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From a scott Shane article, apparently not on FR, and I hadn't seen it before tonight:

Scientist theorized anthrax mail attack - FBI searched apartment of expert linked to study (June 27, 2002)

"...In the case of Hatfill, it is unclear why FBI agents waited at least six months after they first questioned him to conduct a thorough search of his home. One possibility: a briefing last week for Senate staffers by biologist Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.
Rosenberg, who heads a biological weapons working group at the Federation of American Scientists, has repeatedly criticized the bureau for failing to aggressively pursue a "likely suspect" whom she has not named but who closely resembles Hatfill. Her Senate briefing was attended by Van Harp, who heads the anthrax investigation as assistant FBI director in charge of the Washington field office, and three other FBI agents.

This, again, is my take:

Daschle and Leahy are angry no progress is, apparently, being made. Naturally, because they were the targets. The staffers meet with media-anointed expert Barbara Rosenberg. She gives her pitch, which I call Portrait of a Possible Frame Job

The staffers are impressed with Rosenberg's delivery, and her verisimilitude of scientific knowledge, expertise, and insider access to the industry. Additionally, since Hatfill might fit the "right wing guy" profile, connections to Rhodesia seem ominous, and these democratic staffers might be more receptive to Rosenberg's pitch thereby.

Staffers brief the boss, Daschle. He gets on the horn and says why isn't this guy being taken out? He might have threatened jobs and funding too, alarmed that the man who tried to kill him was not being pursued. In fact, I can't imagine him not making any threats, under the influence of Rosenberg's portrait.

Within days, Project Hatfill began. Leaks about searches and the like kept it public and in the minds of staffers and Daschle. The semblance of progress is being made, pressure is taken off, funding continues. Investigators start to believe the Hatfill scenario themselves. Lots of time and effort and prestige has been invested in it.

The timing of the Project Hatfill fits the Daschle meeting scenario, and, IMO, fits an explanation that is plausible within established scenarios of bureaucratic politics.

War on terror:FBI guilty of cover-up over anthrax suspect(Rosenberg knows name she says)

Before the Daschle meeting, June 16, Rosenberg had this to say:

"...Rosenberg said she knows who that person is and so do a top-level clique of US government scientists, the CIA, the FBI and the White House.
"Early in the investigation," Rosenberg told Scotland on Sunday, "a number of inside experts, at least five that I know about, gave the FBI the name of one specific person as the most likely suspect. That person fits the FBI profile in most respects. He has the right skills, experience with anthrax, up-to-date anthrax vaccination, forensic training, and access to the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (AMRIID) and its biological agents through 2001." ..."

In September, after the meeting, and after Hatfill's statements about Rosenberg, she might have changed her mind, or conducted some CYA to show, after the fact, that she wasn't single-minded about Hatfill:

FBI Criticized for Failing to Solve Anthrax Case (Hatfill plus Rosenberg Alert)

"...Rosenberg said she has sent a new commentary about the anthrax attacks to the FBI, but would not make it available to others. She said she did not want to interfere with the proceeding investigation by making public statements. ..."

Ping.

Rosenberg was merely a disposable useful idiot exploited by the Bush administration in the early phases of the campaign. In phase one, the administration focused on developing left-wing useful idiots to sell the Amerithrax story. By making the Hatfill story a left-wing cause celebre, the administration ensured that their biggest potential problem -- well-funded and antagonistic liberal news outlets and watchdog groups -- would actually end up being suckered into promoting their own cover story. Once that was accomplished, they pulled the rug out from under the folks they had coaxed into priming the pump. Rosenberg and, more importantly, Kristof, dropped the story like a hot potato. It is in the nature of the operation that the coals are continually being raked over to keep the fires burning, but the primary focus since last August has been to develop right-wing useful idiots to rant and rave about how Hatfill has been railroaded, he's the victim of political correctness, the FBI is a hopelessly corrupt bastion of Clintonian malfeasance, yada, yada, yada. The carnival barker-like figure of Pat Clawson, Hatfill's friend and Oliver North's flunkie, has been the head shill for that side of the con. Both sides have been manipulated effortlessly, because most people believe that ideology, like religion, is a substitute for critical thought. The people who are running this show know their audience well. They're real pros, and they're almost ready to bring this thing home now. Watch.

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." — Winston Churchill
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." — P. T. Barnum

The timing of the Project Hatfill fits the Daschle meeting scenario, and, IMO, fits an explanation that is plausible within established scenarios of bureaucratic politics.

As best can be determined from public domain sources, the genesis of Project Hatfill was the National Security Council meeting of October 17, 2001 -- the meeting described on p. 248 of Bob Woodward's authorized history of the Afghanistan campaign, Bush at War. It was at that meeting that, in response to an intelligence assessment that the anthrax threats emanated from a state sponsor of the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney made a decision that the truth be kept from the American people. Ten days after that meeting took place, the "domestic terrorism" story was pump-primed by none other than our old friend, Bob Woodward, writing in the Washington Post: FBI and CIA Suspect Domestic Extremists - Officials Doubt Any Links to Bin Laden.

The rest is history -- 1984-style history, anyway.

I forgot something in my "take" above: the authority of the Mr. Z Kristof article in the NYTimes. All Washington read it. It was crafty. Senators reading likely would say "Why isn't anything being done about Mr. Z?" Plus all the Rosenberg play in other articles. It created the environment where Rosenberg alone would be the authority, validated by the press attention she garnered.

The timing of the Project Hatfill fits the Daschle meeting scenario, and, IMO, fits an explanation that is plausible within established scenarios of bureaucratic politics.

This sounds very plausible. The last two weeks in June, 2002 seem to have been very busy.