Revisiting Mueller and the anthrax case

The FBI’s prolonged focus on Hatfill reflects at least two factors that deserve a public accounting: Mueller’s flawed evaluation of the evidence that propelled the push, ultimately abandoned, toward the indictment of Hatfill. And, Mueller’s transforming of the FBI from a conventional law enforcement agency to one whose top priority became preventing terrorism. The latter has won the FBI director widespread praise — without a necessary airing of the consequences for the anthrax investigation and future cases.

Any serious retrospective of Amerithrax must start with a realization that, as former senior FBI official Michael A. Mason told me, “The director was always the leader of the anthrax investigation, period.’’ In 2002, with pressure to solve the case still high, Mueller installed his handpicked man, Inspector Richard L. Lambert, to lead it. Hatfill had already emerged as the case’s top suspect, and the expectation at headquarters was that Lambert would promptly shore up the evidence needed to bring charges related to the five deaths caused by the mailings.

A crucial part of that evidence was the work of three bloodhounds, brought from Southern California to Hatfill’s Maryland apartment and other locations of interest to the FBI. Mueller himself stood behind the promise of the dog-related evidence, notably on the evening of Jan. 9, 2003, when he and Lambert briefed both congressional targets of the anthrax letters, Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. The senators were told that the bloodhounds had “alerted’’ on Hatfill and had traced scent of both him and the anthrax letters to several ponds in a forest above Frederick, Md.