Tables Turned In Anthrax Probe

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.

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."

Produced By Rich Bonin