrax-filled letters might be returned to a REAL school?
That is my personal belief. When the war drums started beating in 2002, I couldnt help shake the feeling that the admin knew something it wasnt telling. Iraqi agents sending anthrax letters just seemed obvious to me. I have long held that it wasnt an American who did it just based on the vigor the FBI went after one of our own. Remember Richard Jewell??
Like you, I'm not expecting to see anything groundbreaking on the show. I'm mostly looking forward to seeing what kind of tone the CBS inquisitors are going to take towards Hatfill; a somewhat more apologetic one, or one of "would you guys arrest and charge him already".
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