Frederick pond being drained in anthrax case investigation (Scott Shane article)

Baltimore Sun ^ | June 10, 2003 | Scott Shane

[Shermy]

FREDERICK - In a costly and unusual step in its hunt for the anthrax killer, the FBI began draining a 1-acre trout pond in a Frederick County forest yesterday, hoping to find discarded biological equipment or telltale anthrax spores on its muddy bottom.

The project, estimated to cost about $250,000 and take several weeks, began yesterday morning after a state biologist told investigators how to avoid trampling a rare yellow-fringed orchid and other endangered species in the area.

The search follows the discovery in the pond last winter of a plastic box that some investigators believe may have been used by the person who mailed anthrax-laced letters to news media organizations and U.S. senators in 2001. The attacks killed five and sickened at least 17.

The object appeared to be a homemade glove box, a biological safety device fitted with gloves to protect someone working with dangerous germs, though no gloves were attached. Anthrax tests on a rope also found in the pond have been inconclusive, according to a law enforcement official.

...One official who talks regularly to investigators said the task force is divided into one faction that believes Hatfill is still a promising suspect and another that is frustrated by the failure to find substantive evidence against him. "Even the ones who favor draining the pond aren't all that certain they'll find anything," the source said.

"When Steve heard the news this morning, he just chuckled and shook his head that they would waste all that money," said his spokesman, Pat Clawson. "They can search every pond in Maryland and drain the Pacific Ocean and they won't find evidence linking Steve Hatfill to the anthrax attacks, because there is no such evidence. On the other hand, if this will help further establish Steve's innocence, we welcome it." ...

[Shermy]

Excerpted, go to link for full article.

[theDentist]

"...after a state biologist told investigators how to avoid trampling a rare yellow-fringed orchid and other endangered species in the area. "

I guess they needed a biologist to say "Park the truck 10 feet further to the right."

[Shermy]

Today's WashPost edit of the Project Hatfill saga:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36985-2003Jun9.html?nav=hptoc_m

Md. Pond Drained for Clues in Anthrax Probe (excerpted - go to link for full text)

"...Investigators this winter found a device that some authorities believe may have been used to prepare the letters. Now they are seeking equipment and clothing that might have been used to work with the anthrax bacteria, which was so highly aerosolized that it could have sickened or killed anyone who came in contact with it. They also plan to sift through sediment at the bottom of the pond to test for any trace of the lethal pathogen.

".....Law enforcement sources acknowledge privately that the effort is focused on Steven Hatfill, who has been labeled a "person of interest" in the investigation by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft.

In addition to the search of the pond, investigators have gathered information from around the world about Hatfill's movements and statements, while keeping him under months of 24-hour surveillance.

Agents have explored whether he had any involvement in the mailing of two anthrax hoax letters that were sent from abroad in late 2001.

No other person has been subjected to this level of scrutiny, law enforcement sources said.

.....But the effort shows the lengths to which the bureau is willing to go to develop evidence in the investigation of the lethal mailings to news media and the offices of Sens. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).


"...The FBI has obtained documents under grand jury subpoena and interviewed hundreds of people to construct an elaborate day-by-day timeline of Hatfill's activities, the sources said. Agents also have been working to coax many who knew and worked with Hatfill to come forward with information. One such person -- a business associate of Hatfill's -- led the FBI's anthrax team to explore the possibility that the anthrax was put into envelopes in or around the murky Frederick pond.

Clawson said yesterday that Hatfill visited a wooded area of Frederick with Boy Scouts several years ago, but did not know if it was the municipal park.

....Hatfill, trained as a medical doctor in South Africa, used embellished credentials to win a research appointment with a division of the National Institutes of Health. He was assigned in the late 1990s to conduct virology research in the laboratories of the U.S. Army Military Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick. In speaking engagements, he repeatedly warned that a bioterrorism attack was inevitable and that the federal government was poorly prepared.

Hatfill left USAMRIID in late 1999 to take a job with the McLean consulting firm Science Applications International Corp., working on bioterror training with the CIA, the Army Special Forces and other government clients. In August 2001, he lost his CIA clearance and was removed from his full-time position at SAIC after failing certain questions in a lie detector test about his experiences in South Africa, according to law enforcement sources and former colleagues.

The FBI began questioning Hatfill soon after the anthrax letters surfaced, law enforcement sources said. In early interviews, several of Hatfill's associates mentioned him as someone who should be contacted, according to the sources.

Hatfill left the United States in mid-November to take training to become a bioweapons inspector in Iraq as part of the United Nations' monitoring team.

The FBI interviewed Hatfill when he returned from the training in Britain. In early 2002, he took a polygraph test and told reporters that he had passed it. Law enforcement sources have described the results of the test as inconclusive.

To resolve its questions about Hatfill, the FBI has dispatched agents around the globe. William Sullivan, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, said the FBI is doing what it should do in a major criminal probe -- casting "a wide net with fine mesh and [bringing] back everything."

Two agents also spent several months in a Washington storage unit, poring over a mountain of forgotten videotape to locate footage of Hatfill's television appearance in 1998. In it, he discussed the likelihood of a biological attack, according to television host Armstrong Williams.

Williams said Hatfill, then an Army researcher, talked about an imminent bioterror threat and the public's vulnerability.

The FBI also has looked at several unresolved cases involving bioterrorism hoaxes, including a 1997 package sent to B'nai B'rith headquarters in Washington that contained a gelatinous material falsely labeled anthrax. Clawson, Hatfill's spokesman, has said Hatfill had no knowledge of the hoax.

FBI agents also scrutinized a number of hoax letters that surfaced at about the same time as the anthrax letters, the sources said.

Two of the hoax letters were mailed from Malaysia and London, where authorities have worked closely with the FBI to pursue their origins and determine whether they have any link to Hatfill or anyone connected to him, the sources said.

A mailing opened on Oct. 12, 2001, in a Reno, Nev., office of Microsoft Licensing Inc. bore a Malaysian postmark, and police in Kuala Lampur were promptly enlisted by the FBI to help track its source. Nevada officials have said the envelope contained a check that Microsoft had sent to a Malaysian vendor, along with a pornographic photo. The white powder inside the envelope tested positive for anthrax bacteria, but that finding was proved false in more elaborate tests conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In its investigation of the letter, the FBI has questioned Malaysian relatives and associates of Hatfill's girlfriend, who moved to the United States from that nation, the sources said. Her relatives in the northeastern United States also were interviewed.

The hoax letter mailed from London attracted the FBI's interest because of its timing, law enforcement sources said. The letter was mailed in mid-November to Daschle's office, where staffers were still recovering from the panic created by a letter containing real anthrax spores that was opened on Oct. 15, 2001.

Delivery of the hoax letter was delayed until early January 2002, because all U.S. Capitol mail then was shipped off-site to be irradiated as a protection against anthrax bacteria. The envelope contained a harmless talcum-like powder, authorities said.

At the time the letter was postmarked, Hatfill was in a London suburb to attend special classes in detecting biological agents for trainees in the U.N. weapons inspection program. Hatfill was accepted into the program in late 2000 after completing a five-week training program.

Working with British police, the FBI secured records of Hatfill's car rental at London Heathrow Airport and has tracked his movements before and after the training sessions. Clawson has said that Hatfill had nothing to do with mailing the hoax letter. He said Hatfill used the car only to drive to and from the airport and did not drive into London.

In recent months, FBI agents visited Insight magazine writer Timothy Maier in Washington to discuss an article on Hatfill published in January 1998, along with a photograph that shows Hatfill, clothed in a homemade protective suit and gas mask, demonstrating how someone could concoct bioagents in a home laboratory. The article has attracted intense interest since the 2001 letter attacks, and Maier said he was surprised that it took agents so long to question him about it.

Maier said two agents interviewed him about the photograph, which Hatfill had provided the magazine. Agents seemed interested in examining details in the photo, such as a tiny magnet on a refrigerator, in an attempt to pinpoint the location where Hatfill had set up a makeshift lab to demonstrate his theory.

[Shermy]

on or off anthrax ping list.

Today's servings from the Wash Post and Balt Sun.

[ElkGroveDan]

after a state biologist told investigators how to avoid trampling a rare yellow-fringed orchid and other endangered species in the area.

"Don't step on yellow flowers." Can I have the job now?

[theDentist]

Sorry. You're obviously over-qualified.

[Lucy Lake]

Thank you for the anthrax ping. Please keep me on your list.

Thanks.

[Shermy]

I will.

My favorite today: the Malaysian postmark story. The story line: from the numerous anthrax hoax letters, select two that, by innuendo, support the Hatfill line. Here, the letter from London, and another, the Malaysian one-because his girlfriend is Malaysian. Not that Hatfill has ever been to Malaysia.

The letters omitted in the story are the actual anthrax letters, mailed in Princeton, NJ. It would be important to place Hatfill there...but that's a problem for the Hatfill-did-it story.

[The Great Satan]

Maier said two agents interviewed him about the photograph, which Hatfill had provided the magazine. Agents seemed interested in examining details in the photo, such as a tiny magnet on a refrigerator, in an attempt to pinpoint the location where Hatfill had set up a makeshift lab to demonstrate his theory.

Maier also reports that the picture was clearly identified as an NIH file photo -- a fact the FBI "investigators" had somehow failed to noitice -- and that the investigators appeared to be inexperienced rookies, some with less than a month on the job. Curious, eh?

[Shermy]

Maier also reports that the picture was clearly identified as an NIH file photo

Didn't know that. So part of a "warning" article or project? I assumed the photo was industry insider "emergency room" humor.

Another laugher in the leak procedure is the the innuendo that since Hatfill warned of the dangers of bioterrorism, such is somehow persuasive of his guilt. The thing is, they all did this in the biowar field. Heck, Babs Rosenberg should be found guilty without trial if giving warnings learned in the very field one works in is proof of a crime. She even admits that pre-9/11 she herself thought a bio attack would help wake up Americans to the danger. We can go outside the field and find Tom Clancy guilty too. And prosecute all connected with the movies "12 Monkeys" and "Outbreak."

[NukeMan]

Add me to the list as well, thank you.

[American in Israel]

They are going to get their man, no matter how long it takes or how much money they spend.

To bad they are not looking for who did it...

[NukeMan]

Whoops! The magic word is "please"....

[The Great Satan]

they are not looking for who did it...

You got that right. But, why the publicity stunt with the pond? Thereby hangs a tail...

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill

[The Great Satan]

Here's Maier's article, which talks about the visit:

FBI rush to judgmment on anthrax

Here's his original 1998 article with the quote from Hatfill:

First Response to Terror

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill

[Darksheare]

It is very laughable that Hatfill is the only guy they're looking into.
It's like they have nothing better to do, or have no idea how to investigate anything.

Wonder what they'll say if they end up clearing him?
The same pat apology they gave to that security guy after the Olympic bombing?

Wonder if the FBI's lack of results is due to how corrupted, compromised, and gutted it became during Clinton's tenure?

[Shermy]

From your first link at #15.

"...In June 2001, terrorist Ahmad al-Haznawi came to the emergency room at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with a dark lesion on his leg. Dr. Christos Tsonas has said the lesion was consistent with anthrax exposure. Experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies concluded at the time that the anthrax diagnosis by Tsonas "raises the possibility that the hijackers were handling anthrax and were perpetrators of the anthrax-letter attacks."

Despite these apparent coincidences, recently retired FBI Assistant Director John Collingwood disregarded the link.

"This was fully investigated and widely vetted among multiple agencies several months ago," he said in a prepared statement. "Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been."

Funny, the same is true for Hatfill - but he doesn't get this same standard.

[Betty Jo]

Please keep me on your list.So many details I had not known of before.No wonder some think he is guilty.Maybe we can read these kinds of details about the govs invest of the real perps,Al-Qaeda.

[OREALLY]

I heard on Fox news that there was more than a plastic box found. A doctor said they had found 'vials' at the pond.

[ImpotentRage]

I heard on the news that this is the FBI's "last" attempt to prove something against Hatfill. Hopefully, that will be so. What they have done to this man is horrifying. And, yes. It would be nice if they looked for the real culprit instead of all of the CYA they have been indulging in.