Science writer Laurie Garrett has railed against the conviction-by-media of scientist Steven Hatfill who was implicated in the 2001 anthrax attacks. As she left Newsday, Garrett fired off a j’ accuse memo that listed these NYT failures: “Judy Miller’s bogus weapons of mass destruction coverage,” “Jayson Blair’s blatant fabrications” — and “the media’s inaccurate and inappropriate convictions of Wen Ho Lee, Richard Jewell and Steven Hatfill.”
Steven Hatfill has sued NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof for libel, claiming Kristof’s series of articles “implicated him in the deadly anthrax mailings in 2001.”
A federal appeals court reinstated the libel suit Thursday:
“At this stage of litigation, our sole concern is whether Hatfill’s allegations, taken as true, describe intentional and outrageous misconduct. We conclude that they do,” the panel said in a 24-page opinion written by Judge Dennis Shedd. (Reuters) (Emphases mine.)
The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid blog asks:
inflict emotional distress on Hatfill — it did so on purpose.
There’s blood in the water, friends. With this in addition to Judith
Miller sitting in jail — and looking more and more like the one who outed
Valerie Plame — the Times could be in more trouble today than it
was when all it had to worry about were the trivial escapades of Jayson Blair.
And, isn’t it odd that Judy Miller got one of those “anthrax envelopes,” which turned out to be harmless powder? Below, details on Hatfill’s separate suit against John Ashcroft et al.:
On April 23, 2005, I wrote a story about Hatfill’s separate suit against the U.S. government:
Steven Hatfill may get his day in court to (partially) restore his reputation and his life:
A federal judge ordered the Justice Department yesterday to begin providing testimony to attorneys for Steven J. Hatfill, the former Army scientist who is suing the government for identifying him as “a person of interest” in the anthrax investigation.
For months, the Justice Department had opposed Hatfill’s [PHOTO] attempts to begin deposing government witnesses, citing the sensitive nature of the investigation. Hatfill’s attorneys said that stalled their efforts to identify the source of leaks in the massive probe.
Until yesterday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton deferred to the government’s concerns. But Walton also said that Hatfill must eventually have an opportunity to explore the subject, and the Justice Department told the judge that it is now willing to permit some questioning.
Hatfill filed suit in 2003, alleging that then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other federal officials defamed him and violated his privacy. No one has been arrested for the anthrax-laced mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 in the fall of 2001, and Hatfill has said that he had nothing to do with the crime.
[…..]
Earlier this week, in a significant shift, the government notified Walton that it was willing to permit the questioning of some witnesses on Hatfill’s claim that the leaks violated the Privacy Act. Yesterday, Walton ordered government lawyers to immediately start laying the groundwork to set up the depositions.
Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, worked from 1997 to 1999 in the Army’s infectious diseases laboratory at Fort Detrick. He did not attend yesterday’s hearing at the federal courthouse in Washington.
The government, in its written submission to the court and in its statement yesterday, sought to preclude Ashcroft and other individual defendants from being deposed because the judge is still considering their claims of immunity.
Last March, science writer Laurie Garrett — the author of The Coming Plague — wrote:
I am adjusting the chinstrap on my TFH.
I think your chapeau is becoming more and more fashionable.
There was a time when the very idea of a cospiracy by public officials or the Press or a collusion between the two was laughable. In view of the events listed on this post and many others that have transpired in the past few years, one must stand this on its head and ask if a conspiracy is the best explanation for all these events.Nothing else could account for the sudden eruptions of inexplicable events surrounding a so called Reporter like Judith Miller.That she seems to be present at all events that are suspicious is in itself quite a suspicion inducing phenomenon.
The Hunting of Steven J. Hatfill
I was just wondering the other night what had become of the anthrax affair (doing a semi-regular scandal-count for this admin) when i saw that this was back in the news.
What an incredibly bizarre several years it’s been.
.
Hatfill spent the first six of those years in Harare, earning his medical degree from what is now the University of Zimbabwe. In June 1984, he relocated to South Africa for his clinical internship and residency, and for a decade’s worth of additional study. He was awarded three master’s degrees (microbial genetics and recombinant DNA, medical biochemistry and radiation biology, and hematological pathology) and completed at least some of the work necessary for a doctorate in molecular cell biology. Hatfill finally left Africa in the summer of 1994 and spent a year doing clinical research at Oxford University before returning home to the States for good.
On a postgraduate training fellowship from the National Institutes of Health, Hatfill worked at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, and other civilian federal laboratories until the fall of 1997. Then he took another two-year fellowship, this one from the National Research Council, to the nation’s top biowarfare defense laboratory, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick in Maryland. There, Hatfill investigated therapeutic responses to “filoviridae,” the family of primate-borne tropical viruses, Ebola and Marburg specifically, that cause lethal hemorrhagic fever in humans. By the time Hatfill’s Fort Detrick grant expired in September 1999, he had already undertaken related research at a private-sector laboratory in McLean, Virginia, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), which does federal biodefense work on contract.
SAIC fired him in March of this year [2002]… Eight months earlier, an unrelated CIA polygraph examination – which reportedly generated unresolved questions about Hatfill’s account of his life in Africa – had led that agency to refuse him the “top-secret” security clearance necessary for certain SAIC projects.
SAIC later offered Hatfill a financial settlement, and the company itself has acknowledged having retained him, following his formal dismissal, as an outside consultant.
~~~
.
Jan. 26, 2002 — Fort Detrick’s Anthrax Mystery
John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, says the protocol would endanger the viability of biological warfare defense programs because its inspection provisions could enable countries with offensive programs to learn about national defense programs and devise countermeasures. Bolton has identified Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria as countries with offensive programs.
UCLA On-Line – WaPo Assistant Managing Editor Marilyn Thompson
FBI focus on Dr. Kenneth Berry
August 6, 2004 – More on the developing anthrax investigation: the FBI searched homes belonging to MD and bioterror expert Dr. Kenneth Berry in upstate New York and New Jersey.
The Guardian — Special Report Anthrax
March 19, 2005 — Amerithrax investigation still ‘active’
PS About Hatfill – South Africa had a biochemical warfare research center with Israeli support during the anti-apartheid regime of Botha. I recall a TV documentary on this item. Concern was, when center was shut down viles with deadly substances were offered to the highest bidder. There seems to be a black market of private enterprises involved in mercenaries and warfare, with lucrative contracts in the UK and USA.
~~~
You left out some peculiar circumstantial evidence. They may have been wrong about the other guys but:
“The world’s largest outbreak of human anthrax occurred in rural Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) from 1978-80 where 10,738 cases were recorded and 182 people died. There is significant evidence that this outbreak was the result of covert action by Rhodesian security forces, with the assistance of South African specialists in biological warfare.”
Hatfill was from some accounts a member of the US Military working with Rhodesian forces at the time the outbreak occurred. It affected black farmers.The idea was to get them off their land.
I think Hatfill is very much and should be under suspicion. There is a lot of peculiar circumstantial evidence on this guy.
~~~
for reminding us that Judith Miller rec’d one of those “anthrax envelopes”. I will never forget watching Larry King (back in my corporate media days) and a guest came on (FBI or something like that) and when Larry asked him about the anthrax envelope that Judith rec’d he made a comment that when you receive one of those envelopes, you should not run around screaming and waving the envelope around saying you rec’d anthrax in the mail. He was surprised that a person studying WMD would have done such a thing, especially since it was not know if the anthrax was real or not. I was very suspicious of her at that point. I thought either she was up to something or just really stupid. I would like to have that investigated. I wonder if I could write the NY Attorney General and ask them to open up an investigation in that matter. Can an ordinary citizen request an investigation into this matter? Is there a lawyer in the house?
And don’t forget the context. Miller had recently written a book about WMD (and anthrax) and had co-written a major series of articles on the dangers posed by WMD (including Anthrax) to the American public. Her letter (containing harmless powder we later learned), came just a few weeks after real Anthrax was delivered to Tom Brokaw, so Anthrax was very much on the public’s mind. Miller’s “Anthrax” letter boosted her book sales, generated much new attention for the Times series, and produced numerous major Judith Miller media appearances. For Judith Miller, that much-publicized letter containing harmless white powder was literally manna from heaven.
And one other curious point. Miller was reported to have opened the envelope and spread its contents about. Numerous people had to be treated as a precaution before it was determined the contents were harmless. Wouldn’t one think an Anthrax “expert” like Miller would have taken a few more precautions, especially only a few weeks after real Anthrax had been sent to Tom Brokaw??? Is it conceiveable she knew that the contents posed her no threat before she opened the envelope?