US Attorney's Office Accused of Anthrax Case Leaks
By David Willman
The Los Angeles Times

Saturday 12 January 2008

An Army doctor, a "person of interest" never charged in the deadly 2001 mailings, names three federal officials.
Washington - Attorneys for the former Army physician who was branded a "person of interest" in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings named three federal officials Friday who they said leaked investigative details that harmed their client.

The physician, Steven J. Hatfill, has not been charged with a crime and maintains his innocence. Hatfill is suing the FBI, the Justice Department and a handful of present and former law enforcement officials. He alleges that the leaks were illegal, damaged his reputation and violated his right to privacy.

"We have identified three of the leakers who were previously anonymous," one of Hatfield's attorneys, Mark A. Grannis, said near the outset of a sparsely attended hearing in federal court. "Some of the most damaging information leaked in this case [came] straight out of the U.S. attorney's office."

The anthrax mailings killed five people and sickened about 20 others from Florida to Connecticut. Coming on the heels of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and on the Pentagon, the mailings led to the shutdown of a Senate office building and heightened the nation's fear of prolonged terrorism.

Hatfill's attorneys alleged that the three officials who leaked investigative details to the media were: Roscoe C. Howard Jr., who from 2001 to 2004 served as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia; Daniel S. Seikaly, who served as Howard's criminal division chief; and Edwin Cogswell, who formerly served as a spokesman for the FBI.

One of Hatfill's attorneys said during the hearing that he would soon seek "sanctions" relating to Howard's additional role in leading the government's defense in 2003 and 2004 against the lawsuit. Hatfill's attorneys named the three purported leakers after questioning six reporters under oath. Howard, Seikaly and Cogswell had released reporters from their earlier pledges of confidentiality, according to a lawyer familiar with the matter. Neither the reporters nor their organizations were named in Friday's hearing, held to discuss the status of Hatfill's nearly 5-year-old lawsuit.

Howard and Seikaly, who now practice privately at the same Washington law firm, did not return messages seeking their comment. Cogswell, who is employed by the FBI but in another capacity, could not be reached. His successor said the bureau would not comment because it concerned a matter of ongoing litigation.

An attorney with the Justice Department, Elizabeth J. Shapiro, did not confirm nor deny the alleged leaking during the court hearing. However, Shapiro asked the judge to direct the parties to try to settle out of court.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered the attorneys for the government and for Hatfill to seek mediation over the next two months. The prospects of a mediated settlement notwithstanding, Walton said he expected that a trial on the lawsuit could begin in December. Hatfill's attorneys, Grannis and Thomas G. Connolly, did not speculate in court on the likelihood for a settlement. Afterward, Grannis said: "The court has set a schedule for bringing this case to trial this year, and we're very pleased at the prospect that Dr. Hatfill will finally have his day in court."

Hatfill's lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages. It alleges that the defendants' actions impeded his ability to secure full-time work and that he suffered "severe emotional distress." Hatfill, 54, formerly held government positions at the Army's medical research institute for infectious diseases and at the National Institutes of Health. He did not appear in court Friday.

A settlement of the case could carry political implications: On Aug. 6, 2002, then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, first identified Hatfill as a "person of interest" in the anthrax mailings.

By settling with Hatfill, the government would all but dispel the possibility that he might ever be charged for the deadly mailings. And - in an election year when fear of terrorism looms an important issue - Hatfill's exoneration would remind voters that no suspect has been caught.

The anthrax investigation has been one of the largest in the FBI's history. Based on summaries described publicly by members of Congress, the "Amerithrax" investigation as of late 2006 had led to 9,100 interviews, 67 searches and 6,000 grand jury subpoenas.

Hatfill's lawsuit argues that officials' determination to appear in command of the unsolved case drove their efforts against him - resulting in "a sustained course of willful and intentional misconduct by law enforcement officials who placed the public image of their agencies above their duty to respect the privacy and liberty of an innocent U.S. citizen."

-------

Congressman in Inquiry on Lobbying Will Retire
By Philip Shenon
The New York Times
Friday 11 January 2008

Washington - Representative John T. Doolittle, a California Republican who has suggested he is almost certain to face criminal charges in a Congressional lobbying scandal, announced Thursday that he would retire from the House next year.
The announcement by Mr. Doolittle, 57, who is in his ninth term in Congress and was once seen as a rising star in the Republican Party, made no reference to the criminal investigation by the Justice Department, which has centered on his connections to the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Last April, Mr. Doolittle's home in suburban Virginia was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as part of that inquiry, and his wife, a campaign fund-raiser, was subpoenaed for her financial records.
Mr. Doolittle acknowledged last year that he was being pressured by the Justice Department to accept a plea bargain and confess to criminal corruption charges involving his ties to Mr. Abramoff. He said the raid was an effort to coerce him to "admit to a crime that I did not commit."
His decision not to seek re-election in November was welcomed by his party's leaders in the House, who had quietly made known that they wanted Mr. Doolittle to step down to make way for a Republican successor in his Republican-leaning district. He had trouble holding onto his seat in the 2006 election as a result of his legal troubles.
"My wife, Julie, and I have made this decision after much prayer and deliberation," Mr. Doolittle said at an appearance before supporters in his Northern California district to announce his retirement. "It was not my initial intent to retire, and I fully expected and planned to run again right up until very recently."
"But it distilled upon us that we were ready for a change after spending our entire married lives with me in public service," he continued. "We are at peace with this choice and look forward to starting a new chapter in our lives."
Justice Department officials would not comment Thursday on the status of the criminal investigation against Mr. Doolittle, who is among nearly 20 House Republicans to announce that they will voluntarily leave Congress over the next year. Prosecutors appear to be focused on business connections between Mr. Doolittle's wife and lobbyists, including Mr. Abramoff, who might have sought to influence his vote.
In November 2006, another Republican, Representative Bob Ney of Ohio, became the first lawmaker to resign from Congress and plead guilty to crimes as a result of the scandals involving Mr. Abramoff, once one of Washington's most powerful Republican lobbyists.
The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement Thursday that Mr. Doolittle's decision to leave the House "was made in the best interests of his family, his constituents and the House, and I appreciate his years of service in Congress."
"My prayers remain with John and Julie, and I wish them the best as they work to bring this difficult process to a resolution," Mr. Boehner added.
Until this week, Mr. Doolittle publicly rebuffed calls for his resignation and said he was eager to seek another term. Branding his critics within the Republican Party as "weasels," he continued until several days ago to seek donations for a re-election campaign this November.

Dear Friend Take Action!

Click here to contact Attorney General Mukasey and tell him that he must not tolerate further retaliation against whistleblower Bassem Youssef by managers at the FBI. The Department of Justice is charged with overseeing the FBI, and it is time they begin doing just that.

As reported on NPR, in the Wall Street Journal, and on the Whistleblower Protection Blog on January 11, 2008, the FBI is threatening to retaliate against Special Agent Bassem Youssef...again. Mr. Youssef, who has exposed misconduct and ineptitude in the War on Terror (more info here>>), is scheduled to give a presentation to the American Library Association on Saturday, January 12.

The FBI was fully aware of this speaking engagement, and had already granted permission for Mr. Youssef to speak. Unfortunately, when certain individuals within the FBI hierarchy caught wind of the fact that Mr. Youssef's presenation might in some way critique the Bureau, Mr. Youssef was threatened, and was issued documentation detailing secret censorship requirements that he cannot share with anyone outside of the Bureau. Due to this intimidation from higher-ups at the FBI, Mr. Youssef is unable to give his prepared speech. He will only appear to take questions from audience members. (For more information, see the blog post)

This format change will not stop the retaliation that Mr. Youssef faces every day at work. Being threatened for speaking in the public interest is wrong, and Mr. Mukasey should make that clear.

If you cannot click the link, please visit the site listed below and access the link.

Sincerely, Marshall Chriswell Public Affairs Director www.whistleblowers.org

Judge in San Francisco Allows Suit Charging VA Denies Some Vets Health Care
By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle
Friday 11 January 2008
Veterans' advocates can proceed with a lawsuit claiming that the federal government's health care system for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan illegally denies care and benefits, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti, a conservative jurist and a World War II veteran, rejected Bush administration arguments that civil courts have no authority over the Department of Veterans Affairs' medical decisions or how it handles grievances and claims.
If the plaintiffs can prove their allegations, Conti said, they would show that "thousands of veterans, if not more, are suffering grievous injuries as the result of their inability to procure desperately needed and obviously deserved health care."
He said federal courts are competent to decide whether those injuries were caused by flaws in the health care system and the VA's grievance procedures.
Conti did not rule on the adequacy of the treatment system, which will be addressed in future proceedings. But he decided one disputed issue, finding that veterans are legally entitled to two years of health care after leaving the service. The government had argued that it was required to provide only as much care as the VA's budget allowed in a given year.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Melissa Kasnitz of Disability Rights Advocates, said the judge had rejected the VA's "shameful effort to keep these deserving veterans from their day in court."
The next step is a hearing on the plaintiffs' request for an injunction that would require the federal agency to provide immediate mental health treatment for veterans who suffer from stress disorders and are at risk of suicide, said Sidney Wolinsky, another Disability Rights Advocates lawyer. That hearing is scheduled for Feb. 22.
The suit claims that the federal government's failure to provide timely treatment is contributing to an epidemic of suicides among returning soldiers.
The suit was filed in July by two organizations, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, as a proposed class action on behalf of 320,000 to 800,000 veterans or their survivors.
The groups said the VA arbitrarily denies care and benefits to wounded veterans, forces them to wait months for treatment and years for benefits, and gives them little recourse when it rejects their medical claims. The department has a backlog of more than 600,000 disability claims, the suit said.
A Pentagon study group reported in June that the system was understaffed, prompting the VA to announce staffing increases in July. The study group also found that 84,000 veterans, more than one-third of those who sought care from the department from 2002 through 2006, had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress or another mental disorder.
In seeking dismissal of the suit, the Justice Department argued that Congress had barred federal courts from hearing complaints about the VA system when it established a special Court of Appeals for Veteran Claims in 1988 to review grievances over treatment and benefits. But Conti said the special court can examine only individual cases and has no power to consider "systematic, constitutional challenges." He said those belong in regular courts.
Conti also said the VA system, originally intended as an informal procedure to help veterans resolve their claims, has morphed into an adversarial process in which claimants have to comply with formal legal rules, often without a lawyer.
"It is within the court's power to insist that veterans be granted a level of due process that is commensurate with the adjudication procedures with which they are confronted," Conti said.
Efforts to reach the Justice Department were unsuccessful.

Executive Resigns in Storm Over Sleeping Guards
By Steven Mufson
The Washington Post
Thursday 10 January 2008
Wackenhut, a private security firm that guards 21 commercial nuclear power plants around the United States, said yesterday that its chief executive resigned during continuing controversy about guards caught napping at a Pennsylvania reactor last year.
Gary A. Sanders had been Wackenhut's chairman and chief executive since 2003. Over the past year, Sanders has been engulfed by allegations of lapses in security at nuclear plants, an audit over whether it overcharged the city of Miami for transit guards, and a bitter dispute with the Service Employees International Union.
Last month, Exelon, the largest U.S. private nuclear power generator, terminated Wackenhut's contract to protect the utility's 10 nuclear plants. An Exelon spokesman said Wackenhut standards were not Exelon's standards.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee said Monday that it would hold a hearing to look into the Pennsylvania incident and why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission failed to respond to a Wackenhut whistleblower who tried to draw regulators' attention to the problem of sleeping security guards.
Wackenhut has already erased from its Web site the biography of Sanders, who had started working for the company in 1981 as a supervisor in Atlanta and who eventually ran each of its two major divisions for nuclear and other security services. The company did not give any reasons for his departure, saying in a news release that Sanders "has left the company" and that "a decision was taken to realign the reporting structure."
Wackenhut, based in Miami, has 35,000 employees and does a range of security work that includes guarding libraries, transporting immigration detainees for the Department of Homeland Security, and protecting the government's Y-12 complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn., where nuclear weapons and materials are stored and maintained. Wackenhut is owned by the British firm Group 4 Securicor, which said its chief operating officer, Grahame Gibson, would take responsibility for Wackenhut operations.
"Mr. Sanders had helped develop G4S Wackenhut to become the leading manned security company in the U.S., with a strong commitment to employees, excellent customer relationships, and a reputation for quality," the company said. "We would like to thank Mr. Sanders and wish him the best of luck in the future."
Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, took a different view. "It's no wonder that Wackenhut's CEO stepped down after they lost their Exelon contract," he said in a statement. "They need to fulfill their security mandate and treat their own workforce fairly and safely, too."
The union has worked to highlight Wackenhut's lapses and has focused the attention of many members of Congress on the company. Wackenhut security procedures have also been criticized in four reports of the Energy Department's inspector general.
But the image of sleeping security guards, captured on a videotape aired last fall by a CBS affiliate in Pennsylvania, has become the most vivid and troublesome incident for Wackenhut. The video was made by Kerry Beal, a Wackenhut employee disturbed by the regular napping of his fellow guards.
After the video aired, Wackenhut fired the guards who were sleeping.
Nonetheless, Exelon canceled Wackenhut's contract last month and said it would take security operations in-house.
On Dec. 14, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) wrote a letter to Sanders calling Wackenhut's response to Beal's early alerts "unacceptable."
In an angry five-page reply to Casey, Sanders said the sleeping guards were an issue "at one specific shift of personnel at that site only." He said Wackenhut management was not aware of Beal's allegations until the video aired, though Beal's lawyer, David Wachtel, said his client alerted his supervisors, who told him to be a "team player."
Sanders also questioned Exelon's decision to fire Wackenhut. He said that "security is not a core competency of the energy manufacturer" and that "it will be a challenge for them to conduct security operations better than Wackenhut."
A separate dispute remains over Exelon, which has hired many of the Wackenhut guards but did not hire Beal. Exelon said he did not meet the criteria, but Wachtel said Exelon cited a one-day suspension that Beal received for being eight minutes late for work one day. The suspension was given after Beal tried to alert supervisors to the sleeping guards.
Beal and Exelon have reached a settlement, but a congressional investigator said he was still concerned about the "chilling effect" Exelon's decision would have on other potential whistleblowers.
-------