Amerithrax (61 page)
One senior law enforcement official said the FBI was avoiding discussion of Hatfill to prevent a “Richard Jewell” situation. Without naming him as a suspect, the FBI was making him appear as one. “When there is little evidence of wrongdoing, the FBI has to be careful,” said Lawrence Goldman, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “There is a general lack of sensitivity in law enforcement as to how reputations are destroyed.”
Ten months after the attacks-by-mail, some of the nation’s top researchers were increasingly doubtful that they would ever find evidence linking anyone to the crime. Residue of anthrax microbes had not been found during searches of Hat- fill’s car, apartment, Florida storage unit, or his girlfriend’s home. Phillip Hanna, a microbiologist at the University of Michigan Medical School, said that over-the-counter bleach would destroy all traces of anthrax. “Chances of finding something get more and more remote [as time passes],” he said.
Lawyers for Hatfill lodged formal ethics complaints with the FBI and Justice Department, saying investigators leaked information (and his novel) about their client to the news media, violating DOJ regulations. Glasberg refused to pro- vide details of the complaint he filed at the Justice Depart- ment’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the FBI. He would only say that he had “presented certain concerns and asked for an inquiry and appropriate action.” He argued that investigators had unfairly singled Hatfill out as one of about thirty, then twenty-six, and now twenty “persons of interest.”
On Monday, August 19, two mail processing centers in Edison and Eatontown, New Jersey, were examined again for anthrax. U.S. Postal Service authorities began testing to see if the anthrax spores found in the Princeton mailbox had been there since the previous fall. On Wednesday, Dr. Lacy
L. Watson, the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, who had over- seen the investigations of the 9-11 terror attacks and then worked the anthrax mailings, announced he was going to leave the Bureau. Watson had worked on counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations since 1982. His de- parture came at a critical time and might hint at a larger shakeup by Mueller. “With Watson’s departure, we’re changing horses in the middle of a very dangerous stream,” a Congressional aide said.
Hatfill’s lawyer filed an ethics complaint against Attor- ney General Ashcroft for singling his client out and for leak- ing information about him to the press. The complaint characterized Ashcroft’s actions as “un-American,” accusing “the attorney general, a deeply religious Christian, of break- ing the Ninth Commandment.” Hatfill now intensified efforts to clear his name, filing complaints against specific agents and charging them with violating his privacy by continuing to follow and harass him and “ruining his life.” Bitter and angry, Dr. Hatfill held his second press conference on Sun- day, August 25. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “Two weeks ago, I reluctantly appeared before the TV cameras to defend myself against the bizarre allegations that were appearing about me in the news media dealing with last year’s anthrax attacks. These allegations were fueled by ongoing leaks from the Justice Department, and those leaks continue to this day.”
He explained that Justice Department representatives had confirmed to the Associated Press several days ago that there was no evidence linking him to the anthrax attacks. “Despite this lack of evidence,” Hatfill said, “I am still hounded by the FBI, victimized in a never-ending torrent of leaks and general innuendo from the United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and unnamed others, all of which is then am- plified and embellished by the media.”
Dr. Hatfill considered this an assassination of his char-
“My life is being destroyed by arrogant government bu- reaucrats,” he told the assembled press, “who are peddling groundless innuendo and half information about me to gul- lible reporters who, in turn, repeat this to the press under the guise of news.”
Repeatedly, Dr. Hatfill singled out Ashcroft for openly naming him as a person of interest. In doing this, Hatfill claimed, Ashcroft not only violated Justice Department reg- ulations and guidelines, which bind him as the nation’s top law enforcement official, but in his view, broke the Ninth Commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
“I have never met Mr. Ashcroft,” he said. “I don’t know him. I’ve never spoken with him. And I do not understand his personalized focus on me.”
Though his lawyers could find no legal definition for a person of interest, Hatfill had his own working definition for such a “prejudicial label.” “A person of interest,” he said, “is someone who comes into being when the government is under intense political pressure to solve a crime but can’t do so, either because the crime is too difficult to solve or because the authorities are proceeding in what can mildly be called a wrongheaded manner.”
Dr. Hatfill deemed himself the “serviceable target” who made it unnecessary for the FBI to produce a warm body, a person about whom mysterious questions could be raised, someone with an interesting or colorful background like himself. Once he was a person of interest, Hatfill alleged, then the government could leak appropriate rumor and in- nuendo to the press.
“Then they sit back,” he told the reporters, “and watch an uncharged and presumptively innocent person picked apart by journalists looking for hot stories.”
Hatfill said the only useful objective achieved by this was
He believed the press would do most of the work for the FBI as they came up with items of personal information, no matter how scandalous or insignificant. When the
New York Times
reported that Hatfill had access to a secret cabin in the woods, the FBI questioned him about it. Then they in- terrogated his friend, a prominent Washington, D.C., lawyer, who sometimes invited Hatfill to dinner at his modern three bedroom home in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Next the FBI had demanded to search the lawyer’s house.
“A photo of the house,” said Hatfill, “then becomes fea- tured prominently on the pages of a northern Virginia daily, under a headline that says, linked to anthrax. Friends and neighbors of the lawyer then stop coming to visit him because they were afraid of catching anthrax or some other disease or simply did not want to be associated with the incident.”
Hatfill had helped develop a biodefense training program for first responders, police and fire departments. He claimed that some reporters now suggested it was a blueprint for the anthrax attacks.
“Almost a quarter-century ago,” he continued, “I lived in a city that had a suburb named Greendale. The FBI and some in media willingly linked this with a nonexistent Greendale School that appeared in the return address on the anthrax letters. ABC News even reported as a fact that I lived next door to that nonexistent school for four years.... My entire life history has been laid out on the Internet by reporters and conspiracy nuts. My daughter, a policewoman in Detroit, with a child, even found her name and home address published, a reckless and dangerous act that invites retaliation from criminals. It is one thing to have your al-
Dr. Hatfill spelled out from his point of view what it was like to be labeled a person of interest by the attorney general. He then pointed out his problems with Barbara Hatch Ro- senberg, whom he said he didn’t know and had never met. “Another person I’ve never met or spoken to and don’t know,” he continued, “is Nicholas Kristof of the
New York Times
. After transparently implicating me as ‘Mr. Z,’ over a period of months he berated the FBI for not investigating me aggressively enough to suit him.” Hatfill claimed that Kristof had never called him, asked for comment, or con- tacted any of his representatives before he published.
“Following my first press appearance,” said Hatfill, “Mr. Kristof said, for example, that I had failed three successive polygraph examinations since January. This is a total lie. I have not taken, let alone failed, three polygraphs on anthrax since January. I had one polygraph session, which the FBI did administer to me in January, and I was told I passed and the examiner was satisfied that I had told the truth.”
Dr. Hatfill asked aloud why Kristof had never called him about this allegation. He asked, “Mr. Kristof, why do you write such things? Why did you not at least check your facts? What have I done to injure you in this manner? Why do you permit yourself to be used as a vehicle to leak ir- reparably damaging information about me to the public?” Hatfill admitted that Kristof’s statement that he was under constant surveillance by the FBI was true. But he argued that there was no reason that the information should be gra- tuitously broadcast, making him a pariah and shunned by his friends. He asked Kristof if it was necessary, right, or fair for him to write such things?
“The answer, of course,” Hatfill said, “is that I am a person of interest.”
Candice DeLong, retired FBI profiler, was so far not con- vinced as she listened. “The one thing that Hatfill engaged in that tipped in for me was this bullshit phony life of his,” she said “that he went so far as to print on job resumes going back years—a member of Special Forces, a Ph.D.
“Then when you go for your CIA polygraph, pretty much the three main questions are: ‘Are you a spy? Secondly, are you in compliance with the FBI/CIA drug policy?’ which means you can’t have even a toke off a marijuana cigarette for the last three years; you can’t have used it so many times in your life. ‘Are you in compliance with the drug policy, yes or no?’ And the third question is: ‘Is everything on your application true and accurate? Did you leave anything out?’ I bet you that’s the question he actually failed. Those are the minimum questions you’d be asked by the FBI and CIA. His application was not truthful and so they washed him out. And then, his current employer was notified by the CIA that his clearance was being pulled.”
Hatfill distributed copies of his lawyers’ communications with the
Times
and Kristof in which he requested that the paper publish an op-ed reply from him. So far, he claimed, they had not agreed to do this.
“When you are a person of interest,” Hatfill said, “your home is subject to search based on statements in sealed af- fidavits, which your lawyers are not permitted to see. Armed with a secretly obtained government search warrant, FBI agents can enter your home with impunity and take virtually anything they want, including your car registration, your tax records, your car keys, the deeds to your house—if you have one—your apartment, rental agreements, cell phone, pagers, unused bank checks, checks made out to you but not yet cashed, clothing. They can keep these items for as long as they want, unless you go out and retain and pay a lawyer and you can convince a judge that you should get your prop-
erty back. It is definitely not good to be the girlfriend of a person of interest.”
Dr. Hatfill told the assembled press that his girlfriend had been locked inside an FBI car and hauled off to FBI head- quarters. Prior to a long interrogation she had not been told that she had the right to leave at any time. Her requests for a lawyer were delayed and made difficult. The contents of her purse, although not on the search warrant, were exam- ined as she was driven back to her residence. Her purse was taken from her and its contents examined after questioning. Hatfill alleged she had been shouted at by FBI agents who claimed they had firm evidence that he had killed five in- nocent people.
“The FBI trumpets that I am not a suspect,” he said, “and the woman I love is told by the FBI... that I am a murderer. This is the life of a person of interest, Mr. Ashcroft. But that’s not all. My girlfriend was told that she better take a polygraph examination and cooperate, or else. Her home checkbooks, computers, private papers and car were seized. As for her home, it was completely trashed, as is appropriate for the home of a girlfriend of a person of interest. Some of her delicate pottery was smashed. The glass on a three- thousand-dollar painting was broken... Neatly stacked boxes awaiting shipment to her new home were ripped open. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have pictures of how FBI left this apartment, her apartment, which, at the time of the raid, was neatly prepared for a move to Louisiana, with all her belongings packed in nicely stacked boxes. This is one of the pictures.... She is not here today. I love you. I will not state her name here. And I ask the news media, please, for common decency, if you know it, please leave her alone.