CBS -
60 Minutes
Tables
Turned In Anthrax Probe (#2)
"Person Of Interest"
Files Lawsuit Against FBI
March 11, 2007
(CBS) Remember the anthrax scare?
It was about four weeks after 9/11. Letters laced with powdery spores of
the deadly bacteria were mailed through the U.S. postal system. In all,
five people died, 17 fell ill. At first, everyone thought this was another
al Qaeda terrorist attack.
But soon the FBI began keying
on a so-called "person of interest" – Steven Hatfill – and launched one
of the largest criminal investigations in its history.
As correspondent Lesley Stahl
reports, the FBI has been going after this guy for five years, and yet
he has got them in court: Hatfill has sued the FBI and Department of Justice
for what he claims has been a campaign of leaking lies and distortions
about him to the press.
Through the lawsuit, Hatfill’s
lawyer has not only obtained boxfuls of internal government documents,
but he has also deposed nearly every major law enforcement official involved
in the case. It is the latest twist in the FBI's yet unsolved investigation
of the anthrax murders.
A number of anthrax letters began
appearing in the mail between late September and October, 2001. The letters
were sent to news outlets – Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw got them. As did
two U.S. senators. And two postal workers, who handled the poisonous envelopes,
died.
Steven Hatfill, a medical doctor
and an expert on viruses, was outed in a drumbeat of news reports that
included aerial shots of the FBI seizing property from his apartment, including
his trash.
And then-Attorney General John
Ashcroft confirmed on television that Hatfill was a "person of interest."
But instead of the FBI nailing
Hatfill, he filed his lawsuit claiming that with their leaks, the FBI and
Justice Department had violated his presumption of innocence and destroyed
his reputation.
"I object to an investigation
characterized, as this one has been, by outrageous official statements,
calculated leaks to the media, and causing a feeding frenzy operating to
my great prejudice," he said in August, 2002.
In the lawsuit, Hatfill is turning
the tables on the FBI: the hunted is dragging the hunters into court. Top
officials were deposed on videotape, like John Ashcroft, who was less than
forthcoming.
"Is it appropriate for Department
of Justice officials to suggest that Dr. Hatfill fits a behavioral profile
of the anthrax killer?" Ashcroft was asked.
"I don’t know," the attorney general
replied.
"You don’t know whether it was
appropriate or inappropriate to disclose that kind of information?" he
was asked.
"I don’t know," Ashcroft responded.
Asked if he thought it was fair
to Dr. Hatfill, Ashcroft said, "I don't know."
John Ashcroft answered "I don’t
know" to 85 questions in the four and a half hour deposition.
Hatfill came on the radar screen
in the first place because he seemed to fit the FBI profile as an American
scientist who had worked at a U.S. Army laboratory where the strain of
anthrax used in the attacks was stored.
There were other – quote – “curiosities.”
For instance, he commissioned a study in 1999 of how emergency personnel
should respond in the event of an anthrax mailing. He wrote a novel fictionalizing
a bio-terrorist attack in Washington.
And there’s an open question about
how similar his handwriting is to that on the anthrax envelopes. But in
his deposition, Richard Lambert, who oversaw the FBI investigation, said
there were other people on the radar screen.
"There were 20 to 30 other people
who were also likewise identified as 'persons of interest' in the investigation,"
Lambert said during the deposition.
Lambert couldn't identify the
other people, acknowledging that his testimony could stigmatize those individuals.
According to former Justice Department
officials familiar with the case at least a dozen of those people still
have not been eliminated as "persons of interest." And yet, only Hatfill
was ever identified.
Hatfill wouldn’t give 60 Minutes
an interview; but his lawyer, Tom Connolly, did speak to Stahl.
"If you want a blueprint for ruining
somebody, this is how you do it. You engage in a campaign of leaking investigative
information to your favorite reporters who then write it, and create a
caricature of you," Connolly tells Stahl.
Asked if he knows for sure that
it was the FBI and Justice Department that were doing the leaking, Connolly
says, "I know as a matter of existential truth it was the FBI and DOJ."
How does he know it?
"Because I have FBI agents under
oath, who acknowledge under oath, that it couldn’t have been coming from
anywhere else because of what was being leaked," he explains.
Nine reporters also gave sworn
testimony. In their stories, they often identified their sources as law
enforcement officials. Some of the reports would make anyone suspicious.
"I can remember reading articles
about your client and thinking: 'Oh this is pretty devastating stuff,'"
Stahl remarks. "That he had worked at a U.S. Army laboratory in Maryland
and had access to anthrax."
"Let me say one thing with absolute
certainty: he has never in his life ever worked with anthrax," Hatfill's
attorney, Tom Connolly, insists.
Asked if there was anthrax at
the lab, Connolly tells Stahl, "It was in a variety of a wet slurry, not
a dry powder."
Asked to explain, Connolly says
wet slurry is a paste, while the substance in the envelopes was a dry powder.
"To convert a wet slurry to a
dry powder, meaning to weaponize it, is a feat of amazing engineering which
requires sophisticated equipment. And it would leave telltale signs behind.
Now let me just say one of other thing. The head of Fort Detrick, where
this alleged slurry was, has testified under oath that there is no evidence
whatsoever that any of that anthrax has been missing or was it ever missing,"
Connolly says.
"Something else that came out
that Dr. Hatfill went on Cipro right before these anthrax letters started
appearing. Cipro is what you're supposed to take if you get anthrax, if
you're exposed to it," Stahl remarks.
"Before the attacks he had surgery.
So yes, he's on Cipro. But the fuller truth is in fact he was on Cipro
because a doctor gave it to him after sinus surgery," Connolly explains.
On the Cipro question, Hatfill’s
medical records confirm that five weeks before the anthrax attacks, he
had sinus surgery and was prescribed Cipro.
Connolly thinks the most damaging
leak of all involved evidence-sniffing dogs, which he calls "the magic
bloodhounds."
According to Newsweek magazine,
the FBI used three purebred bloodhounds, Lucy, Knight and Tinkerbell, who
"went crazy" at Hatfill’s apartment.
"The criticism I have with these
magic bloodhounds is they have been responsible for a number of false arrests,"
Connolly argues.
Including the arrest of a man
on charges of multiple rapes in California, based largely on Tinkerbell
and Knight’s purported power of smell. But he was ultimately cleared by
DNA evidence. And now 60 Minutes has learned in the anthrax case that the
dogs also alerted to another scientist who worked at the same Army lab
as Hatfill.
Beyond the leaks about him, Hatfill’s
phones were tapped and he was subjected to round-the-clock surveillance.
"Going down to the store for a pack of gum yields a parade of FBI cars,
sometimes following me closely as two to four feet from my rear bumper,"
Hatfill said during a press conference.
"Try to put yourself back into
that period of time. It was the first act of bio-terrorism on U.S. soil
ever. Everybody was just tense as can be. If they thought that Steven Hatfill
was the guy, why not shut him down? Put the spotlight on him? He can't
move now," Stahl asks Connolly.
"It's an interesting justification
from the mouth of a reporter. But it's never been from the mouth of any
FBI agent. I've asked each one of them under oath," he replies.
"Do you know whether any disclosures
regarding Dr. Hatfill that appeared in the press were ever done designed
for a law enforcement purpose of sweating him?" Connolly asked Rick Lambert,
a special agent.
"I'm not aware of that ever having
been done," Lambert replied.
"They never told you that the
reason was to keep an eye on him so he wouldn't do it again kind of thing?"
Stahl asks Connolly.
"In fact, they specifically denied
that," Connolly says.
Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican
from Iowa, has looked into the case and has concluded that there was leaking
by top officials and that the purpose was not to shut Hatfill down, but
to hide the lack of progress in the case.
"Do you have any evidence that
they were planting information in the press that they knew was not true?"
Stahl asks the senator.
"I believe the extent to which
they wanted the public to believe that they were making great progress
in this case, and the enormous pressure they had after a few years to show
that, yes, that they was very much misleading the public," Sen. Grassley
replies.
One reason they've had so much
trouble solving the case is because this is a crime with no eyewitnesses
and no fingerprints on the envelopes. Two sources familiar with the investigation
tell 60 Minutes a tiny amount of DNA evidence was recovered from one of
the envelopes. But when it was tested, it turned out to belong to an investigator
who had contaminated this key piece of evidence.
Senator Grassley says a lack of
forensic evidence is only part of the problem.
He believes the leaking has hurt
the investigation itself. "Because it gave people an indication of where
the FBI was headed for," Sen. Grassley says. "And if you knew what that
road map was, that if you were a guilty person you would be able to take
action to avoid FBI."
According to Special Agent Robert
Roth his boss, Rick Lambert, got so fed up with the leaks, he tried to
find out the source.
"Rick suggested after one particular
leak that everyone on the case be polygraphed. He wanted to launch a criminal
investigation," Roth said.
He said Director Robert Mueller
rejected that idea; but to stop any future leaks, Mueller ordered the various
teams working on the case to stop sharing information.
"So for example, the agents working
on the squad looking at the scientific and forensic signatures in the anthrax
powder itself would not communicate any findings or results of investigation
derived from that endeavor with the other squad which might be conducting
investigation concerning persons of interest," Lambert said during deposition.
Lambert wrote a memo protesting
that policy – which is known as stove piping – where different teams of
investigators are not allowed to exchange information. Lambert’s memo says
that "… would inhibit our ability to 'connect the dots' just as it had
in the lead up to 9/11."
"In light of 9/11, I felt very
strongly about that point. I expressed my opinion to the director. He said,
'I still want you to compartmentalize the case,' and that's exactly what
I did," Lambert testified.
But what the stove piping really
did, says Sen. Grassley, was undercut the anthrax investigation. "If you
got these three teams working to solve the same problem, and they can’t
talk to each other, they aren’t going to be able to do their job," he argues.
The FBI wouldn’t agree to an interview,
and wouldn’t tell 60 Minutes whether an indictment of Hatfill is likely
or not. What we do know is that Hatfill is still a "person of interest."
One reason – there are questions about his credibility.
"He apparently claimed in a resume
that he had gotten a PhD, and some allegation that he actually forged a
diploma to that effect. Is this true?" Stahl asks Connolly.
"It is true. It is true that he
has puffed on his resume. Absolutely," Connolly acknowledges. "Forged a
diploma. Yes, that's true."
"Okay, so that goes to his character.
That would lead these investigators to have some questions about him, at
the very least," Stahl remarks.
"Listen, if puffing on your resume
made you the anthrax killer, then half this town should be suspect," Connolly
replies.
There's a split at the FBI, with
some agents now thinking Hatfill didn’t do it; but others still believe
he did.
Asked by Connolly if he thought
Hatfill had committed these "horrendous" attacks, Special Agent Roth said,
"I don’t know."
Asked if he thinks there's a possibility
that this case may never be solved, Sen. Grassley tells Stahl, "Without
a doubt, Yeah. It’s just turning out to be a cold case." |