>>> we will find out and we will hold accountable and bring to justice whoever is responsible. but this investigation is now not even 48 hours old and it is important that we maintain the integrity of the investigation.
>> today, the fbi first postponed and then canceled their regular briefing on the investigation into the boston marathon bombing. authorities told ncbc news that authorities have a face but not the name of someone seen on camera. they just have the face. someone dropping a black bag near the second blast site. an official says investigators are zeroing in on some people. joining me now is nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoff and agent james calf nau. how did the news media get out of control on this, some of the other networks saying they had an arrest and then how did that in any way possibly lead to the canceling of the regular briefing?
>> we don't know for sure. and it's too bad because it would have been good to clear up what's become a confusing situation but my sense is, some investigators got pretty excited about these surveillance photos, that they were able to identify somebody who they thought had left off a bag at the bomb site that could have been the bomb. they were helped very much by the footage they got in from the camera at the lord & taylor department store , a few hundred yards down the road here. and that led to a lot of excitement and hopes that there had been a major breakthrough. it's not clear how big of a breakthrough it is. clearly it's progress. clearly they've got something to work with. but i'm -- we're reporting tonight that they've distributed -- the fbi is distributing a photo image of the individual to other federal law enforcement agencies asking for them to help in helping to identify this individual. it's a pretty good indication they don't know at this moment who that is. and so this could still be yet quite an arduous task without a name who they are looking for. they don't know who they are looking for and beyond that, they don't know that that person is necessarily connected to the bombing. they know that they've got surveillance photo that is suggestive and raises questions and they want answers. but we're still pretty far off from getting a real breakthrough in this case.
>> james cavanaugh , an asset that the fbi and police do not have is the ability to trace gunpowder. why do they not have that ability now?
>> that was blocked in the '70s. these were little taggants, the size of a period on a piece of paper. i was around at the time, we trained with them, they were magnetic and they would glow in the dark . we would go out with magnets, special gloves, black lights , and we could actually recover these taggants after a bomb detonated and be able to tell us the date shift code, which is basically the lot and serial number of a batch of dynamite. we were very excited about it. we sent some of those explosives into the field, a homicide case was solved in the baltimore division with it but eventually when it got to the hill, gun lobby got involved, basically said, you know, if you let the atf tag explosives, next they are going to tag the powder and then road den drons and whatever. it hurt many bombing cases which is atf is particularly interested in solving 40 years ago and through today.
>> and james , where do you think this investigation would be tonight were it not for the nra's blocking that particular investigative tool?
>> well, in theory, lawrence, it could have given us a lot number. in theory, that's possible. you know, when you're working on a difficult case like this as mike described, every little bit of information can help you build the case. but you just had the governor on and i just want to i sa, this case from afar was being well run. this task force was tight, despite what happened today in the media, this task force is great. you can see the way it's been running. i've been involved in many of these cases. the agencies, boston police , boston police bomb squad , detective bureau right on through the state police , immigration, u.s. attorney , and i've worked with governor patrick. he flew to alabama and worked with me on the church fires. he's a good leader. they are doing a great job and they are going to break the case.
>> james , do you have any insight as to why this briefing would have been canceled today?
>> i think the commanders are probably at a decision point on whether or not they are going to further release the images. meek talked about it and he's exactly right. you know, you have an image, it could be very significant to identify a person or not. let me give you an example. in the eric rudolph case, we had a photograph of eric rudolph with the alice pack , with a backpack, with a bomb in it at olympic park but the photograph was so distant, we could hardly make him out. we used to call them in the command post , blob man, because we could see him threw but couldn't make out the features. we had that image for years but were never able to get an identification from it. so the clarity of the video, is the face available, is the clothes readily recognizable. the commanders are trying to make all of those decisions carefully. and i would say this. i try to release it in a tight circle to see if i can get something first and then start making the decision, i wouldn't want to start holding that too long if i thought i could get to the identity of the guy or perpetrators by releasing to the public. because the main thing is to catch these bombers before they strike again.
>> michael isikoff , it seems that the next fbi briefing will, for some number of minutes anyway, be bogged down in the procedural question of why did you cancel the last briefing. and up until now it's been a flawlessly run system.
>> well, look, they've also got to figure out exactly what they are going to say and exactly how much they are going to release. they are going to be bombarded with questions about what they know about the potential persons of interests. i hesitate to call them suspects. they haven't called them suspects yet. but how much they know, how much they want to release, do they want to solace sit help from the public in identifying who these people are? my sense is they are not there yet. that's why they are showing the photos that i'm told was being distributed tonight involves a white man with a baseball cap about six feet tall or more. now, the first blush is, do you have anything that looks like this guy? do you know anything about this person? if they don't get something fairly quickly, i think they may well go to the public and we may well be seeing this photo asking the public, have you ever seen this person?
>> michael isikoff , james calf nau, thank you both for joining me tonight.
>> thanks, lawrence.
>>> coming up, rand paul's insults to the parents of the children killed at sandy hook elementary school . you will see president obama 's response to that in his own angry words. and the mother of the 9-year-old girl who was killed in the shooting that took down gabby giffords will join me and she will also respond to what rand paul
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