Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (55 page)

Law enforcement officers were also pressured to
stay in line
with the official version. Here’s how one of
them
testified:

“Lieutenant Bianchi told me from orders higher up, said that I’m not allowed to talk to anybody about this, if I value my job. I said ‘Well, what about the CIA, FBI and all that stuff?’ He said you are not allowed to talk to anybody if you value your job.”
⁴⁸³

That’s some very explosive evidence. It reveals that Foster didn’t die with the gun in his hand,
and
that he didn’t die in the location in the park where they said he did. But bear in mind that there is also forensic evidence which actually proves that Foster didn’t shoot himself with
any
gun, and that he was definitely murdered. That’s arguably the most important forensic finding. The powder burn patterns reveal that he was acting in a defensive manner, and that his hands could not have actually been on the weapon that killed him.

The work of Washington D.C. attorney John Clarke has proven that Vince Foster literally
could not
have fired the gun:

“The only possible way to have gunshot residue deposited on the right index finger and web area and left index finger, a sufficient distance from the barrel-cylinder gap to provide the five-inch length of the residue pattern, is if the weapon was fired by the hand of another. The gunshot residue patterns found were made when Mr. Foster held his hands with the palms facing the revolver’s cylinder, consistent with his hands being in a defensive posture.”
⁴⁸⁴

Clarke explains that in simpler language:

“Foster couldn’t have fired the weapon with the gunshot residue the way it was left on his hands. The residue was caused by Foster holding his hands consistent with a defensive posture. His hands were spread open; he wasn’t touching the gun, though he seems to have been pushing the barrel away when the gunman pulled the trigger.”
⁴⁸⁵

Clarke also determined that the Remington Company, manufacturer of the bullets that were found in the gun that is the “official” vehicle of Foster’s death, has never used the ball smokeless powder that was found all over the victim:

“Ball smokeless powder is what was found on Vince Foster’s body and clothing. We think that’s significant because it’s used for reloads. But professional hit men also use it to get particular firing characteristics out of a gun. That would be consistent with there being no exit wound. They’d put a light powder charge in the gun so that it wouldn’t blow the back of his head off as it would, had it been stock ammunition. That’s why I think it was a professional hit.”
⁴⁸⁶

Therefore:

•Foster did
not
fire the crime scene gun into his mouth as officially alleged, nor
any other
gun, for that matter.

•The gun that was photographed in his hand was placed there, at least one hour post-mortem.

•Another gun was involved in the crime and it was not present at the official crime scene, which is
also
highly indicative of murder.

•The victim acted in a
defensive manner
,
resisting
a gun that was being pointed at him,
also highly indicative of murder.
⁴⁸⁷

Criminals don’t seem to understand a few things about crime scenes. If you move a body
after
death, then the evidence shows that. And that’s what it clearly shows in this case.

Vince Foster’s killers made other mistakes too. For example, his body was placed in the park before his car was—and it’s pretty difficult to drive after a gunshot to the head. And whoever
did
drive Foster’s car to the park forgot to move the seat back to where Foster always kept it when he drove—the seat position was dramatically different, which would have made it ridiculously uncomfortable for the tall (just under 6’5”) Vince Foster to operate.
⁴⁸⁸

Foster’s car keys were not found at the crime scene—so how could he
possibly
have driven there?
⁴⁸⁹

There’s also this long-established factor known as
gravity
—blood doesn’t run uphill. Yet the dried blood stains on Foster had trickled down in the direction that was
against
gravity in the position they say he was found in.
⁴⁹⁰

So let’s see what we have here: Blood doesn’t run uphill, dead bodies don’t move themselves, and good parents don’t blow their brains out on their lunch hour.

The Clinton White House was accused of intentionally weakening the FBI and using it as a political tool. The FBI’s Director, William Sessions, apparently refused to play along and was eventually fired as a result. He is the
only
FBI Director in history ever to be dismissed by a President.

It seems that more was going on there than appearances indicate. The reasons given for investigating and firing William Sessions as FBI Director were very flimsy— “improprieties” such as that he had used an FBI airplane to visit his daughter; changing the security system at his home, for which the government may have been billed. Sessions denied that he had acted improperly. Nonetheless, he was told by the President to step down. He defied the President, refusing to resign his position. President Clinton then fired Sessions as Director, on the day before Vince Foster’s death. On Monday, July 19, 1993, President Clinton telephoned Director Sessions and ordered him to vacate his office immediately. So on the following day, Tuesday, when Vince Foster died, the FBI did not have a Director.

Compare the investigation and removal from office of Director Sessions—stemming from very weak evidence—with the
absence
of a serious investigation into the extremely suspicious death of Vince Foster; the contrast is startling. Sessions was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing—there was obviously little there, to begin with—and the “ethics” charges pursued against him are widely perceived as having been politically motivated. Sessions later explained what he considers to be the
real
reason for his firing to a reporter, saying that “at the time I left the Bureau, (I stated) that I would not be part of politicizing the FBI from within or without.” That’ll apparently cost one their job in a place like Washington. It certainly cost Sessions his.
⁴⁹¹
He cited his refusal to buckle under to pressure from the White House, and the Justice Department, and their political interference with running the FBI—that was the
actual
reason that he was fired as Director. Any would-be investigation into the very mysterious death of Vince Foster was therefore the victim of Washington politics. As Sessions put it, “the decision about the investigative role of the FBI in the Foster death was therefore compromised from the beginning.”
⁴⁹²

Veteran Homicide Investigator Mark Fuhrman examined the evidence and concluded that the body was obviously moved, the crime scene was staged, and the reason the Park Police were given jurisdiction was because then the investigation could be controlled. “Someone tried to stage a crime scene that is not believable in the least, and to make it work they gave it to an investigative body like the Park Police who can be ordered around and bullied,” said Fuhrman.
⁴⁹³

Detective Fuhrman cited obvious signs of foul play: “There was no brain matter, no skull fragments, not anything behind his head or blood on the vegetation around it. It was a sunny day, the light was good, yet there was nothing noted, nothing photographed.” The conclusions from that evidence are obvious: “If he killed himself, he didn’t do it there,” stated Fuhrman. “If he committed suicide, then someone moved him to Fort Marcy Park.”
⁴⁹⁴

Or
—someone may have moved him
in
Fort Marcy Park. Investigator Hugh Turley agrees with an observation shared by U.S. Attorney and Lead Prosecutor, Miguel Rodriguez: The evidence clearly indicates that Foster’s body was at first found—and even
photographed
—at a different location
within
Fort Marcy Park, and then, for some inexplicable reason, moved to the location in the park where it is officially stated that the body was found (and which ignores any pos-sibility that it was first found elsewhere). U.S. Attorney Rodriguez states that he saw the
original
crime scene photos, which confirm that the body was initially in a
different
location inside Fort Marcy.
⁴⁹⁵

But what
is
evident is that the scenario officially embraced by the Government’s version of events clearly
did not happen
—Foster did not die in the location or in the position in which we are officially told, despite attempts by Washington attorneys using their lawyerly ways to try to force square pegs into round holes. Saying it simply does not make it so. The body was either moved
to
the park or the body was moved
at
the park, and to posit that it wasn’t defies the preponderance of forensic evidence.

Famed forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee became a national personality during the O.J. Simpson trial, but he made a name for himself in criminal investigations in the decades prior. Dr. Lee points out that an accurate “reconstruction of the circumstances of Mr. Foster’s death was not possible at the time of the OIC’s (Office of Independent Counsel) investigation.” He cited “the lack of complete documentation,” “the lack of x-rays of Mr. Foster’s body,” “the lack of close-up photographs,” and “the unknown location of the fatal bullet” as being obvious problems with doing a complete and proper reconstruction of the crime. The crime scene was corrupted long before the experts could get to it. Standard criminology procedures were blatantly violated. That never became a huge issue because, Dr. Lee continues, “In the Foster case, the death was not publicized enough to generate a firestorm ... “ Had the case been scrutinized in the media to anywhere
near
the extent the O.J. case was, the facts
would
have generated a firestorm from the massive irregularities and inconsistencies clearly identifiable in the factual evidence. Dr. Henry Lee makes particular note of the immediate and most obvious discrepancies in the evidence:

“There were conflicting reports of where his body was found in the park, its position on a steep slope and whether or not his right hand clutched a .38 Colt handgun ... In consideration of powder burns found on both his hands, it was a feat that some believed could only have been performed by a contortionist ... It was alleged that within 24 hours of the crime, Foster’s White House office had been stripped of documents, and U.S. Park Police investigators were prevented from entering the office or conducting routine interviews.
Five days later,
a torn suicide note was supposedly found in his office briefcase.”
⁴⁹⁶

It’s interesting to note that crime scene expert Dr. Henry Lee and Homicide Detective Mark Fuhrman were bitter enemies about the evidence interpretations in the O.J. Simpson murder trial and took dramatically different positions; yet they apparently share the same disdain for some of the striking disparities of evidence in the Vince Foster case.

EVIDENTIARY OVERVIEW

Primary Indications that Official Version of Vince Foster’s Death is Incorrect

Official Version: On the afternoon of July 20, 1993, Vince Foster left his White House office shortly after lunch, without his briefcase, met with no one, drove to Fort Marcy Park in Virginia, walked to a desolate area of the park, placed a Colt .38 revolver directly inside his mouth and fired the weapon.

1. Powder Burns Were Defensive

The powder burn patterns found on both of Foster’s hands came from the front of a gun cylinder. If he had shot himself, then his hands would have had stains consistent with powder discharged from the rear of the cylinder. Heavy gunpowder deposits were found on the inside area of both his index fingers, meaning that they were both wrapped around the front of the gun. Forensic experts determined that such a grip is simply not consistent with a suicide and is, in fact, consistent with the actions of a person acting defensively. Ballistics experts conclude this is an indication of foul play.

2. No Fingerprints

No prints of the victim were anywhere on the gun. Two fingerprints were identified on the weapon—both prints belonging to an individual other than Foster.