Steven Hatfill
Steven Jay Hatfill is an American pathologist and biological weapons expert. In 2002, he came to worldwide attention as a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, a charge of which he was eventually exonerated, and later compensated for, after extensive litigation.
In 2020, Hatfill became an advisor to the first Trump White House, in which capacity he promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the COVID-19 virus despite FDA objections to the drug. After the 2020 election he participated in Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the election results.
In April 2025, Hatfill became a special advisor to the second Trump administration on the subject of pandemic preparedness. He was fired from the Department of Health and Human Services on October 27, 2025.
Overview
Hatfill became the subject of extensive media coverage beginning in mid-2002, when he was a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks. His home was repeatedly raided by the FBI, his phone was tapped, and he was extensively surveilled for more than two years; he was also terminated from his job at Science Applications International Corporation. At a news conference in August 2002, Hatfill denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters and said "irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks" had "destroyed his reputation". He filed a lawsuit in 2003, accusing the FBI agents and Justice Department officials who led the criminal investigation of leaking information about him to the press in violation of the Privacy Act.In 2008, the government settled Hatfill's lawsuit with a $4.6 million annuity, totalling $5.8 million in payment. The government officially exonerated him of any involvement in the anthrax attacks, and the Justice Department identified another military scientist, Bruce Edwards Ivins, as the sole perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. Jeffrey A. Taylor, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote in a letter to Hatfill's lawyer that "we have concluded, based on laboratory access records, witness accounts and other information, that Dr. Hatfill did not have access to the particular anthrax used in the attacks, and that he was not involved in the anthrax mailings."
In 2004, Hatfill filed lawsuits against several periodicals and journalists who had identified him as a figure warranting further investigation in the anthrax attacks. He sued the New York Times Company and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for defamation, defamation per se, and intentional infliction of emotional distress in connection with five of Kristof's columns in 2002. The courts dismissed this suit, finding that Hatfill was a limited-purpose public figure. In 2007, Hatfill settled a similar libel lawsuit against Vanity Fair and Reader's Digest for an undisclosed amount, after both magazines agreed to formally retract any implication that Hatfill was involved in the anthrax mailings.
In 2010, Hatfill was an independent researcher and an adjunct assistant professor of emergency medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center. He has criticized the response of health authorities to the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa and suggested that it is possible that Ebola could be transmitted by aerosol, a position which other experts have criticized.
Early life
Hatfill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and graduated from Mattoon Senior High School, Mattoon, Illinois, and Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, where he studied biology.Hatfill was enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army from 1975 to 1977. Following his Army discharge, Hatfill qualified and worked as a medical laboratory technician, but soon resolved to become a doctor. He worked as a medical missionary in Kapanga, Zaire, under a mentor, Dr. Glenn Eschtruth, who was murdered there in 1977. A brief marriage, from 1976 to 1978, to Eschtruth's daughter, Caroline Ruth Eschtruth, produced one daughter.
Medical education
In 1978, Hatfill settled in Rhodesia and entered the Godfrey Huggins Medical School at the University of Rhodesia in Salisbury. After failing in 1983, he graduated in 1984 with an MB ChB degree and, from 1984 to 1985, completed a one-year internship at a small rural hospital in South Africa's North West Province. The South African government recruited him to be a medical officer on a 14-month tour of duty, from 1986 to 1988, in Antarctica with the South African National Antarctic Expedition. In 1988, he completed a master's degree in microbiology at the University of Cape Town. Two years later, he worked toward a second master's degree—in medical biochemistry and radiation biology—at the University of Stellenbosch, while employed as a medical technician in the university's clinical haematology lab. A three-year haematological pathology residency at Stellenbosch from 1991 to 1993 followed. Hatfill also conducted research toward a Ph.D. between 1992 and 1995—under the supervision of microbiology professor Ralph Kirby at Rhodes University—on the treatment of leukemia with thalidomide.Hatfill submitted his Ph.D. thesis for examination to Rhodes University in January 1995, but it failed in November. Hatfill later claimed to have completed a Ph.D. degree in "molecular cell biology" at Rhodes, as well as a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford in England and three master's degrees. Some of these credentials have been seriously questioned or disputed. During a later investigation, officials at Rhodes maintained that their institution had never awarded him a Ph.D. In 2007, Hatfill's lawyer Tom Connolly – in his lawsuit against former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the FBI – admitted that his client had "uffed on his resume," falsely claiming he had earned a PhD and had "orged a diploma" for the PhD.
Back in the United States, another of Hatfill's post-doctoral appointments commenced at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1995. He then worked from 1997 to 1999 as a civilian researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, the U.S. Department of Defense's medical research institute for biological warfare defense at Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland. There, he studied, under a National Research Council fellowship, new drug treatments for the Ebola virus and became an authority on BW defense.
Anthrax attacks
In January 1999, Hatfill transferred to a "consulting job" at Science Applications International Corporation, which has a "sprawling campus" in nearby McLean, Virginia. The corporation worked for a multitude of federal agencies. Many projects were classified. Hatfill designed BW defense training curricula for government agencies.By this time, there had been several hoax anthrax mailings in the United States. Hatfill and his collaborator, SAIC vice president Joseph Soukup, commissioned William C. Patrick, retired head of the old US bioweapons program, to write a report on the possibilities of terrorist anthrax mailing attacks. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg said that the report was commissioned "under a CIA contract to SAIC". But SAIC said Hatfill and Soukup had commissioned it there was no outside client.
The resulting report, dated February 1999, was subsequently seen by some as a "blueprint" for the 2001 anthrax attacks. Amongst other things, it suggested the maximum amount of anthrax that could be put in an envelope without making a suspicious bulge. The quantity in the envelope sent to Senator Patrick Leahy in October 2001 was 0.871 grams. After the attacks, the report drew the attention of the media and others and led to their investigation of Patrick and Hatfill.
Assertions by Rosenberg
As soon as it became known, in October 2001, that the Ames strain of anthrax had been used in the attacks, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg and others began suggesting that the mailings might be the work of a "rogue CIA agent" and they provided the name of the "most likely" person to the FBI. On November 21, 2001, Rosenberg made similar statements to the Biological and Toxic Weapons convention in Geneva. In December 2001, she published "A Compilation of Evidence and Comments on the Source of the Mailed Anthrax" via the website of the Federation of American Scientists suggesting the attacks were "perpetrated with the unwitting assistance of a sophisticated government program".Rosenberg discussed the case with reporters from the New York Times. On January 4, 2002, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times published a column titled "Profile of a Killer" stating, "I think I know who sent out the anthrax last fall." For months, Rosenberg gave speeches and stated her beliefs to many reporters from around the world. She posted "Analysis of the Anthrax Attacks" to the FAS website on January 17, 2002. On February 5, 2002, she published an article called "Is the FBI Dragging Its Feet?" At the time, the FBI denied reports that investigators had identified a chief suspect, saying, "There is no prime suspect in this case at this time." The Washington Post reported that "FBI officials over the last week have flatly discounted Dr. Rosenberg's claims."
On June 13, 2002, Rosenberg posted "The Anthrax Case: What the FBI Knows" to the FAS site. Five days later, Rosenberg presented her theories to Senate staffers working for Senators Daschle and Leahy. On June 25, the FBI publicly searched Hatfill's apartment, turning him into a household name. "The FBI also pointed out that Hatfill had agreed to the search and is not considered a suspect." The American Prospect reported in June 2002: "Hatfill is not a suspect in the anthrax case, the FBI says." On August 3, 2002, Rosenberg told the media that the FBI had asked her if "a team of government scientists could be trying to frame Steven J. Hatfill."
Person of interest
In August 2002, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft labelled Hatfill a "person of interest" in a press conference, although no charges were brought against him. Hatfill, who researched viruses, vehemently denied having any connection to the anthrax mailings and sued the FBI, the Justice Department, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and others for violating his constitutional rights and the Privacy Act. On June 27, 2008, the Department of Justice announced it would settle Hatfill's case for $5.8 million.Hatfill later went to work at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In September 2001, SAIC was commissioned by the Pentagon to create a replica of a mobile WMD "laboratory", alleged to have been used by Saddam Hussein, then President of Iraq. The Pentagon said the trailer was to be used as a training aid for teams seeking weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
His lawyer, Victor M. Glasberg, stated: "Steve's life has been devastated by a drumbeat of innuendo, implication and speculation. We have a frightening public attack on an individual who, guilty or not, should not be exposed to this type of public opprobrium based on speculation."
In an embarrassing incident, FBI agents trailing Hatfill in a motor vehicle ran over his foot when he attempted to approach them in May 2003. Police responding to the incident did not cite the driver, but issued Hatfill a citation for "walking to create a hazard". He and his attorneys fought the ticket, but a hearing officer upheld the ticket and ordered Hatfill to pay the requisite $5 fine.
FBI Director Robert Mueller changed leadership of the investigation in late 2006, and at that time, another suspect, USAMRIID bacteriologist Bruce Ivins, became the main focus of the investigation.
Considerable questions were raised about the credibility of the case against Ivins, as well.