Here is a little classified info for all of you to chew on.
In 2001 the DOD was accepting bids to build an Anthrax vaccine facility at the Aberdeen proving grounds. The reason for this is because the Bioport vaccine would not pass FDA approval because Bioport could not produce a consistent product. That would have put Bioport out of business. After the mailings the FDA quietly approved the Bioport facility. So Bioport certainly could be a co conspirator in this crime. Also of interest is that one of the companies bidding on this facility was SAIC. Steven Hatfill’s employer at the time.
Hi,
A Hatfill Theory was certainly exhaustively examined by one Amerithrax Squad. Conspicuous surveillance was not called off until late 2003, when they found “extremely virulent” (but unweaponized) anthrax at a house in Kandahar that had existed pre-2001. It was found after Hambali’s harsh interrogation in Jordan.
It was fascinating to see the Hatfill theory develop during the Summer of 2002.
There were excited whispered calls about “Did you hear about the cabin in woods?” I asked, no, “what state was it in?” “I don’t know,” was the reply. It turned out to be a cabin that Dr. Hatfill had visited in a social group with friends, that he wouldn’t have been able to find and had no special access to.
Then there was the Greendale School he lived near that didn’t exist.
Then there was the plastic box with holes characterized as a glove box when actually its design precisely fit a minnow catcher. That got some giggles back at the Task Force. The source of that pond tip was a fellow SAIC employee who then went to work as an FBI analyst. He recently issued a 460 page thesis, supervised by Ken at GMU, on the use of weaponized anthrax and other agents in Zimbabwe. The thesis is so sexy that you need a brown paper to take it out of the library. As Dr. Patrick could confirm, however, the idea doesn’t hold water. The last thing you’d want as a place to fill the envelopes is a high humidity environment. Ken would agree.
In 2002, titillating the CIA even more was that a man named Goosen who had participated in Project Coast offered samples from the project. The Rhodesia program was said to lay the groundwork for Project Coast. Goosen said that workers had not destroyed all samples as Dr. Basson had claimed. Goosen asked for $5 million in return for the samples. The year before he had approached DOD with vaccine research. A meeting was arranged with Bioport. Extensive interviews have not shown Dr. Hatfill to ever had anything to do with Project Coast, but hey, why allege murder when you can allege genocide, eh?
So while the FBI was definitely right to vigorously pursue the theory, there never came to be any evidence that supported the theory and you cite none now.
For example, while there is documentary evidence that Ayman Zawahiri planned to weaponize anthrax for use against US targets, there is no such evidence in the case of Dr. Hatfill.
While “extremely virulent” anthrax was found in Kandahar, and a hijacker coming from Kandahar had a blackened leg lesion, Dr. Hatfill merely had an anthrax simulant (which was related to his work). Tell me you don’t have BG or BT in your fridge.
It would be reasonable for the FBI to posit, however, that if it was a non-Al Qaeda, it had to be someone with access to intelligence information, because the coding used in the letter was used by the militants. For example, “School” was used by Ayman in a June 2001 letter to his supporters explaining his merger with Al Qaeda. (The sender was “Greendale School”). Green was known by the CIA and DIA to symbolize islam. Sufaat, for example, named the company covering work relating to his anthrax lab Green Laboratory. The FBI got access to Moussaoui’s email greenlab@usanet on September 19, 2001. Thus, Hatfill is a far better candidate than someone who did not have a security clearance.
Marcinko, author of Green Team, served in Somalia as a Navy Seal where CBRN player Saif Adel used Green Team as the name of his group. See memo from Adel to Atef. Marcinko describes his experience in Somalia in the Green Team book above relating to use of anthrax by the militants to create a united ummah.
On the subject of bloodhounds, Ed’s theory is that the FBI is lying to us about why the dogs were used. He argues they were not picking up a scent on the envelopes but were merely used in tracking Dr. Hatfill, and the FBI was too embarrassed to admit that they lost him en route to Louisiana. His conspiracy theory necessarily includes the DOJ and the dog trainers.
Ed has done a wonderful job of keeping the public posted about Dr. Hatfill civil suits. I commend the record to you. You’ll see that no evidence ever developed supporting the theory.
I emailed BHR in December 2001 and she commented “they know who the suspects are.” It’s not that the theory was not worth pursuing or that those who held/hold the theory are showing bad faith — it just turns out there was/is no “there there.”
Hatfill was not shown to have the means. His worked involved viruses. He was never shown to have drying expertise. The vaccine research done by Ft. Detrick was a far cry from weaponizing anthrax.
Hatfill was not shown to have a motive to send a deadly pathogen that reasonably put recipients at risk for death. Given that as of the time of the first mailing, a man in a Biohazard suit was featured on TIME and articles had started appearing about the cropdusters, a party financially interested in vaccine production, had no financial interest that needed furthering. They were already sitting pretty.
Bioport’s contract was being challenged — by a large pharma company. SAIC would have continued to benefit from the post-911 surge in spending regardless which of the companies got the contract. Moreover, even if SAIC had a financial interest, which it didn’t, such an interest would not translate to an interest on the part of Dr. Hatfill. The FBI did think to check his financials. A defense contractor post-911 did not have to murder to get a contract, they just needed to hire a lobbyist who had recently left government. It’s the American Way.
Dr. Hatfill was not shown to have the opportunity. He has an alibi. His time cards constitute documentary evidence of how he spent his time in the preceding weeks and numerous witnesses confirm he was at the wedding, for example.
It was not shown to be his modus operandi. As I indicated, extensive interviews have confirmed he had nothing whatsoever to do with Project Coast.
So while the documentary evidence establishes that Al Qaeda had the means, motive, modus operandi and opportunity, there is no evidence suggesting Dr. Hatfill was in any way involved in the anthrax mailings. NK should have contacted Dr. Hatfill to get his side of the story and provided the opportunity that facts be corrected. I’ve written Bilal Phillips, the unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator and Ali’s mentor, as well as his supporters and friends, but not heard back. I’ve written Ken and Charles and GMU counsel, but not heard back. I had dinner just the other week with leading iANA supporters and laid all this out in person, following up by a written summary. If you figure out Ayman’s email, let me know. The Hatfill accusers should have at least contacted him and given him a chance to correct any factual errors. Admittedly, hindsight is 20/20.
Dr. Hatfill has made himself for more than one deposition and no evidence has ever come out in suport of your suggestion. But we certainly appreciate that the FBI needed to leave no stone unturned. What Van Harp was thinking in talking to Brian Ross about the theory, I don’t know. Since the leaks from that squad about that theory in 4 and 5 years ago, the FBI has been very good at avoiding unauthorized leaks.
Dr. Hatfill’s counsel, IMO, is mistaken to suggest that falsely claiming one has a PhD is akin to “puffery.” As is Ed. But that is not at all probative of the means, motive, modus operandi and opportunity of the anthrax mailings.
Moreover, studies have shown that a majority of American men in his age group have had workplace sex (in case he ever did as once alleged). Hopefully, at a party celebrating the final resolution of this long-lingering matter — whatever its ultimate resolution — we can all share stories over beers.
The most curious aspect of a Hatfill Theory is that no specific alibi relating to the nights has been shared. Did he sleep over or not? Sleeping on the couch during the day nursing a hangover from a wedding is the not the same as: “And he lay beside me all night.”
I hadn’t realized there was anyone who still credited a Hatfill Theory, given that it has been 5 years since, for example, the Washington Post in an article on August 11, 2002 outlined some of the many allegations that reportedly are provably false.
In particular, false allegations debunked a half decade ago have included:
• That he had unfettered access to the Army bioresearch lab at
Fort Detrick after his grant ended in 1999. He did not, Glasberg said.
“After he stopped working there, he had to be escorted, like
everybody,” Glasberg said. Dasey confirmed that.
• That he had been given a booster vaccine for anthrax. He did not,
Glasberg said. His last anthrax vaccination was in December
1998, and he has not received a shot since then, making him as
vulnerable as anyone else, Glasberg said.
• That he removed cabinets from Fort Detrick that could be used to
culture anthrax. The cabinets, weighing more than 350 pounds, were
moved by truck to a training site for a military exercise and then
blown up, Glasberg said.
• That the “Greendale School” listed as a return address on the
anthrax mailings is in Harare, Zimbabwe, near Hatfill’s medical school. “To
the best of our knowledge, there isn’t any Greendale School,” Glasberg
said. “There is a subdivision near Harare called Greendale, but there are
Greendales everywhere.”
• That Hatfill was disgruntled at losing his security clearance. At
Fort Detrick, Hatfill never had nor needed security clearance,
Glasberg and Dasey said. Once at Science Applications International,
he got low-level security clearance for one project. When he
was detailed to work for the CIA on another project, a CIA
lie-detector test was ambiguous when he was asked about his days in
Africa, Glasberg said. His clearance was revoked pending an appeal.
Virtually none of Hatfill’s work at Science Applications
International required a clearance, Glasberg said, but the company used its
revocation as a reason to fire Hatfill in February. He said the
company has since offered Hatfill settlement payments, which he
rejected, and more work, which he accepted.
In May, Esteban Rodriguez, a supervisor at the Defense Intelligence
Agency, wrote a letter lauding Hatfill’s “unsurpassed technical
expertise, unique resourcefulness, total dedication and consummate
professionalism” in helping the military prepare for possible
biowarfare in Afghanistan.
But now don’t get me wrong, Tes. It’s not like a lot of learned people did not subscribe to a Hatfill Theory. Hauer. Niman. Bedlington, and many others. And someone like Bedlington is sophisticated enough to know about the importance of Qutb on the militants.
Stan Bedlington, a retired CIA counterterrorism analyst is one
person who in the Summer of 2002 thought the “evidence is mounting.”
Although not a scientist and not demonstrating any knowledge of bloodhound evidence, he mistakenly claimed that the letters “obviously had some scent of anthrax.” (That’s not what they would have been testing for given that biological agents such as anthrax apparently do not have a distinctive smell to bloodhounds) He used to have lunch once a week in McLean with Hatfill at a bistro. A former counterterrorism analyst, he
retired from the CIA in 1994. Dr. Bedlington in 1998 in a full-length
interview argued that not only could anthrax be simply made, but could
be dispersed aerially.
According to the Post, Bedlington was intrigued by the fact
that Hatfill lived for years near a Greendale Elementary School while
attending medical school in Zimbabwe. Greendale School was the phony
return address used in the anthrax letters.
In the Fall of 2001, political scientist and former senior CIA
counterterrorism analyst Bedlington, said: “Frankly, when I heard the
news [of 9/11], I thought, ‘It’s got to be biochemical.” “This is
frightening enough and yet, you could take a small plane and sprinkle
anthrax over New York City and wipe out half the population.” He
wrote a very insightful Op Ed piece in the Washington Post, dated
October 28, 2001, in which he discusses the importance of piercing
Osama Bin Laden’s myth of invincibility. He evidenced the
sophistication of his knowledge by pointing to the influence of an
Egyptian writer named Qutb on the Al Qaeda leaders. But by August 2002
(in an interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn) he was talking about
anthrax-smelling bloodhounds and the fact that Dr. Hatfill lived near
a place (Greendale) used in the return address. He curiously said the
“evidence was mounting.” Indeed, he was the original source of the
silly “Greendale” point which, according to today’s Washington Post
article, he considered “jaw-dropping.” Dr . Bedlington knew Dr.
Hatfill from weekly lunches at a bistro in McClean where former work
colleagues get together to swap stories, and once had been shown,
privately, a scrapbook of mock pictures of Dr. Hatfill preparing
plague in his kitchen (Dr. Bedlington recalls the discussion as
relating to anthrax).
There is no Greendale School in Zimbabwe — even though there are
many in the United States. No Greendale Primary School or Greendale
Elementary School. There never has been. ABC led the pack repeatedly
getting it wrong in suggesting that there was a Greendale School that
Hatfill lived nearby, in a neighborhood of Harare. ABC’s Brian Ross
has relied on a source named Pete Velis who has spent his own money
urging his biodefense insider theory with a twist. Velis argued that
the CIA was framing Hatfill. Hartford Courant followed, relying on
ABC. The posting of the City Atlas listing and the numbers of the two
Greendale schools did little to stem the false reports. If you started
counting Greendales rather than Greendale Schools, then perhaps most
people in the United States are just as closely connected to some
Greendale. Most important of all, a perp simply has zero reason to use
a name from his past. Indeed, the only reason to use the same address
on both envelopes — which helped the second letter be identified
before being received — is if something is being intentionally
communicated.
There are 18 Greendales in the US. 6 Greendale Elementary
Schools. As well as a Greendale Elementary School in Maryland near
Andrews AFB in Prince George’s County that was closed. But the
Greendale conjecture always just an incredibly specious point to rely
on in publicly suggesting that a medical doctor was guilty of
murdering people. As Richard Spertzel, who has told the Baltimore Sun
that he has met Hatfill but does not know him well, said: “He’s being
railroaded.”
For those who believe in Tinkerbelle (one of the dogs used) such
as the Washington Post journalists and political scientist Bedlington
, while most jurisdictions allow bloodhound evidence, courts generally
have reservations about the possibility of inaccuracy of the evidence.
The dog cannot be cross-examined. There is always the possibility that
the dog may make a mistake. Accordingly, there are strict foundational
requirements. The notion that such evidence is of slight probative
value or must be viewed with caution stems at least in part from fear
that a jury will be in awe of the animal’s apparent powers and will
give the evidence too much weight . What would have been used for the
scent pack here is the human scent, if any, on the letter on which the
perpetrator rested his hand in writing the letter. The dogs would not
have been clued to the biological agent as biological agents such as
anthrax tend not to have a distinctive scent.
Here, at a minimum, the “trail” would have been contaminated by
the irradiation and anthrax, and would have grown stale by the passage
of time. FDA concluded that irradiation can produce small changes in
the taste, smell, and sometimes texture of foods and that consumers
should be informed of this. Jurors should too. Remember that scene
from “Miracle on 34th Street” where the official finding of the agency
of the United States’ government was deemed binding on the
prosecution? Imagine Attorney Connolly calling FDA scientists who
found irradiation caused changes in smell, no doubt amplified by the
much keener sense of a bloodhound.
The United States Post Office explains in a FAQ that “the
materials in the mail are heated and may become chemically altered.
Paper dries out and may become dusty, discolored, and brittle.” Some
postal workers and federal agency staff have reported symptoms such as
eye, nose, throat and skin irritation, headache, nausea and occasional
nosebleeds. What does the USPS do under these circumstances? Their
solution includes “[u]sing hypoallergenic deodorizers to eliminate any
smells.” “Testing each batch of aired-out mail to ensure no detectable
amoungs of gas exist before delivery.” Alas, Tinkerbelle’s lengthy log
shows that perfume does not confuse her, but likely is silent on this
question of irradiated paper. The prosecution witness who might
testify that a bloodhound’s sense of smell is 200 times as powerful as
a human’s sense of smell would merely be helping the defense argument.
No amount of training log-keeping or experiments after the fact would
serve to permit admissibility under the court precedent. The
bloodhound evidence was always a bogus and hugely prejudical diversion
since the first sensational story (leaked by persons unknown).
In any event, the perp would have worn gloves and only briefly
handled the letter. More broadly, there is an article that collects
cases from 40 or so states and nothing approaching the delays has ever
been found admissible. In a city landscape, the time period is much
more restrictive. The Leahy letter, written by the perp sometime prior
to the October 9, 2001 postmark, was not discovered until
mid-November, and as of November 19, 2001 a protocol was still being
developed for its opening. Thus, the 40 day period that had been
passed by the (likely glove-wearing) perp already would have resulted
in a stale trail.
There is a separate additional issue of use of the “scent transfer
unit” here. A “scent transfer unit” such as used here looks like a
Dustbuster, modified with a small frame at the end to secure a piece
of gauze over its intake opening. The user attaches a piece of sterile
gauze to the unit, activates the unit, and holds it against the item
from which the scent is to be taken (such as where the person sat the
night before). Depending on the jurisdiction, the scent transfer unit,
which is a new technology, may be subject to the rule regarding new
scientific methodology. Under that rule, the proponent of such
evidence must establish the new scientific principle or technique is
sufficiently established to have gained general acceptance in the
particular field in which it belongs under the circumstances of the
case. Here, there is no such general acceptance as explained by Scott
Shane in an excellent article in the Baltimore Sun relying on experts
in the Maryland area. The purpose of the requirement is to avoid
factfinders from being misled by the `aura of infallibility’ that may
surround unproved scientific methods. This would constitute a possible
third independent grounds for excluding the evidence. Absent a
training log showing the dog performed reliably under similar
circumstances, given the time period that had passed, and in light of
the use of the scent transfer unit, there is nothing the FBI or
trainers would be able to do to save the admissibility of the
bloodhound evidence because it will be found by a court to be
unreliable.
Both of the major police bloodhound associations howl against the
reliability of the Scent Transfer Unit used by the three blood
handlers. One of the dog handlers, Dennis Slavin, is an urban planner
and reserve officer with the South Pasadena Police Department. One of
the other dog handlers is a civilian who runs his own bloodhound
business. Shane, in his very impressive Baltimore Sun article,
explained that an FBI agent, Rex Stockham, examining the technology
for the FBI lab says: “It’s going to be criticized. I’m critical of it
myself.” The President of the Bloodhound Association, who is critical
of the technology used by these handlers, had testified 21 times, and
likely will have testified 22 if the FBI attempts to rely on the
evidence in a prosecution. Shane notes that a federal jury awarded
$1.7 million last year to a man wrongly accused of rape after police
identified him in part based on the use of Slavin’s bloodhound,
TinkerBelle. Shane’s article, essential reading, gives the further
example of their use in the sniper investigation, where “given the
scent taken from spent shell casings, followed two false trails in
Montgomery County. One led to a house, for which a search warrant was
obtained and which turned out not be relevant. The other led to a
dog-grooming parlor, the officer said.” Phew. It’s no wonder Lucy
responded to Hatfill. He is a ladies’ man, after all.
With the investigation going to the dogs, nearly 100 law
enforcement officers gathered to watch some of their colleagues jump
in a lake near where Dr. Hatfill lived, and in late January 2003, the
FBI continued searching the forest in Frederick. Locals were amused
that some of the ponds had been dry earlier that year. While they may
seem to enjoy their dinners at Georgetown, FBI agents and surveillance
specialists do not have an easy job. The public demands that they
exhaustively pursue all leads, but then there is an uproar if they
cross some unpredictable line and step on — or run over someone’s
toe.
Marilyn Thompson, author of The Killer Strain, reported in the
Washington Post on May 11, 2003 and again today that in its search of
the ponds, the FBI found what appears to some to be be an improvised
“glove box” and also (supposedly) wrapped vials. She described it as a
“clear box” — other reports describe it as a plastic tub. Now, why,
again, are we talking about it? There was no claim that the glove box
has been tied to Dr. Hatfill or that any vials have been. The pond is
located near Ft. Detrick. The box reportedly had a rope, later
described as more like a shoestring, attached.
”If there is anthrax in the water, I am relatively sure that the
water is safe,” the Mayor of Frederick said to the local paper. Yet no
trace of anthrax was found. The story was hugely prejudicial. Any
agent leaking the story may have handed Attorney Glasberg a Section
1983 claim under the civil rights statute, particularly after the
similarly sourced ABC and CBS stories about agents who were convinced
he was guilty. If the Department of Justice permits those leaks to
occur, it risks Section 1983 liability itself.
“While some law-enforcement officials are taking the novel
theory seriously, others have dismissed it as fantasy. ‘It got a lot
of giggles,’ says one FBI source.” As many schoolboy knows (or at
least any schoolboy with google available to him could readily learn),
a rope or shoestring is used to retrieve a minnow trap from the bottom
of a pond. The USA Today first reported that a rope was found attached
to the plastic container. That reporter confides that her sources
insist that no gloves were in fact found as reported in the Washington
Post. The Washington Post does not repeat the assertion that gloves
and vials wrapped in plastic were found in today’ story — but, then,
no correction has issued either.
Clawson relying on details from their own “sources,” reportedly
said it was “like a K-Mart sweater box; like a piece of Tupperware
that just happened to have a hole in it.” Then he added, “From what I
understand it doesn’t have anything to do with bioweapons.” School
children are even taught online to study the flow of water systems
using plastic sweater boxes with a hole cut in it and take it to the
pond or stream.
The area they were searching is a quarter mile west of Fishing
Creek Road. According to the Gambrill Park webpage, a small pond,
located in the Rock Run area is popular for fishing for large mouth
bass, bluegill and channel catfish. As explained by one web thread
“Minnow trap advice,” even bluegill can be caught using a minnow trap
(not just minnows) There are many species of minnows in ponds. A
common minnow is the Golden Shiner. Minnows or shiners, mostly stocked
as food for bass. The photo in Newsweek of the diver in the wetsuit
from last December or January might best be captioned, as Brer Fox
once asked Brer Rabbit, “Did you catch minnows or a cold?”
Some minnow and turtle traps are rectangular boxes that look even
more closely like a glove box. As the Baltimore Sun reported,
explains, what was found was NOT a commercial glove box. If the gloves
don’t fit, you must acquit Numerous traps were set to rid Maryland
ponds of the Crofton snakehead, a species ruinous to ecosystems that
someone released from an aquarium. Earlier Washington Post articles
suggested the image of someone sticking their gloved hands into the
box while underwater. Well, how does water not rush through the holes?
Did Hatfill stick his hands into the box outside the water, walk
awkwardly into the water, then submerge the box? Water would seep
through. Today’s article shifts the suggestion to being one merely
where such equipment would be discarded. But “[a] basic rule of
aquatic research,” one web poster explains, “is that you have to be
prepared to lose anything you put in the water.” The way a minnow or
turtle trap, often left behind, works is that the small fish or turtle
can swim in but can’t swim out — sort of like being named a Person of
Interest.
A Washington Post article on May 30, 2003 characterized the false
positive as merely a conflicting lab report and the tantalizing
(albeit casually dropped) new discovery of gloves wrapped in plastic.
Can you imagine the leaker gleefully seizing the issue of the gloves
allegedly found, challenging detractors to a duel, and saying “Take
that!”
Trying to read the handwriting on the wall, it’s difficult to
imagine what evidence the FBI thinks it has that is both relevant to
the anthrax mailings and reliable enough so as to be admissible. As to
this handwriting, Marilyn Thompson of the Washington Post says that:
“The government has many samples of Hatfill’s cursive handwriting and
printing pulled from government files and work records. These have
been analyzed and reanalyzed, and apparently bear no resemblance to
the distinctive and creepy script used on the anthrax envelopes.”
Representative Purchase Orders filled out by Dr. Hatfill
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show substantial
differences between Hatfill’s writing and the anthrax letters.
First, he used the European style rather than popular American
style. (In US government circles, the “European style” is known as the
“military style” of writing dates). Instead of March 30, 1996, he
rendered the date 30 March 1996. The anthrax letters, in contrast,
used the popular American style of writing.
Second, when he wrote the month using a number rather than the
name of the month, he used a slash (”/”) rather than a dash (”-”) as
used in the anthrax letters.
Third, he commonly used 5 digit zipcodes rather than the 9 digit
zipcodes used by the anthrax mailer.
Fourth, he commonly used a single number in referring to the day
of the month and did not put a “0” in front of it as in the anthrax
letters.
Fifth, Dr. Hatfill makes the number one with a single vertical
line whereas the FBI psycholinguistic profile noted that “In writing
the number one, the author chooses to use a formalized, more detailed
version. He writes it as ‘1’ instead of the simple vertical line.”
Thus, representative Purchase Orders filled out by Hatfill
differ in these respects from the anthrax letters.
Then there’s the question of his time cards, which show him
working 13 hours on each September 17th and September 18th. In a July
3, 2003 public exchange with the author of Killer Strain, Washington
Post’s Thompson, there was this question and answer:
“Washington, D.C.: Do SAIC employees corroborate his alibi for the
September mailing as he claims (pointing to his timesheets for 9/17
and 9/18 evidencing 13 hour days)?”
Marilyn Thompson: “Officially, SAIC has not commented on the time
records produced by Hatfill to show his whereabouts on these critical
dates. My sources who know and worked with Hatfill believe strongly
that he was on duty at SAIC during those hours. “
(She is scheduled to answer questions about the current article on
Monday, at 1 p.m.)
As Ken Alibek has said, this question of who was where when is perhaps
the most important of all. The full timesheet for September 17 and
September 18 is available on line as an appendix to a weighty article
by David Tell of the Weekly Standard.
As it turns out, the FBI’s interest in Dr. Hatfill stemmed
significantly from his work on a mock-up of an anthrax lab for the
purpose of training Special Operations personnel. F.B.I. agents pulled
the lab over as it was being hauled to Ft. Bragg to check it again
even though they had spent two weeks examining it.
The Pentagon was allowed to keep and use the trailer in
preparation for the war with Iraq. Training sessions were by Dr.
Hatfill sometimes and other times by Dr. Patrick. Col. Bill Darley,
spokesman for the United States Special Operations Command in Tampa,
Fla., told the New York Times: “We are not growing anthrax or
botulinum toxin. None of this equipment is functional. It looks like —
it is — the real stuff, but it’s nonfunctional.” The nonfunctional
mock-up was built on an 18-wheel trailer and outfitted with
specialized, commercially available, lab equipment.
”No way in the wildest dream could it have been used to make
anything,” William C. Patrick III is quoted as saying. Dr. Hatfill
planned the design and supervised its construction at a shop in
Frederick, about a mile from his apartment. For some training
sessions, he reportedly used the anthrax simulant called Bacillus
globigii, which would commonly be used for such purposes. It was known
as “the can.” If Dr. Hatfill needed to tell Dr. Patrick that he was
going to see how work was progressing, he might say “I’m going to the
can.”
So in the Fall of 2002, while the FBI was investigating him,
Hatfill trained Defense Intelligence Agency employees on ways to
search for biological weapons, worked with Army’s Delta Force, and sat
in on a State Department meeting on embassy security in postwar
Afghanistan. He received letters of commendation for his work from
officials at the DIA and the State Department. In Iraq, DIA and CIA
agents worked with the 75th Exploitation Task Force in the search for
biological weapons in Iraq. At the DIA’s request, he did this work
even though he had been terminated by Science Applications
International Corp. (SAIC) at the considerable frustration of FBI
agents who thought he was responsible for the anthrax mailings.
Mr. Clawson was still speaking only vaguely about options and not
taking things lying down until late August 2003 when he filed suit in
federal district court in Washington DC against the Department of
Justice and various current and former officials. Until a January 2003
ABC report and a May 2003 CBS report, a Section 1983 civil rights
claim against the DOJ likely would lack merit based on what is
publicly known (there is a qualified immunity where the agency or
official is acting in good faith). Now it’s less clear. Leaks from
unnamed “agents” saying they think he’s guilty but can’t prove it
raise a very substantial question under the civil rights statute.
Attorney Connolly and his two colleagues also brought a statutory
invasion of privacy claim. The police report relating to the incident
where the FBI surveillance specialist, a former marine, ran over Dr.
Hatfill’s right foot made the FBI’s investigation look particularly
flat-footed.
Mr. Kristoff told Aaron Brown on CNN Newsnight: “Initially, for
several months, I did not use his name. I wanted to prod the FBI
because I thought there was an awful lot they were not doing. I wanted
to light a fire under them. And I wrote about Dr. Hatfill initially,
without using his name, using just the name ‘Mr. Z’ as a way of
raising the issue and trying to address some of the public policy
concerns but without putting him in the public eye and making —
giving him trouble.” For her part, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg
persuasively says: “I realize the FBI has gone out of its way to make
one suspect’s name public. That’s the FBI’s doing, and I presume they
had some good reason for that. If not, I think it is reprehensible to
do so.” Comments at the meeting with the Senate Staffers and FBI is
arguably best understood as absolutely privileged but would be a
matter of precedent in the controlling jurisdiction.
As for Dr. Hatfill’s claims against the Department of
Justice, one consideration is that the FBI has an important, often
thankless and difficult, job to do. Neighbors at the apartment
building — or police officer asked to block traffic — may have
tipped reporters rather than some Special Agent with a special
relationship with a local ABC reporter. The novel draft titled
Emergence may have been obtained at the Library of Congress’ Copyright
Office where it had been deposited, rather than given to a reporter by
a Special Agent or other source.
”I’d like to know how a copy of that ended up in the hands of
ABC News an hour before the press conference,” Mr. Clawson says.in a
television interveiw. Perhaps the local ABC affiliate reporter used
her resourcefulness and went to the Library of Congress where it was
archived in storage as a deposited copyrighted work. To view deposited
works, you need to fill out a form at the Madison building, wait a
while, and then read it in a cubicle after they telephone and tell you
it has been retrieved from the archives. And so if that is where the
reporter got the copy, there will be a form that was signed (a person
has to represent that they will not violate the copyright and affirm
that it for the purpose of litigation).
In the end stages of the UNABOM investigation, there were 5
suspects under 7/24 surveillance that Spring. And not one of them was
the perp. So to infer he is guilty because of the surveillance
against Hatfill in 2002 and 2003 — there reportedly are 8 DOJ employees on him
— is fallacious.
And as for the media finding unnamed “sources” (even within the
FBI) who think he’s guilty and the seasoned Washington Post
journalists finding numerous sources to provide the basis for the pond
scum story — big whoop. That’s the nature of how the mind works. No
one wants to think they are wasting their time. Or that they’ve been
horribly unfair toward someone.
Reasonable people can disagree on whether the DOJ can require
that someone they are actively investigating for serial murder not be
allowed to work on a federally-funded project (at LSU). Perhaps they
would be within their right — and that LSU was justified in letting
him go in any event because he had claimed to have a PhD when he in
fact did not have one. Academics have resigned or been fired for a lot
less. Incorrectly claiming a PhD is not mere puffery on a resume,
particularly with respect to earlier positions that involved access to
deadly pathogens.
When people are intent on taking control of airliners and
flying them into nuclear reactors, maybe we should all cut the FBI
some slack under these special circumstances and all just promise to
go out and buy whatever book Dr. Hatfill chooses to write. Note that
Richard Jewell collected substantial settlements from the media
defendants but nothing from the Department of Justice.
In August 2003, Hatfill’s spokesman Clawson determined to going back
to Michigan to join lost love. In announcing his decision several
weeks later, he emphasized his strong belief that Dr. Hatfill had
nothing to do with anthrax mailings. Four years later, It would appear that
his conviction has stood the test of time.