Obama Obstructs Oversight of FBI in Anthrax Case

Accuracy in Media ^ | March 24, 2010 | Cliff Kincaid

[AIM Freeper]

Despite bipartisan congressional support for examining the FBI's gross mishandling of the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, President Barack Obama is telling Congress that he doesn't want the agency to be scrutinized and held accountable.

Dr. Steven Hatfill, one of the innocent victims of the FBI investigation, is preparing to go public with his account of how the Department of Justice (DOJ) violated his rights and tried to ruin his career and reputation. He will be the subject of a forthcoming Atlantic magazine article and will be sitting down for an interview by the NBC "Today Show's" Matt Lauer. The DOJ paid Hatfill $6 million in damages after finally admitting that he was not involved in the anthrax attacks that killed five people.

Hatfill is adamant that justice has not been done because the formerly high-ranking officials who lied to the press about him and violated his rights have not been held accountable for their crimes.

Conservative "hero" John Ashcroft, then the Attorney General, had publicly labeled Hatfill a "person of interest" in the case. The lives of Hatfill and his friends and associates were turned upside down as the FBI unleashed dozens of agents and spent tens of millions of dollars in a fruitless effort to link Hatfill to the crime.

Expert observers of the controversial case, known officially as "Amerithrax," also believe the FBI failed to seriously consider the role of foreign terrorist organizations and their sponsors in the anthrax mailings.

[jessduntno]

“President Barack Obama is telling Congress that he doesn’t want the agency to be scrutinized and held accountable.”

Mr. Transparency doesn’t want anyone nosing around the agency...hmmmmmmmmm.

[a fool in paradise]

The DOJ paid Hatfill $6 million in damages after finally admitting that he was not involved in the anthrax attacks that killed five people. Hatfill is adamant that justice has not been done because the formerly high-ranking officials who lied to the press about him and violated his rights have not been held accountable for their crimes.

Nifongism still infects our government.

[a fool in paradise]

Did they ever tie ALL of the Anthrax attacks (foreign and domestic) to one mailer? Including the Florida hit?

And how long did the supposed scientist hold onto the anthrax just to be able to "blame" it on some Islamic jihadists in the wake of a major domestic attack?

The gubmint expects me to believe all that? After they already tried to close the case blaming a different scientist?

[denydenydeny]

Hatfill is in many ways an automatically-guilty figure for this administration, having worked with—gasp!—the apartheid government of South Africa. They see no reason to exonerate him of anything.

[piasa]

His background is Rhodesian, not S African, and the stories about him were mostly hoaxes.

[piasa]

13 years later we know why.