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The perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attack on Congress likely was a
government scientist employed at the Army's Ft. Detrick, Md.,
bioterrorism lab having access to a "moonsuit" that made it possible to
safely process and manufacture super-weapons-grade anthrax, a
bioterrorism authority says.
Although only a "handful" of scientists had the ability to
perpetrate the crime, the culprit, or culprits, among them may never be
identified as the FBI ordered the destruction of the anthrax culture
collection at Ames, Ia., from which the Ft. Detrick lab got its
pathogens, the authority said.
This action made it impossible "to pin-point precisely where, when,
and from whom these bio-agents had originated," said Dr. Francis A.
Boyle of the University of Illinois at Champaign.
...
"Could it truly be coincidental, " he continued, "that two of the
primary intended victims of the terrorist anthrax attacks --- Senators
Daschle and Leahy---were holding up the speedy passage of the
pre-planned USA Patriot Act∑an Act which provided the federal
government with unprecedented powers in relation to U.S. citizens and
institutions?"
Leahy is incoming Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may
have a personal interest in holding hearings to learn who tried to kill
him. An anthrax-laced letter to Leahy turned up in a search of Capitol
Hill mail in the week of October 15, 2003. The letters sent to Leahy
and Daschle were both postmarked from a Trenton, N.J.-area post office.
During its probe of the anthrax attack, the Justice Department
identified Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a biological defense scientist and
one-time government employee, as "a person of interest." Dr. Hatfill, a
medical doctor, took a post in 1997 at Ft. Detrick but left to work the
next year for a private firm that helps the government create defenses
against germ weapons. Dr. Hatfill repeatedly denied any role in the
anthrax attacks and said he knows nothing about anthrax production, The
New York Times reported.
Here is the latest, we just paid off the primary suspect....
Scientist Is Paid Millions by U.S. in Anthrax Suit
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced Friday that it would pay $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Steven J. Hatfill, a former Army biodefense researcher intensively investigated as a “person of interest” in the deadly anthrax letters of 2001.
The settlement, consisting of $2.825 million in cash and an annuity
paying Dr. Hatfill $150,000 a year for 20 years, brings to an end a
five-year legal battle that had recently threatened a reporter with
large fines for declining to name sources she said she did not recall.
Dr. Hatfill, who worked at the Army’s laboratory at Fort Detrick in
Frederick, Md., in the late 1990s, was the subject of a flood of news
media coverage beginning in mid-2002, after television cameras showed Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in biohazard suits searching his apartment near the Army base.
He was later named a “person of interest” in the case by then Attorney
General John Ashcroft, speaking on national television.
In a news conference in August 2002, Dr. Hatfill tearfully denied
that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters and said
irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks had
destroyed his reputation.
Dr. Hatfill’s lawsuit, filed in 2003, accused F.B.I. agents and
Justice Department officials involved in the criminal investigation of
the anthrax mailings of leaking information about him to the news media
in violation of the Privacy Act. In order to prove their case, his
lawyers took depositions from key F.B.I. investigators, senior
officials and a number of reporters who had covered the investigation.
Mark Grannis, a lawyer for Dr. Hatfill, said his client was pleased with the settlement.
“The good news is that we still live in a country where a guy who’s
been horribly abused can go to a judge and say ‘I need your help,’ and
maybe it takes a while, but he gets justice,” Mr. Grannis said.
The settlement, Mr. Grannis said, “means that Steven Hatfill is finally an ex-person of interest.”....
Yea, strong on terror my ass...