Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (58 page)

33. White House Lied

The White House (using the term collectively) lied about their search of Foster’s office, saying it was only for about l0 minutes— in reality, it was for about 2 hours, and that was just during the first search of it.

President Clinton stated that he did not learn of Foster’s death immediately because at 9:00 pm he began filming a Larry King interview. The interview went so well that they continued past the scheduled conclusion. He reportedly only learned of Foster’s death when an aide later interrupted him during a commercial break.

However— at 8:30 p.m. that evening, President Clinton was having his makeup professionally done for that 9:00 p.m. Larry King interview. The makeup artist who was present there testified that the President was chatting with his aide, Mack McLarty, when another aide to the President entered the room and told President Clinton:

“They found a note in Foster’s office.”

The sworn statement of the makeup artist was conspicuously absent from the Fiske Report.

The sworn testimony of three police officers (under penalty of perjury) attests to the fact that the White House knew of Foster’s death by 6:15 p.m. (the White House officially claimed that it did not learn of the death until 8:30 p.m., which simply does not concur with how events unfolded). The phone logs would have ordinarily documented the phone call which took place from White House aide Helen Dickey to the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas at 6:15 (informing the Governor that Foster was dead), but the phone log— like Foster’s files, file index and appointment book— apparently vanished (the White House denied a Freedom of Information request for the phone log for that evening, without explanation). The corresponding phone logs for the recipient of the same phone call, the office of the Governor of Arkansas, also coincidentally vanished. But the White House’s claim that “no call to the Governor’s mansion was made ... on July 20, 1993” is simply untrue. Helen Dickey also testified under oath that the phone call took place.

White House aide David Watkins learned of Foster’s death when he was paged by the White House military communications office on the day of Foster’s death, at slightly after 7:00 pm. Watkins testified to the U.S. Senate in 1995 that at 10:30 p.m. he contacted the White House’s Patsy Thomasson and asked her to search Foster’s White House office: “I asked her to look for a note ... I also knew that the Park Police had been in touch with the Secret Service for some five hours prior to making that request ... “: That testimony places the informing of the Secret Service prior to the official time of the body’s discovery in the park. It’s simple common sense that the White House would be notified immediately when a top White House official is found dead.

34. Contradictory Toxicology Reports

The original and official toxicology report on Vince Foster was conducted by Dr. Hyunh. It states very clearly that no Trazodone (an antidepressant) or derivatives of Valium were found in Foster’s blood. Yet the FBI’s report to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Whitewater stated that both Trazodone and Valium-derivatives were found in Foster’s blood; information that supported the very weak claims of the Fiske Investigation that Foster had been depressed.

35. Obvious Obfuscations; Cover-Up

•The White House blatantly ignored police instruction to seal off Foster’s White House office. U.S. Secret Service agents confirmed that files were being removed from Foster’s office and taken to Hilary Clinton’s Chief of Staff;

•The White House denied that Foster even had a safe, making the preposterous statement that “I don’t think there was a safe, as I understand it. To the best of my knowledge, there was not.” (Mack McLarty, White House Chief of Staff). Apparently, having learned (after they had cracked Vince’s safe!) that it had several drawer compartments, they re-classified the safe as a “file cabinet.” Also note that the “official search” of Vince’s office did not take place until Thursday, two days after he had gone missing, and after his office had been thoroughly sanitized;

•Foster’s missing car keys (his body, his clothing, his car, and the crime scene were thoroughly checked for them, and they were not found) mysteriously appeared right after two top White House aides had urgently rushed to the morgue for the stated purpose of identifying Foster’s body (which had already been identified— he even had his White House ID with him). And hey, guess what, folks? — it turns out they were right in Vince’s pockets all along. Two large and bulky key rings that everybody at the crime scene somehow missed— gee, what a miracle! Investigators sarcastically refer to it as The Magic Keys Incident;

•Despite the fact that the supposed murder weapon found in Foster’s hand was a vintage
80-year old weapon
, the Government never even tested it during the time of the initial investigation to verify that it could
actually even fire
;

•The FBI never even tested the blonde hairs, carpet fiber, and wine stain evidence that were found on the victim’s body;

•Not only did crucial evidence disappear from Foster’s safe, but the video surveillance tapes that would have shown who removed them from Foster’s safe, lo and behold, have also conveniently vanished;

•Important crime scene photographs “disappeared”;

•Important x-rays of Foster also disappeared;

•Medical records contradict the official claim that Foster had experienced recent weight loss as a result of stress;

•Witnesses have sued the FBI about outright lies they have made, as well as attempting to badger witnesses into changing their stories and attempting to discredit witnesses whose testimony was not in line with the official version of events, rather than actually investigating the leads that their testimony provided. In the case of Patrick Knowlton, they even harassed a witness who was simply attempting to help;

•Investigators badgered the Arkansas State Troopers who testified under oath (subjecting them to criminal perjury charges if they lied), to try to get them to change their testimony about the phone call from the White House to the Governor of Arkansas which occurred prior to the time the White House stated it was aware of Foster’s death;

•FBI Director William Sessions was fired by President Clinton on the day before Foster’s mysterious death. Sessions later remarked that the result of that was that any serious investigation into Foster’s death had been “compromised from the beginning”;

•Lead Prosecutor Rodriguez concluded that the official claims regarding the time that the White House and Secret Service were made aware of Foster’s death are simply not plausible;

•The White House was clearly “calling the shots” in the quick rush to a “suicide” determination and in limiting the scope of the investigation. President Clinton immediately went public with the pre-emptive determination that the death was a mystery that would not be solved: “No one can know why things like this happen”;

•High-level White House aides had incredibly convenient and recurring “memory lapses” during their testimony regarding what had taken place in matters related to Foster’s death. For example, Susan Thomases was a close aide to First Lady Hillary Clinton. Although Ms. Thomases was logged in at the White House for six hours on the day that Foster’s documents were being moved and was in phone communication with Ms. Clinton, she could not satisfactorily explain what had taken place during those six hours and invoked her “poor memory” 178 times during four days of Senate testimony”;

•Meanwhile, back in Arkansas— the Rose Law Firm was busily shredding all the Vince Foster files it could find before they could be officially requested by investigators. The “Independent” Counsel (Fiske) assured the press that he would investigate the matter, but apparently he never got around to that;

Source material for the above chart was derived primarily from the following:

“Independent Report in Re: The Death of Vincent Foster, Jr.”, Vincent J. Scalice Associates, April 27, 1995,
Western Journalism Center.

“Forensic Experts Doubt Foster Suicide Finding”, Christoper Ruddy, January 18, 1995,
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

“The Mysterious Death of Vincent Foster”, in
Grave Secrets: A Leading Forensic Expert Reveals the Startling Truth About O.J. Simpson, David Koresh, Vincent Foster, and Other Sensational Cases,
Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D. with Mark Curriden and Benjamin Wecht, 1998.

The Strange Death of Vincent Foster,
Christopher Ruddy, 1997

Citizen’s Independent Report,
Hugh H. Sprunt; 1995

The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories,
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 1997

The Murder of Vince Foster,
Michael Kellett, 1995

“White House Lying on Foster’s Death”, John Crudele, February 7, 1996,
New York Post

“New Evidence Exposes Vince Foster Murder: Victim Not Shot With .38 Caliber Revolver”, Wesley Phelan,
The Washington Weekly,
October 26, 1998.
http://www.bigeye. com/vfoster.htm

“101 Peculiarities Surrounding the Death of Vincent Foster”, Richard L. Franklin,
http://prorev.com/foster.htm

‘The Death of Vincent Foster”, Michael Rivero,
WhatReallyHappened.com,
http://whatreallyhappened.com/ RANCHO/POLITICS/FOSTER_COVERUP/foster.php

Let’s now go back to the beginning: On the last day of his life, Vincent Foster spent a less than typically stressful morning in his White House office, dealing with a variety of matters that were not of crucial importance.

It also seems prudent to examine a few of the things that were going on in his mind at this particular time. He had been very disturbed by the Justice Department’s handling of the Waco disaster and what seemed like the completely unnecessary loss of life there due, quite simply, to a failure of patience and negotiation. Foster’s wife recalled that Vince had been “horrified” by the FBI’s assault on the Waco compound that resulted in seventy-five civilian deaths, twenty-five of whom were children.

As observed earlier, Vince Foster clearly considered himself a man of high integrity with a strong moral compass to guide him, which was well-evidenced in his choice of words for the Commencement Address he gave at the University of Arkansas just prior to his death. When that mental composition was combined with the fact that he was also old friends, close confidant, and personal attorney to both the President of the United States and First Lady—sharing all their secrets; it’s easy to imagine a situation in which that morality and integrity are compromised and pushed beyond the limits of endurance. That’s quite possibly what was going on during Vince’s last days.

Contrary to the “official version,” Foster’s actions in those final days were not at all typical a person suffering severe depression and contemplating suicide. They were typical of a man who was wrestling a moral lion and attempting to do what he considered right, in the face of immense opposition.

Another point of note is that strange things were brewing at this particular time, and not only was Vincent Foster right in the thick of things, but he also seemed to be the one who was up to something. This was right after several smaller scandals had struck the Clinton Administration, for example, issues of impropriety in the White House travel office, which garnered much attention in the media. But bigger things were now afoot. What was soon to become a huge national scandal involving all the Clinton cronies from Arkansas, high among them the senior partners of the Rose Law Firm which was the Clinton’s power base in Arkansas. Therefore, Foster’s action in regard to this newly brewing tempest are particularly noteworthy.

•What Foster seemed to be doing was circumventing that regular Arkansas power base that he was a part of and had always, in the past, been allegiant to and protected.