Hatfill v. US - DOJ and FBI Statement of Facts (filed Friday)

US DOJ and FBI Memorandum In Support of Motion For Summary Judgment (Statement of Facts) | April 11, 2008 | Department of Justice

[EdLake]

Ed, his 1999 resume claims he knows former BG (anthrax simulant) production methods. So he apparently disagrees with your assessment that he does not know such methods.

It is NOT MY ASSESSMENT. According to Brian Ross of ABC, that is the FBI's assessment.

BRIAN ROSS: Well, Terry, it was some of his former co-workers at Fort Detrick in Maryland who first told the FBI they were suspicious of him, that he could, in fact, be the anthrax mailer. He was fired from his job at Fort Detrick, or dismissed, in 1999 and then lost his top secret security clearance August 23rd of 2001. He apparently had misrepresented a number of things on his resume. He was said at that time to be mad at the world, mad at the government, and many in the FBI thought that perhaps gave them the motive for some kind of revenge against the government. As well, he’s known as a person who has worked around anthrax experts, although the FBI concedes he could not himself make anthrax, does not have what they call "the bench skills" to make it.

I don't think I'll respond any further. You now seem to be on some kind of brainless rant about how Dr. Hatfill deserves to be destroyed because he used a forged Ph.D. certificate. That certificate has nothing to do with the legal case. The legal case is about government violations of the Privacy act.

You are blaming the victim.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

Funny how every other microbiologist seems to be able to make anthrax dry powder EXCEPT Hatfill (at laset according to Ed).

[EdLake]

Sources close to the investigation declined to name the chemical but said its presence was something of a surprise.

Since they don't give many details, it's difficult to determine exactly what the REPORTER was talking about. The wording and the point in time suggests that he was talking about the "polymerized glass" that was detected in the anthrax as a result of lab contamination. (Previously, the silicon and oxygen they detected was thought to have been in the form of silica.) Reporters, particularly at the Washington Post, were constantly distorting and/or misunderstanding the facts about the anthrax.

“Somebody had to have special knowledge and experience to do this,” the official said.

That's absolutely true and is what I previously said. If you know how to do it, it's easy. But you have to have the "special knowledge and expertise" that comes from actually working with dry spores.

We now know that the wet anthrax was treated with a surfactant prior to drying. The surfactant was almost certainly ORGANIC, not silica based. That process can be said to "leave a coating on the spores," but you wouldn't use that terminology if you did the same thing by putting a capful of Downey Fabric Softener into your final rinse water before drying your clothes. Does the Downey "leave a coating" on your clothes? Not exactly. It leaves behind molecules which reduce or eliminate the static charge caused by drying in hot air.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[EdLake]

Funny how every other microbiologist seems to be able to make anthrax dry powder EXCEPT Hatfill

Why can't you grasp the simple fact that Dr. Hatfill worked with viruses NOT microbes. Dr. Hatfill was a virologist, he was NOT A MICROBIOLOGIST.

You seem unable to grasp even the most basic facts if they somehow disagree with your conspiracy theories.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[ZacandPook]

Ed,

Didn’t Dr. Hatfill sue in federal court seeking damages arguing that the proximate cause of his lost jobs was the suspicion associated to the anthrax investigation? If he would have lost the job anyway because he forged the PhD certificate, how can the claim for damages be maintained to that extent? Isn’t the proximate cause the forgery of the PhD? Moreover, as to the privacy act violation, what is the language of the Privacy Act and how does it apply to Seikaly’s leaks based on oral briefings?

[ZacandPook]

Dr. Hatfill’s counsel argues:

“The Directive not to use Dr. Hatfill had nothing to do with his performance. Dr. Guillot objected to the DOJ’s directive; Dr. Hatfill had not been convicted of anything and Dr. Hatfill was an important part of the program and it was not an appropriate time to remove him. Beres Dep. at 34:10-35:17 (Ex. 4). In fact, Dr. Guillot had been told by FBI Special Agent David Dawson (co-lead investigator of the Amerithrax investigation) that the FBI had found nothing implicating Dr. Hatfill in the anthrax attacks and that he was not considered a suspect. Guillot Dep. at 37:15-39:20 (Ex. 16); Roth Dep. at 15:17-16:4 (Ex. 39). Nevertheless, LSU was not in a position to challenge the DOJ’s order; Dr. Hatfill was immediately removed from performing his duties. The DOJ’s directive effectively ended Dr. Hatfill’s employment at LSU as his position was funded entirely through the DOJ’s grant. Guillot Dep. 24:14-25:10, 42:10- 17, 65:15-69:4 (Ex. 16).”

Ed, did Dr. Hatfill claim to have a PhD in applying for the LSU job? Separately, was the DOJ obligated to fund a scientist in biodefense where he had forged a PhD certificate in gaining access to ebola in a Bio-Level 4 laboratory at a US military facility? Isn’t Dr. Hatfill the one who has placed the forgery of the PhD at issue by claiming damages for reversal of the decision by LSU to hire him in the US-funded program? Isn’t he the one who made it relevant by seeking damages for the loss of the federally-funded employment?

[EdLake]

If he would have lost the job anyway because he forged the PhD certificate, how can the claim for damages be maintained to that extent? Isn’t the proximate cause the forgery of the PhD?

These are all issues I leave to Judge Walton to decide, and I suspect he'll leave many of them to a jury to decide.

Moreover, as to the privacy act violation, what is the language of the Privacy Act and how does it apply to Seikaly’s leaks based on oral briefings?

The govenment argues that the information wasn't obtained from government files. Dr. Hatfill argues that, even if it was given in an oral briefing, the FBI agents giving the briefing clearly got the information from government files.

Again, it's something for either Judge Walton or a jury to decide.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[EdLake]

Ed, did Dr. Hatfill claim to have a PhD in applying for the LSU job?

I have no inside information about this. Presumably, since the issue came up at USAMRIID, he wouldn't be dumb enough to use a forged certificate in trying to get his next job.

But, if this case has taught me one thing, it is: It never pays to assume that people would never do something that is totally and completely dumb.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[ZacandPook]

I agree. I have no idea how Judge Walton will decide. I don’t know how the Privacy Act applies, and don’t know how the issue of damages, if reached, would apply as to lost wages.

Ed, you say on a webpage that he corrected “discrepancies” on his resume in subsequent versions. Is that accurate? As a narrow factual matter, at what point did Dr. Hatfill stop representing that he had a PhD? By the time he briefed the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI’s D.C. Field Office in June 1998? By the time he briefed on bioweapons alongside Alibek and Patrick in San Diego in August 1998? Some paralegal at the FBI’s D.C. Field Office may have a file marked “Hatfill - Powerpoint Presentations” with his name on the first page and a designation Ph.D — or not. Now if when he briefed them, it says “PhD”, you can appreciate that they are not going to give him the benefit of the doubt when he makes particular factual assertions.

Hatfill, S.J., Margolis, L., Duray, P.H. (1996) In-vitro maintenance of normal and pathological human salivary gland tissue in a NASA designed rotating wall vessel bioreactor. Cell Vision, 3; (5); 397-401.

Hatfill, S.J., Biological Terrorism and Civil Defense, Crisis and Consequence Management, International Terrorism Studies Program, George Washington University Marvin Center, Washington, D.C., August 12, 1997

Hatfill, S.J., Briefing, Central Intelligence Agency, Non-Proliferation Center, New Headquarters Bldg, September 4, 1997

Hatfill, S.J., Briefing, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Defense Technology Security Administration, September 17, 1997

Hatfill, S.J., Briefing, Defense Special Weapons Agency, October 8, 1997

Hatfill, S.J. Briefing SHIELD, U.S. State Department, 18 November 1997

Hatfill, S.J., Hauer, J., “Biological Terrorism, Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, Special Meeting, May 21, 1998”

Hatfill, S.J., Flexible and rapid mass casualty redistribution following a large coverage biological or chemical incident. Potomac Institute for Polyc Studies/George Washington University Terrorism Studies Group - Conference on Biological Terrorism, June 16, 1998

Hatfill, S.J. Briefing, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joint Terrorism Task Force, Washington D.C. Field Office, June 29, 1998

Hatfill, S.J., Briefing, Assistant Secretary for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, Pentagon, July 4, 1998

Hatfill, S.J., Briefing, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Medical Affairs, Pentagon, August 11, 1998

Hatfill, S.J., Barbish, D.F, Briefing Paper, National Security Council, Old Executive Office Building - Room 302, Washington, D.C., October 26, 1998

J. Huggins, M. Bray, M. Martrinez, and S. Hatfill, Cidofovir treatment for Smallpox and Monkeypox orthopoxvirus infections. (Manuscript in preparation)

Hatfill, S.J., Bray, M., Thompson, B., Guiesberg, T., Steel, K., Jarhling, P., Huggins, J., and Margolis, L. (1998) Pathogenic differences between Ebola Reston and Ebola Zaire in the NASA RWV Bioreactor (in progress)

Hatfill, S.J., Integration of the first responder ALERT system with DSWA and DARPA consequence management techniques for an improved non-military defense against chemical and biological terrorism (manuscript submitted)

Bray, M., Jaax, N., Geisbert, T., Kell, W., Hatfill, S., Huggins, J., Pathogenesis of Lethal Ebola Virus Infection in Adult Immunocompetent Mice. American Socity of Virology, Annual Meeting, Vancouver, Canada, July 11, 1998

Hatfill, S.J., Margolis, L., Duray, P.H. (1998) Maintenance of human prostate tissue without exogenous hormonal support in a NASA designed rotating wall vessel bioreactor. J. Urol. (in press 1998)

Hatfill, S.J., Barbisch, D.F. (1998) Flexible and Rapid Mass Casualty redistribution following large area urban coverage by chemical and biological warfare agents. (manuscript in preparation).

Patrick, W.C, Alibek, K., Hatfill, S.J., Panel presentation on the U.S. Offensive Biological Program, Soviet Union Biopreparat Offensive Biological Program, and Terrorist Manufacture and Use of Biological Weapons, Department of Defense Worldwide Conference on Antiterrorism. San Diego, C.A. August 24-27, 1998.

Hatfill, S.J., Technology Working Group on Rapid Diagnostics. Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. April 20, 1999.

[EdLake]

Ed, you say on a webpage that he corrected “discrepancies” on his resume in subsequent versions. Is that accurate? As a narrow factual matter, at what point did Dr. Hatfill stop representing that he had a PhD?

I don't know. My interest is in the anthrax attacks of 2001, not the personal life and foibles of Dr. Steven Hatfill.

I probably got that information from talking with someone who knows him.

I have no interest in any further discussions with you about Dr. Hatfill. He had NOTHING to do with the anthrax attacks. Your sudden interest in Dr. Hatfill evidently has NOTHING to do with the anthrax attacks. So, there will be no further responses from me to your questions about Dr. Hatfill.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

So was “after months of intensive laboratory analysis” still the “early panicky days”. When did the “early panicky days” end?

[TrebleRebel]

Doesn’t your bloodhound theory look silly in light of the sworn testimony of the bloodhound guy?

[TrebleRebel]

“I have no interest in any further discussions with you about Dr. Hatfill.”

At least Ed knows when he’s beaten..........

[EdLake]

Doesn’t your bloodhound theory look silly in light of the sworn testimony of the bloodhound guy?

What testimony are you talking about? I've seen nothing that changes my "bloodhound theory."

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[EdLake]

“I have no interest in any further discussions with you about Dr. Hatfill.”

At least Ed knows when he’s beaten..........

Refusing to discuss Dr. Hatfill any further with ZacandPook has nothing to do with being beaten. It has to do with not wanting to be irresponsible. And it has to do with the fact that my interest is in the anthrax attacks of 2001, and Dr. Hatfill had nothing to do with those attacks.

When people stop talking with you or ZacandPook, it doesn't mean they are beaten. Generally, it means the conversation has gotten too stupid or too irresponsible to bother with.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

Just as I thought - he’s totally defeated.

He’s twisting the argument around and using high-moral ground phrases like “irresponsible”.

He can’t face the FACTS that his “any expert microbiologist EXCEPT Hatfill can make dry spores” is wholesale idiocy.

[EdLake]

When did the “early panicky days” end?

The days when the government was giving out bad information about the nature of the attack anthrax ended around March of 2002. The MEDIA continued to give out bad information about the attack anthrax for YEARS afterwards.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

Hmmm - that lab report was published in April 2002 - after MONTHS of INTENSIVE LABORATORY ANALYSIS. Does that mean it was good information?

AFIP published their Newsletter in October 2002 - so that definitely means it was good information - by your own standard. AFIP clearly and unambiguously stated that silica was a key aerosol enabling component of the Daschle anthrax and they released a reference spectrum of silica. See below:





Years later, Meselson falsely told a C&E News journalist that AFIP did NOT release a spectrum of silica - he claimed it was just silicon?

Did Meselson lie? Or did the journalist just "misunderstand" him?

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/84/8449gov1.html

"Yet, the spectrum AFIP released shows a peak for the element silicon, not silicon dioxide (silica)."

[TrebleRebel]

Do you think Meselson still believes the Soviet’s weren’t running a BW factory at Sverdlovsk?

CHAPTER NINE Incident at Sverdlovsk

Page 76:

The Soviets now went to extraordinary lengths to buttress their lies and make them supportable and credible worldwide. What had begun as a local cover-up in Sverdlovsk, now became an international fairy tale, a fiction of breathtaking audacity.

Page 77:

Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Matthew Meselson, a respected Harvard professor of microbiology and longtime arms control activist, unwittingly helped the Soviet caravan of deception and disinformation gain acceptance in the West.
Meselson emerged as the leading scientific expert to oppose his own government’s interpretation of Sverdlovsk in favour of the Soviets’ old tainted-meat cover-up. He defended the Soviets’ case publicly and doubtless from the most honest of beliefs. President Reagan was now in the White House and, no matter how forcefully his administration complained about Sverdlovsk, Meselson remained utterly convinced that there had been an accident with bad meat and it had nothing to do with any secret biological weapons plant.
.........
With his well-deserved and impressive academic/scientific credentials, his views were usually sought and carefully listened to. He also became an important figure for the US media to consult. His opinions about Sverdlovsk were widely quoted in the serious press, books, and prestigious scientific journals. The record shows that after 1980 his publicly stated views on Sverdlovsk broadly agreed with the explanations issued by the Soviets themselves.

Page 81:

But the guilty involvement reached even higher. Next, it emerged that Boris Yelstin himself also must have known about the cover-up. In May 1992, Yeltsin’s new Russian government formally acknowledged what was now well known, but still had no official imprimatur. The man who had been the powerful communist party chief of the Sverdlovsk region in 1979 was none other than President Boris Yeltsin. He now admitted that the outbreak had been caused by an accident at the biological weapons facility, and not by natural causes. This presumably correct version became the official position of the Russian government, and remains so to this day.
Meselson, however, remained unfazed. In the face of Yeltsin’s admission and the Russian and US press disclosures, the professor assembled a team of expert American scientists and went with them to Sverdlovsk in June 1992 to see for himself. They interviewed two outstanding Sverdlovsk doctors Faina Abramova and Lev Grinberg who participated in the 1979 autopsies at Hospital 40. For thirteen years, these brave pathologists had secretly hidden incontrovertible medial evidence from the KGB including preserved tissue samples, slides, and autopsy reports which proved that the victims had died from breathing in the anthrax.
Meselson later claimed that he and his team had made the discovery of the new truth from these important witnesses, but again, the facts were against him. The two Russian doctors had previously spoken to Soviet reporters and the Wall Street Journal, so Meselson was simply taking credit for being the final arbiter who had authenticated the evidence.
After making a second trip to Sverdlovsk, Mesleson finally published his results in 1994 in the journal Science; the article accepted that the tainted-meat story was bogus. But, perversely, he still would not admit that the US government had been right for fifteen years, or that he had been wrong. Rather, he trumpeted the fact that he anf his team had finally uncovered the “defenitive proof” that the true cause of the outbreak was pulmonary anthrax.
“This should end the argument about where the outbreak came from,” Meselson somewhat pompously told the New York Times “Right up until now, people have still been debating the matter.”
Yet, to the bitter end, Meselson still clung to a benign interpretation of Soviet motives. He noted that the cause of the accident was still not determined, which implied that it may have involved only a Soviet research centre, one for finding an antidote to an anthrax attack, and not a military production centre for biological weapons. By clinging to this position, he could still argue that the Soviets were not violating the BWC, but were conducting permissable research under the treaty.

[EdLake]

He can’t face the FACTS that his “any expert microbiologist EXCEPT Hatfill can make dry spores” is wholesale idiocy

You still don't seem to be able to comprehend that Dr. Hatfill was a VIROLOGIST.

A microbiologist generally works with bacteria. Bacteria are living creatures. Anthrax is a bacterium.

A virologist works with viruses. A virus is: "A microorganism smaller than a bacteria, which cannot grow or reproduce apart from a living cell. A virus invades living cells and uses their chemical machinery to keep itself alive and to replicate itself."

A typical virologist would have absolutely no reason to ever create dry spores.

Why is that so difficult for you to comprehend?

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com