The Anthrax Charade Continues

The New York Times tells us here today that, absent a legitimate case against a suspect in the Anthrax scare of 2001 (remember that?), Judge Reggie Walton has ruled that USA Today reporter Toni Locy is in contempt of court for refusing to reveal her sources in a story she wrote about a former Army scientist’s possible role in the attacks (the last we heard of Judge Walton, by the way, he was presiding over the Scooter Libby trial). Walton has also said that a second reporter, Jim Stewart, may be held in contempt also.

As noted in the Times story…

The two journalists are being pressed to reveal their sources by Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a onetime bioterrorism expert for the Army, who is suing the federal government, saying his reputation was ruined by leaks to the news media from law enforcement officials linking him to the attacks. In 2002, the F.B.I. and John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, described Dr. Hatfill as a “person of interest” in the investigation into the attacks, which killed five people and remain unsolved.

Judge Walton said Ms. Locy’s testimony was important to help Dr. Hatfill pursue his civil lawsuit against the government, but advocates for the news media said his order was the latest of recent rulings that could hamper the work of journalists.

“Of all the federal court sanctions on reporters for refusing to reveal confidential sources over the past several years, this is perhaps the most disturbing,” said Lucy A. Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“Toni Locy is being punished for doing what reporters are supposed to do: making sure important information gets to the public about whether the government had the investigation into a major public health threat under control,” Ms. Dalglish said.

It is important to note, by the way, that Dr. Hatfill has not been charged.

One of the things I’ve always wondered about, though, concerning this story is the following from this CNN story from June 2002 (embedded in this great post by The Bulldog, who was all over this a long time ago)…

Last weekend, a senior government official who wished not to be identified said testing has determined the deadly anthrax mailed to various places last fall was no more than two years old.

This discovery lends credence to the theory that whoever mailed the finely milled anthrax spores -- known to be of the Ames strain -- has a current connection to a sophisticated laboratory.

However, this 2005 story from the International Herald-Tribune tells us that Hatfill worked at the Army’s biodefense research center at Fort Detrick, Maryland from 1997 until 1999 (The Bulldog explains how the Ames-strain Anthrax could only have been produced at Fort Detrick).

So, assuming that Hatfill had some role in the scare (and again, he has vehemently claimed his innocence), it’s highly dubious to assume that he acted on his own (I can’t imagine someone managing to secure a quantity of Ames-strain anthrax and then keeping it in their possession for two years before mailing it, which resulted in the deaths of five people, let’s not forget). I think the scenario noted in this post by Ed Lake in 2002 (describing two individuals at a minimum involved in the scare: one would be the “supplier” from Fort Detrick and the other would be the “refiner/mailer” who delivered the anthrax-laced letters from Trenton, New Jersey after 9/11 and early in October, 2001) is highly plausible.

Lake also notes, by the way, that The Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention had ended in turmoil in July/August 2001 and indecision resulted when the United States failed to agree to any plan that included international inspections of US government laboratories, implying that that played a role in the timing of the anthrax attacks.

Given all of this, it is typically beyond ludicrous for John Ashcroft and Bushco to name a single individual as “a person of interest” assuming that this individual could somehow have acted on his own, when in fact he had not worked at the facility that manufactured the anthrax for two years prior to the mailing of the deadly anthrax-tainted letters.

The only thing that this sideshow with the reporters and Dr. Hatfill will do is hinder any legitimate investigation into the Anthrax attacks, which perhaps is the ultimate goal anyway.