Posted on 01/11/2008 2:14:52 PM PST by EdLake
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 Thomas G. Connolly, did not speculate in court on the likelihood for a settlement. Afterward, Grannis said, "The court has set a schedule for bringing this case to trial this year, and we're very pleased at the prospect that Dr. Hatfill will finally have his day in court."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
FYI ping
Now WHY is this name sticking out in my mind?? Was there some poor judicial decision or perfidy that makes my radar go off at this guy's name??
Anybody recall anything questionable about him? Thanks in advance
Libby case.
He was the judge in the "Scooter" Libby case last year.
Other than that, he's been in the news whenever anything about the Hatfill v FBI et al lawsuit is mentioned, and that lawsuit has been going on for four years or so.
Gee, no Democrats are calling for criminal investigations into this leak of Hatfill’s name.
What a shocker.
Hillary?! Wasn’t she “concerned” about the leaks of Valerie Plame’s name to the news media?
That's according to a the Scheduling Order which was just released.
Oh, of course! Libby...no wonder my radar was tweaking.
Thanks, FReepers are the best!
yep, thanks
later
So, the Newsweek story was totally bogus, and that story was one of the most damaging news stories about Dr. Hatfill.
Years ago, my analysis showed that the bloodhounds were merely used to find out where Dr. Hatfill had been during a brief period when the FBI lost their tail on him while he was driving home from Louisiana to Maryland.
So, now we know where the bogus information about the bloodhounds came from and why it was planted.
It also makes me wonder how the FBI can ever expect to get the Amerithrax case prosecuted if they use "sting" tactics to snare DOJ lawyers who are leaking information. It's the lawyers at the DOJ who would authorize an arrest and who would try the case in court.
The pretrial conference is scheduled for October 10, 2008. That's the time when the actual date for the start of the trial will be set. Of course, anything could happen before then.
I think there's only about 1 chance in 100 that the case will actually go to trial. There's certainly plenty of time for a settlement before then. And the government has plenty of reason for wanting a settlement.
A settlement of the case could carry political implications: On Aug. 6, 2002, then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft first identified Hatfill as a "person of interest" in the anthrax mailings. By settling with Hatfill, the government would all but dispel the possibility that he might ever be charged for the deadly mailings. And -- in an election year when fear of terrorism looms as an important issue -- Hatfill's exoneration would remind voters that no suspect has been caught.
I think there's something "between the lines" in that comment. I'm just not sure what it is.
Ping
Fortunately, it appears that President Bush is going to “pocket veto” the federal shield law bill. However, it looks like this trial isn’t going to get started until around the end of his Presidency, and who knows what will happen when the new administration takes over.
Yeah. Also, from what I can tell, it appears that the FBI has pretty much completed its investigation of the Amerithrax case and is just waiting for lawyers in the Department of Justice to authorize an arrest. But the DOJ won't authorize an arrest (of a respected scientist who is NOT Dr. Hatfill) because the FBI's case depends upon the new science of microbial forensics, and there is no precedent for using that science in court.
FBI and other scientists have written paper after paper discussing microbial forensics and how it should be ready for court, plus ways to get it into court, including one by Bruce Budowle from the FBI's lab in Quantico, VA, and Rockne Harmon from the District Attorneys Office in Oakland, CA. The article is from sometime in 2005 and is titled "HIV Legal Precedent Useful for Microbial Forensics."
And it certainly didn't help for the FBI to catch one of the DOJ's top lawyers, Daniel S. Seikaly, in a "sting" operation that caught him leaking bogus information about Dr. Hatfill to the media. And his boss was identified as being another leaker.
I can imagine the whole DOJ legal staff simply waving their hands and saying "Let the next administration deal with it!"
My personal opinion is that most people lost interest and stopped caring about the anthrax attacks a while ago. That might be partly because the media hasn't been talking about them too much, thanks in no small part to the fact that everyone thought they had their guy in Hatfill and turned out to be wrong.
That line in the article sounds to me like a veiled way of saying that if the government/media complex is forced to settle with Hatfill, that the media will then be bringing this issue back into the forefront full force as a campaign weapon against Bush and the Republicans.
Also, I expect that most of the left-leaning media outlets probably subscribe to the Barbara Hatch Rosenberg/Sherwood Ross conspiracy theory that the government knows who did it but it is intentionally covering it up for political reasons.
I've seen no indications that anyone who thought that Dr. Hatfill sent the anthrax letters has changed his or her mind.
In March of last year, "60 Minutes" did a show where they basically said that Dr. Hatfill was getting away with it and would probably collect a big settlement as payment from the Bush administration. Just a few days ago, The Los Angeles Times seemed to be suggesting something along that same line:
By settling with Hatfill, the government would all but dispel the possibility that he might ever be charged for the deadly mailings.
In a way, it might be a good thing for the trial to take place after the new president has been sworn in. Assuming it's a Democrat, and assuming that even if they start the trial in December, they won't get much farther than picking the jury by January 20, it will help make it VERY clear to the world that Dr. Hatfill is innocent if the trial ends in his favor during a Democratic administration.
And no doubt they want no part of another big settlement like the one with Wen Ho Lee. They don't want this sort of thing to become a precedent every time they screw up to this magnitude.
You had rogue Commies (not under the discipline of the KGB) out "protecting" friends and associates from being accused of the Anthrax attack. She did it by attacking Dr. Hatfill.
Their inside guy at the FBI (or is it "guys") arranged to direct the investigation in such a way that none of the leftwingtards were checked out for their involvement in the deal.
This is going to change.
Ed, I think some of your "loose ends" will shortly be knitted together so you might want to review the vast corpus of stuff you've come up with.
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