However, unlike the Wen Ho Lee case, I don't think it's going to get major highlights in the press if it happens. The media liked Wen Ho Lee, because he fit their stereotypical profile of a victim. They don't like Steven Hatfill, because he fits their stereotypical profile of a bad guy.
Let's not forget that Hatfill already reached a settlement with Conde Nast/Vanity Fair (who went the furthest in basically proclaiming him guilty), and best as I can tell, that went almost completely unnoticed by the mainstream media.
Yes, but that's because of the terms of the settlement agreement AND, most of all, because Dr. Hatfill changed lawyers so that he could get some money to live on out of all this right away instead of waiting for years of trials and appeals.
I think Dr. Hatfill went along with keeping the terms of that settlement quiet because he knows the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit is the real BIGGIE.
He wants vindication and to have his name cleared. That trial is where that would happen. And if there is a settlement, I don't think it will be anything like the Vanity Fair settlement. No one is going to allow that whole fiasco to be swept under the rug. Public apologies will be demanded. Facts behind the fiasco will be made known. If they are NOT made known, the Right Wing media will dig them out, because the Left Wing media played such a big role in the fiasco.
At least that's the way I see things. I could be totally wrong.
It appears that Conde Nast and Readers Digest were BEGGING Dr. Hatfill to settle. They were probably offering BIG money. Conde Nast and Readers Digest didn't want to go to trial in a lawsuit that they could not possibly win. And a jury could have awarded Dr. Hatfill many many millions in addition to showing that Vanity Fair and Readers Digest were wrong in pointing the finger at Dr. Hatfill.
But Dr. Hatfill's lawyers at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, LLP wanted to hold out for a jury trial.
So, Dr. Hatfill changed lawyers! He switched that lawsuit to a small law firm which did little except to help him with the settlement.
There's no chance that he would do the same thing in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit. He's not only obligated to remain with Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, LLP, it's the ONLY way he can get vindication.
There is no possible way that he could have been vindicated and shown to be innocent by the Vanity Fair/Readers Digest trial. That could only come from the lawsuit against the FBI and the Department of Justice. So, I don't see any possibility of a hushed up settlement like that with Conde Nast and Reader's Digest.
There was considerable connection between the Falls Church and London Salafists.
In Northern Virginia, Ali Asad Chandia was the “personal assistant” of Ali Al-Timimi and was the chauffer of London terorrist operative Mohammed Ajmal Khan who visited Falls Church.
The USG charged Chandia with arranging for the purchase of an electronic autopilot system and video equipment for use on model airplanes in connection with requests made by Mohammed Ajmal Khan to purchase the equipment .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/16/AR2005091601744.html
The Times [UK] notes that prosecutors described how Chandia had worked as a chauffeur for a London-based terrorism organiser, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, who was jailed for nine years in March in Britain after admitting shipping weapons to Pakistan.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1652360/posts
Mohammed Ajmal Khan was a teaching assistant in Leeds.
Chandia met Khan, a senior official and procurement officer for LET, at an office of that organization in Pakistan in late-2001. Khan traveled to the United States in 2002 and 2003 to acquire equipment for Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Chandia assisted him in these efforts both times.
Khan is serving a nine-year sentence in the UK on terrorism charges.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/coventry_warwickshire/4817432.stm
(The U.S. will seek his extradition at the conclusion of that sentence.)
Al-Timimi would tend to speak at annual conferences held in London.
Marvin Miller, a lawyer for Chandia, says documents produced at trial evidenced he was under electronic surveillance. Ajmal Khan’s communications across the Atlantic were intercepted by the US National Security Agency and while in the US he was under surveillance pursuant to FISA.
Mohammed Ajmal Khan also was linked during a terrorist trial to Timimi’s acquaintance, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24-year-old who grew up in Falls Church, who was found guilty of terrorist offences in Virginia. The charges against Ahmed Omar Abu Ali also include providing material support to al Qaeda, contributing services to al Qaeda and receiving funds from al Qaeda. Abu Ali was a resident of Falls Church who received training in weapons, explosives, and document forgery from al Qaeda while in Saudi Arabia. When police searched Abu Ali’s home, they found tapes in Arabic promoting jihad and the killing of Jews, materials praising the 9/11 attacks and condemning U.S. military action in Afghanistan, and a book written by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri advocating the violent destruction of democracy. The operations planned by Abu Ali and his co-conspirators included a plot to assassinate President Bush using either multiple snipers or a suicide bomb, as well as a plot to conduct 9/11-style attacks with planes flying from other countries to the United States. Abu Ali faces up to life in prison for his crimes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43940-2005Feb22.html?nav=rss_politics
http://useu.usmission.gov/Article.asp?ID=4E315E3C-9635-4515-A171-7B72FB665AD0
Given the Falls Church [USA]-Leeds [UK] connection, the question arises:
did the fellow working near Ken Alibek and the former USAMRIID head [Ali Timimi], who had a high security clearance for his mathematics support work for the Navy in bioinformatics, know the Leeds biochemist who was expert in functionalized polymers, an assistant professor at Leeds, who provided the 7/7 bombers with the keys to the flat?
Al-Nashar was at UNC at Raleigh in the Spring of 2000.