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American Morning
Interview with Pat Clawson
Aired August 26, 2002 - 08:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: He has been called a person of interest in the anthrax matter. The term angers him. He has now filed a complaint against the attorney general, John Ashcroft.
Steven Hatfill, a former government scientist, filed the ethics complaint as he continues to speak out proclaiming his innocence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVEN HATFILL, FORMER RESEARCHER: I want to look my fellow Americans directly in the eye and declare to them I am not the anthrax killer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: That was Steven Hatfill from yesterday.
Pat Clawson is a friend of Hatfill's who has publicly defended him in the past.
Pat Clawson is live in D.C.
Good to see you. Good morning to you.
PAT CLAWSON, FRIEND OF STEVEN HATFILL: Good morning.
HEMMER: How long have you known Steven?
CLAWSON: About five or six years.
HEMMER: Five or six -- do you remember any of your conversations last fall during the anthrax matter?
CLAWSON: Sure do.
HEMMER: Yes, what did he say about that? What were your conversations like?
CLAWSON: Well, I had actually approached him about the subject because I had received a letter for a colleague that had some funny white powder in it. And I spoke with him about that afterwards and discussed it at some length. And somehow, our conversation somehow ended up in the "New York Times" months later as being something that columnist Nick Cristoff (ph) had cited as this fellow having a secret cabin up in the mountains, telling people to take Cipro.
I mean the conversation I had with Steve was grossly distorted in the "New York Times" many, many months later.
HEMMER: If that's the case, Pat, what did Steven say to you? What was his reaction when these letters were being found?
CLAWSON: Well, when I got a suspect letter, I talked to him about it, about, oh, two or three weeks after I had gotten the letter. And his immediate reaction was I should call the FBI. And when I explained to him that the letter had already been discarded and asked him what I should be doing to protect myself, he suggested that perhaps I should take Cipro, but probably I didn't have anything to worry about. But in any event, I should call the FBI. He was quite concerned.
HEMMER: Yesterday he had quite direct words toward the attorney general, John Ashcroft.
Listen to part of that statement from yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HATFILL: Mr. Ashcroft has not only violated Justice Department regulations and guidelines which bind him as the nation's top law enforcement official, but in my view he has broken the ninth commandment, thou shall not bear false witness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: That was Steven Hatfill from yesterday.
Pat, I'm sure you saw it. You've probably heard that clip a hundred times since yesterday.
CLAWSON: I was standing right next to him when he said it.
HEMMER: How is this case right now hurting and harming him, sir?
CLAWSON: Well, it's turned his life upside down. Here you are, you have the attorney general of the United States, America's top law enforcement official, pointing a finger out at you, saying that you're a "person of interest." He doesn't have anything to charge you with a crime. The FBI has even told your employer that you're not a suspect in a crime. But now you have the attorney general coming out publicly on television and saying you look funny to us, fellow. You're a "person of interest."
It's had the effect of ruining his life.
HEMMER: What...
CLAWSON: He has been suspended from his job. He's got FBI agents following him. Many of his friends are afraid to talk to him. It's cast an enormous cloud of fear and suspicion over him.
HEMMER: He says now that the FBI will take a blood test of him, possibly a handwriting sample, as well. Do these come back clean? And if so, is the game over for him as a "person of interest?" CLAWSON: Well, at this point in time the blood sample has not been provided to the FBI. He's volunteered to do it and he's also volunteered to provide handwriting samples to them. But they've had samples of his handwriting for months anyway. He has given the FBI everything they have asked for. He has been cooperative with them from day one.
He allowed them to search his apartment. He allowed them to search his storage locker. Never any problem there. He saw it as his patriotic duty.
HEMMER: But, Pat, let me ask you something, then. Short of some crazy conspiracy theory lodged against your friend, Steven Hatfill, why is it, do you think, though, that attorney general and other investigators have not cleared him at this point?
CLAWSON: Well, I think the FBI doesn't have a clue what's really going on with the anthrax investigation and I don't think they really know who is involved with it. You've had also a scientist up in New York named Barbara Hatch Rosenberg (ph) who's been proclaiming her belief that Dr. Hatfill may be the anthrax suspect. You've had Nick Cristoff of the "New York Times" hammering on him mercilessly in his columns for months on the basis of no evidence, aimed specifically at trying to get an FBI investigation going of him.
They've got a lot of heat on him, if you take a look at Dr. Hatfill.
HEMMER: What do you think, then, his two public appearances now in the past two weeks? Have these appearances, his pleas for the public and toward the public, have they helped him or hurt him or a bit of a neutral reaction? What's yours?
CLAWSON: Well, I would hope that they've helped him because they've helped the American people see who he really is, not this caricature of him that's been drawn by the "New York Times" and by the media and by Justice Department leaks.
Up until he made those TV appearances, nobody had ever seen him. Nobody knew him except those of us who are his friends.
HEMMER: Thank you, Pat.
Pat Clawson in Washington, a friend of Steven Hatfill.
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