August 1, 2002 and After: FBI Neglects Other Leads after Publicly Naming Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill

After the FBI publicly names Steven Hatfill as a “person of interest” in the anthrax investigation on August 1, 2002 (see August 1, 2002), FBI leaders become increasingly fixated on him and fail to follow up on other leads. One anonymous FBI agent involved in the case will later say: “They exhausted a tremendous amount of time and energy on him… I’m still convinced that whatever seemed interesting or worth pursuing was just basically nullified in the months or year following when ‘person of interest’ came out about Hatfill.” Other possibilities are neglected because it is assumed in the FBI that “sooner or later they’ll have this guy nailed.” Another anonymous FBI investigator will say: “Particular management people felt, ‘He is the right guy. If we only put this amount of energy into him, we’ll get to the end of the rainbow.’ Did it take energy away? It had to have. Because you can’t pull up another hundred agents and say, ‘You go work these leads [that] these guys can’t because they’re just focused on Hatfill.’” The Los Angeles Times will later comment, “The preoccupation with Hatfill persisted for years, long after investigators failed to turn up any evidence linking him to the mailings.” [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]