The Shameful Treatment of Dr. Hatfill

Dr. Hatfill is now $5.8 million dollars richer thanks to FBI incompetence.

In business cases it’s much easier for a prosecutor to dodge responsibility for press leaks, since white collar crime is a matter of degrees not absolutes. Not so in this case. They tried to nail the wrong guy.

In 2002, the FBI and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft described Hatfill, a former Army scientist, as a “person of interest” in the investigation into the post 9/11 anthrax attacks, which killed five people, sickened 17, and to this day remain unresolved. Hatfill sued the government for violating his privacy by leaking information to the press. In a statement Friday, his lawyers said: “As an innocent man, and as our fellow citizen, Steven Hatfill deserved far better.”

The political reasons the investigation focused on him should not be ignored. The WSJ Op/Ed page said he fit the profile of the perp they needed without offending of the interested groups:

The FBI's mad scientist theory also fit the agenda of the political left, which didn't want the trail of evidence to prove state-sponsorship of terror – particularly by Iraq. …But if anything, this fiasco shows the limits of bureaucratic law enforcement in fighting terror. True to form, Justice said in its statement that it "continues to deny all liability in connection with Dr. Hatfill's claims."