Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2002

"You've got the FBI and John Ashcroft crawling up his backside looking for anything they can find," said Clawson, a veteran investigator. "And it's not unheard of for the FBI or the DOJ, once they've got you in their sights, to take the most minor blemish and magnify it into a major federal charge just to preserve their reputations.

"What I can see happening, and Dr. Hatfill's lawyers agree, is that Ashcroft has announced he's using the Bobby Kennedy approach to going after terrorism. When Bobby Kennedy was AG, he adopted the approach with the Mafia that he would use anything he could find, any infraction anywhere of anything, no matter how minor it was, to scoop 'em up and put them away. And Ashcroft has said he's doing the same thing with terrorism."

Clawson recalled the case of a Mafia boss Kennedy wanted to lock up but could find no evidence to arrest for organized crime. He got his opportunity when a game warden caught the mobster with two more turtle doves in his game bag than the law allowed - an offense usually punished with a $50 fine.

Kennedy, Clawson recalled, managed to get the man indicted and convicted for a violation of the Federal Migratory Bird Act and jail him for three years. After that the man's nickname among the mob was "Doves," Clawson said.

Ashcroft could use the same kind of ruse to arrest Dr. Hatfill and justify the huge expense in money and manpower spent investigating a man the DOJ could not connect with the anthrax attacks.

Bad Litterbug

"He'll come out and announce, 'Today we've indicted Dr. Steven Hatfill for littering in a national park,' or some other offense totally unrelated to the anthrax attack."

The FBI's harassment of Hatfill, Clawson told NewsMax.com, is unrelenting.

"The FBI is still following him. Surveillance comes and goes. Some days it's very intense; some days it's not visible at all. But the FBI has been continuing their investigation of him. And apparently coming up empty.

"On September 11 they raided his former apartment. And not long ago they were following him very closely on the Interstate - he was driving from D.C. up to Frederick [Md.], and they were in front of him, behind him and on the side of him as he was going up the freeway."

The effect of all of this on Hatfill has been devastating.

"His life has been ruined by the investigation. His reputation has been totally shredded. And one of the things he's most upset about is that America's getting ready to go to war, he's been trained, and he's being left on the sidelines," Clawson said.

Hatfill, he said, is jobless and running out of money. "He told me: 'I'm out of work; how am I going to pay these lawyers? I've run out of money. I can't keep paying my lawyers.'"

Feds Want to Destroy Him

When Hatfill moved to Baton Rouge, La., to start work at LSU he was promptly fired after DOJ told the university it could not employ him on any projects that received money from the department.

The projects, Clawson explained, were 97 percent funded by DOJ. And LSU, knowing it could not keep him on the payroll, allowed Hatfill to incur the expense of moving to Baton Rouge.

"They did it after he'd already moved his stuff down - it cost him a lot of money to move all his stuff down there and then move it all back here," Clawson recalled.

"They fired him without severance pay. Just goodbye. Since then he's been sending out resumés, he's been knocking on doors, and essentially he's been told he is radioactive - and nobody want to touch him."

Time to Fight Back

Hatfill is planning to fight back. Clawson confirmed that his friend was readying lawsuits against a number of people and groups who have libeled and otherwise harassed him.

"He is planning to file several defamation suits in the upcoming months against several individuals and organizations, but he did not specify against whom the suits would be filed," Clawson said.

"The timing of the suits will depend on what the DOJ decides to do - if they're going to arrest him for something obviously that affects the timing of the suits, it could delay it.

"The bottom line is he's unemployed, he's looking for work, nobody will hire him, he's radioactive until the Justice Department either charges or clears him. The Justice Department is making no effort to move quickly to do either.

There Goes the New York Times Again

"He doesn't have a clue as to why the FBI is doing this. The best we can determine, this investigation started as a direct result of the allegations that were being made by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg and Nick Kristoff of the New York Times. Kristoff actually acknowledged on an NPR show that he wrote those columns specifically to trigger an FBI investigation of Steve.

"If the FBI had any evidence whatsoever on Steve Hatfill, he would not be walking the streets as a free man today. They're picking up these Arab immigrants on most nickel-and-dime charges they can come up with. Do you really think they would allow the most important mass murderer of the 21st century to be walking around free as a bird?"

'We Don't Have Anybody Else'

The Weekly Standard's David Tell reports that DOJ may be getting nervous about the pursuit of Dr. Hatfill. He writes: "One 'law enforcement official' admits to the Los Angeles Times that, 'to be honest, we don't have anybody that is real good [as a possible anthrax suspect]. That is why so much energy has gone into Hatfill - because we didn't have anybody else.'

"Other 'senior law enforcement officials' express 'embarrassment' to the New York Times over the e-mail directive to Louisiana State University" ordering Hatfill's firing, "acknowledging that the Justice Department 'acted improperly' by demanding the firing of a man who isn't even technically suspected of a crime. Yet another 'senior Justice Department official' said that Ashcroft 'blundered' when he called Hatfill a 'person of interest.'"

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bioterrorism
Bush Administration
NewsMax Scoops
Steven Hatfill

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