In his first public remarks regarding the evidence amassed against Ivins, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told reporters last week in Vermont: "I do not apologize for any aspect of the investigation that was undertaken over the years." Mueller said it would be "erroneous to say there were mistakes."
Investigators conducted the first of several searches of Hatfill's residences in June 2002. Later that year, a Justice Department official forced Hatfill's firing from his newly won faculty post at Louisiana State University.
By contrast, authorities waited until last November to conduct their first searches of Ivins' vehicles and his home, in Frederick, Md. Taylor and other officials who addressed reporters declined to say if they knew whether Ivins had bleached any of his personal possessions in the six-year period between the anthrax mailings and the searches, which found no spores.
The government in June agreed to pay Hatfill $5.8 million to settle a lawsuit in which his lawyers elicited sworn testimony from law enforcement officials who admitted they had leaked investigative information about him to the news media.
The investigation's years-long fixation with Hatfill angered some FBI agents who believed that, as a result, other potential leads and suspects received inadequate attention. The agents formally complained to the bureau's inspection division about Richard L. Lambert, the official who directed the probe from late 2002 through the summer of 2006, people familiar with the matter said.
Results of the inspection division's review, first reported by The Times on June 29 of this year, have yet to be made public. In late August 2006, Mueller transferred Lambert from the anthrax investigation, naming him special agent in charge of the bureau's field office in Knoxville, Tenn.
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david.willman@latimes.com
Times researcher Janet Lundblad in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
