Science writer Laurie Garrett has railed against the conviction-by-media of scientist Steven Hatfill who was implicated in the 2001 anthrax attacks. As she left Newsday, Garrett fired off a j’ accuse memo that listed these NYT failures: “Judy Miller’s bogus weapons of mass destruction coverage,” “Jayson Blair’s blatant fabrications” — and “the media’s inaccurate and inappropriate convictions of Wen Ho Lee, Richard Jewell and Steven Hatfill.”
Steven Hatfill has sued NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof for libel, claiming Kristof’s series of articles “implicated him in the deadly anthrax mailings in 2001.”
A federal appeals court reinstated the libel suit Thursday:
“At this stage of litigation, our sole concern is whether Hatfill’s allegations, taken as true, describe intentional and outrageous misconduct. We conclude that they do,” the panel said in a 24-page opinion written by Judge Dennis Shedd. (Reuters) (Emphases mine.)
The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid blog asks:
inflict emotional distress on Hatfill — it did so on purpose.
There’s blood in the water, friends. With this in addition to Judith
Miller sitting in jail — and looking more and more like the one who outed
Valerie Plame — the Times could be in more trouble today than it
was when all it had to worry about were the trivial escapades of Jayson Blair.
And, isn’t it odd that Judy Miller got one of those “anthrax envelopes,” which turned out to be harmless powder? Below, details on Hatfill’s separate suit against John Ashcroft et al.:
On April 23, 2005, I wrote a story about Hatfill’s separate suit against the U.S. government:
Steven Hatfill may get his day in court to (partially) restore his reputation and his life:
A federal judge ordered the Justice Department yesterday to begin providing testimony to attorneys for Steven J. Hatfill, the former Army scientist who is suing the government for identifying him as “a person of interest” in the anthrax investigation.
For months, the Justice Department had opposed Hatfill’s [PHOTO] attempts to begin deposing government witnesses, citing the sensitive nature of the investigation. Hatfill’s attorneys said that stalled their efforts to identify the source of leaks in the massive probe.
Until yesterday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton deferred to the government’s concerns. But Walton also said that Hatfill must eventually have an opportunity to explore the subject, and the Justice Department told the judge that it is now willing to permit some questioning.
Hatfill filed suit in 2003, alleging that then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other federal officials defamed him and violated his privacy. No one has been arrested for the anthrax-laced mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 in the fall of 2001, and Hatfill has said that he had nothing to do with the crime.
[…..]
Earlier this week, in a significant shift, the government notified Walton that it was willing to permit the questioning of some witnesses on Hatfill’s claim that the leaks violated the Privacy Act. Yesterday, Walton ordered government lawyers to immediately start laying the groundwork to set up the depositions.
Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, worked from 1997 to 1999 in the Army’s infectious diseases laboratory at Fort Detrick. He did not attend yesterday’s hearing at the federal courthouse in Washington.
The government, in its written submission to the court and in its statement yesterday, sought to preclude Ashcroft and other individual defendants from being deposed because the judge is still considering their claims of immunity.
Last March, science writer Laurie Garrett — the author of The Coming Plague — wrote: