Hatfill Gives Press Conference

Fox news | 08-25-02 | Steve Hatfill

[at bay]

Just watched the Hatfill press conference. FBI continuing on its theory that this was something that originated from the US and that Atta must have had athlete's foot or something. Hatfill, if innocent, is rightly indignant at his treatment.

[Cachelot]

Hatfullofit insists he never, ever met that woman Rosenberg.

Heh. Let's just see what comes of it. I may have misunderstood something :).

I suspect that there will be a lawsuit, eventually, and that a lot of stuff will see the light of day.

[PoorMuttly]

His sister was bitten by a Rhodesian.

It changes a person.

[Lion's Cub]

I dare you to......make for a hell of an after action report here.......:-)

Hey, I'm not stupid enough to fly now in the first place ;) I haven't flown since they banned smoking and lost my luggage for nearly a week.

[snopercod]

The Hatfill Case: Essential Background

This extensive background may seem a little academic, but it is absolutely essential to understand the current controversy swirling around Steven Hatfill, the bioweapons scientist who called a press conference to complain that he was "the currently designated fall guy" for the anthrax letters in the wake of September 11. Everyone involved understands that he was designated the fall guy not so much by the FBI but by none other than Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the FAS.

In November 2001, a month after the rash of anthrax attacks, Ms. Rosenberg was already telling an audience in Geneva that New York "has been attacked, first by foreign terrorists, then by an American using a weaponized biological agent." She assured listeners that the anthrax "was derived, almost certainly, from a U.S. defense laboratory."

[brydic1]

Anyone that thinks this FBI is any different than the FBI of Janet Reno's days has only to consider the unbelievable foul up in the case of these missing Oregon girls. The bodies of these girls are likely to be found right under the very noses of the FBI at property owned by a excon who had previously been reported by one of the girls to have attempted to assault her. If these poor children are found on that property (it was only a matter of yards from where they lived) while the FBI was no doubt following the advise of some profiler that the killer was some right wing extremist.

[gdc61]

ridgeback?

[eddie willers]

Thanks.
The more I research this, the more I think this is a slam job.
And I am getting angry.

Here's another from Mona Charen:

August 19, 2002

Something fishy in the Hatfill case?

Mona Charen

Dr. Steven Hatfill may or may not be the killer who sent anthrax through the mail last year. But something smells about the way the FBI is handling this matter.

Without arresting him, a researcher who never worked with anthrax, and even without calling him a suspect — merely one of 20 "persons of interest" — the FBI apparently tipped off the press when it made a scheduled search of Dr. Hatfill's apartment.

When the FBI agents arrived, they were accompanied by satellite trucks and news helicopters buzzing overhead. What if they are wrong? Will the press ever correct with the same vigor that it misreports? Almost never — the Richard Jewell case being the only exception that leaps to mind, and he had to sue. More often, the unjustly accused have no recourse. In the immortal words of Ray Donovan, Ronald Reagan's labor secretary who was acquitted of corruption charges in a court of law after a prolonged trial by media, "Where do I go to get my reputation back?"

A spokesman for the FBI denies tipping the press, but those helicopters and news trucks did not arrive due to clairvoyance. Not only does it look like the FBI was fingering a man against whom it has very little evidence in order to obscure the FBI's lack of progress in finding the anthrax terrorist or terrorists, it further looks like the FBI has bullheadedly followed only one possible scenario — the lone American scientist — in its search.

The Weekly Standard's David Tell has waged a lonely battle to challenge the FBI on this. In a series of detailed articles (see the Weekly Standard, April 29, 2002), Tell has examined the FBI's peculiar reliance on research professor Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the State University of New York at Purchase. She has apparently encouraged the FBI to believe a disgruntled American scientist loosed anthrax on the political and media elite last year.

Her views sound a bit loopy to the dispassionate observer. She apparently told the BBC that the FBI has known the true identity of the anthrax mailer for some time but won't arrest him because "he knows too much." Well, let Mr. Tell tell: "Last fall, you see, the man's Langley masters supposedly decided they'd like to field-test what would happen if billions of lethal anthrax spores were sent through the regular mail and it was 'left to him to decide exactly how to carry it out.' The loosely supervised madman then used his assignment to launch an attack on the media and Senate 'for his own motives.' And, this truth being obviously too hot to handle, the FBI is now trying hard not to discover it."

 Okaaaay.

Then there is the matter of Syed Athar Abbas, a Pakistani picked up for defrauding two banks out of $100,000 and running a sophisticated check-kiting scheme. Tell reports that when the FBI checked him out, it discovered he had purchased a "fine food particulate mixer" (the sort that might be used for making biological weapons) for about $100,000 in cash. Was the FBI interested, or was it too busy chasing Dr. Hatfill?

To read Dr. Hatfill's statement is to suspect very strongly that the man is innocent. If I were wrongly accused, I think I would write a statement like his. Some excerpts: "I've devoted much of my professional career to safeguarding men, women and children from the scourge of different types of disease, from leukemia to infectious disease. I am appalled at the terrible acts of biological terrorism that have caused death, disease and havoc in the great country starting last fall. I wish the authorities Godspeed in catching the culprit or culprits. I do not object to being considered a subject of interest by the authorities because of my knowledge and background in the field of biological warfare defense. This does not, however, give them the right to smear me and gratuitously make a wasteland of my life. If I am a subject of interest, I'm also a human being. I need to earn a living [he's been fired from two jobs due to this investigation]. I have a family, and until recently, I had a reputation and a bright professional future."

If the FBI has screwed this up, heads should roll, starting with Director Robert Mueller's.

Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.

[brydic1]

Was not Mueller appointed because he got the support of Teddy Kennedy. A great endorsement for the man, no doubt.

[PoorMuttly]

cheeseback.

Weaponized cheese.

[okie01]

"...but there's something odd going on. The only time I hear about Hatfill is from Hatfill. If he doesn't want attention, get off of my tv!"

You probably don't live in the Baltimore-Washington TV markets. Hatfill does. And he is the target of a multi-media blitz from the local newspapers and TV channels -- all Hatfill, all the time.

You'd be sore, too...

[okie01]

"I've been given to understand that Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, the woman whose report is underpinning much of the witch-hunt against him, is actually an old girlfriend of his who has been after him for years."

You have been misinformed. Hatfill claims he has never met the inimitable media darling, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, and has no idea why she would accuse him.

But, then, he's only the fourth guy she's accused...

[Catspaw]

Only in America could a man hold a press conference and complain about his right to privacy being violated.

[ijcr]

Let's get some perspective on this issue.

The Good Guy's

DOJ/FBI.....Track record--Ruby Ridge,Waco,TWA 800,Whitey Bulger,Robert Hanssen,Aldrige Ames,Wen Ho Lee, White House Files,Richard Jewell, missing 449 guns and 184 computers,Elian Gonzales,Potts-gate,New Orleans Brothel,Moussoui,Walker-Lindt.

The Bad Guy.

Hatfill....Offers blood test, hand writing sample, lie detector interview.

Hmmm! Hatfill must have something to hide.

[brydic1]

The FBI profilers in the case of the Oregon girls said they were sure the abductor/possible killer of the girls was an anti-social loner and since Weaver was a "family man", he was eliminated. Thank God they found out the truth before they picked up some one that fit their profile. Can you imagine that they eliminated the next door neighbor whose father is on deathrow for murder in CA, who had been accused of molestation by one of those girls previously, had a criminal record a mile long. We need to get rid of profilers and so that our law enforcement officers can do some real police work.

[Cachelot]

But, then, he's only the fourth guy she's accused...

Hehe. Seeing where she is at, I'm not at all surprised :). Who were the other three?

[okie01]

...but the dems will definitely use this issue all during the primaries and November elections. HATFILL HANDED THEM AN ELECTION ISSUE. "Here you go Mr. MacAuliffe, at your service."

The Dems don't want this issue. It serves their purpose that the anthrax perpetrator be a.) American, b.) white, c.) connected to the defense/intelligence establishment.

For them, Hatfill is the perfect patsy. That the anthrax should have come from another source (like, say, Iraq) is what gives Daschle, McAuliffe & Co. the willies...

Rosenberg, by the way, is one of their "true believers"...

[brydic1]

Is this Rosenberg character the daugther of daughter-in-law of Julius and Ethel?

[gdc61]

yea , the gov is wrong ,lets fire em all , no more FBI no more CIA , no more president ....were do i order a burka for my wife

[Cachelot]

Only in America could a man hold a press conference and complain about his right to privacy being violated.

Yes, well.. it has been violated. Not only this doubtful accusation which stops just short of being an actual accusation, but it's also a fact that for the last year anyone - anyone - identified as being a bio-weapons expert seem to be in mortal danger, seeing as they're bumped off with boring regularity. For Hatfill, remaining squarely in the center of the spotlight may at this point be what saves his life. Maybe the FBI had thought that by dropping his name out there, he would have been dead by now, and they could have closed the Anthrax case as "cleanly solved".

[muawiyah]

Ol Barb' and many of her comrades buried in the FBI bureaucracy from the days of the Cold War fear that the anthrax attack was done by some of their fellow leftwingers.

If so, and any of them are picked up, they are going to rat these guys out.

That's why the FBI is working so hard on diverting investigative resources AWAY from the real pepetrators and toward a guy who they know is innocent of the charge.

From the very beginning of this issue I had thought it was an AlQeada agent in the investigative arm that was misleading everybody, then Barbara Hatch Rosenberg came out with her attack on various un-named disgrunteld white American federal government male employees. Then the FBI fell in line, and it's just been one piece of BS after another.

Remember, the last organized, armed and dangerous group to attack the United States Postal Service before the anthrax attack was the Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), and you'd better believe the undercover former Soviet spies still in the FBI as well as their gumbah, ol'Barb, know more than their fair share of these guys.