Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (57 page)

c) Another witness who saw the gun at the crime scene described it as an automatic, describing it with correct precision. Richard Arthur, an experienced Paramedic who was also experienced with handguns, was one of the first people to view Foster’s body. He swore emphatically that he saw an automatic weapon in the victim’s hand. He described the weapon in extreme detail, matching the profile of an automatic and not that of a revolver. His FBI Statement reads: “100% sure automatic weapon (was in Army, looks at magazines, knows difference between automatic and revolver). Appeared like .45 automatic.”

d) A gun still in the hand of a supposed suicide victim is another standard red flag of crime scene investigation. The explosive action or “kick” of the gun, combined with the reflexive actions of the victim, ordinarily “throws” the gun many feet away. A gun still in the hand is rare; added to this is the fact that the kick of the Colt .38 is very strong and usually throws the gun many feet away. Foster’s eyeglasses were found many yards away from the body. Yet the gun was said to still be in hand.

e) According to a U.S. Park Police report and an initial report from the White House to the media, two different guns were used in the shooting; a .22 and a 38.

f) The only bullets that could be linked to Foster were some of .22 caliber found at his home. The crimes scene gun was a 38.

g) Foster’s eyeglasses were found nineteen feet away from his head in dense underbrush— knee-high vegetation. The kick of the Colt .38 should have thrown his glasses in precisely the opposite direction.

h) And if the kick of the gun was sufficient to send the eyeglasses hurling nineteen feet away, then it clearly should have also kicked the weapon out of the victim’s hand, which was much nearer to the explosive discharge than were the eyeglasses. The kick should have either thrown both the glasses and the gun, or neither.

22. Car Anomalies

a) Four witnesses reported seeing a car other than Foster’s parked in the spot where Foster’s car later appeared. Their sightings of the other car were at the time that Foster’s body was found in the park.

b) Foster’s car was later found in the same spot after the crime scene was identified; it was apparently placed there at a later time. An officer reportedly felt the hood of the car and noticed that it was still warm—long after Foster’s body had been found.

c) Car seat was in a ridiculously awkward position for 6’5” driver.

d) Foster’s pager was reportedly at the crime scene, but its memory had been erased. Rather than preserving the evidence, the Park Police immediately returned Foster’s pager to the White House. It is not only illegal to give away primary evidence, but since associates of the victim are automatically considered pro forma suspects in the case of a vi it amounted to giving away the evidence to the very people whom they should have been investigating!

e) Four eyewitnesses reported seeing a briefcase on the front seat of Foster’s car and described it in detail. The briefcase disappeared. Like Foster’s pager, it was probably turned over to the White House, in direct violation of proper procedure.

23. Blatant Forensic Errors

Standard Forensic Procedures were blatantly ignored. Imperative forensic evidence was never obtained because police failed to examine the victim’s body for lividity markings (settling of blood near the skin) which would have told a precise story of exactly how the body had been moved. Failure to check for lividity is such a sophomoric mistake that it must have been done intentionally, in deference to the White House. The victim’s fingernails were not scraped for samples, which is also standard procedure. The four-inch semen stain on the inside of the underwear was not tested or even photographed. Nor was the urine stain of the victim tested (it is common to urinate upon death and Foster apparently did). The blonde hairs and multi-color carpet fibers that were found recurringly all over the victim’s body were not initially tested. The Starr Report, over five years after Foster’s death, skirted these issues and attempted to diffuse them by stating that there was no need to check the hairs because it was already known that Foster had contact with the very people who would have been asked for hair samples, and the white carpet fibers were consistent with the carpet in his home in 1993. The crime scene gun was never tested during the initial investigation for a standard check on firing capability. There was no attempt to identify recent tire tracks at the extremely remote rear access road of the park.

24. Rush To Suicide Verdict

In the case of any death with violence, like a gunshot, there are standard investigatory procedures to be followed. One of those procedures is that Homicide is never ruled out until the all the evidence has been gathered and it is certain that Homicide can be ruled out. The determination of Suicide is a legal ruling to be given at a much later date. Yet, in the case of Vince Foster, within minutes of his death, it was deemed Suicide, thereby closing off standard investigatory avenues. It is also noteworthy, that the Park Police who made the determination of Suicide were also aware that Foster worked at the White House, due to Foster’s White House ID.

25. No Note

Foster was known far and wide as a good family man and devoted father. The notion that he would not leave a note of explanation if he planned to take his own life is simply beyond comprehension.

26. Forged Suicide Note

A note of Foster’s, deemed to be “the suicide note”— was said to be found five days later by top Clinton White House attorney Bernie Nussbaum, in a briefcase that had already been searched under police supervision. However, the note never even mentioned suicide and appeared, rather, to be a list of the things with which Foster was dissatisfied and was planning to resign over. The contents of the note, torn into many pieces and absent of Foster’s fingerprints, were categorically unsuicidal: they relate to Foster’s disdain for the dishonesty he saw evident in Washington politics (“The FBI lied in their report to the Attorney General.”); in the media (“The Wall Street Journal editors lie without consequence.”); and his dissatisfaction at the level of immorality at the national political level in general (“Here ruining people is considered sport.”) They appear, therefore, to be a list of his reasons for resigning, in accordance with his stated intentions; he had explained that intention to his wife and had scheduled a private meeting with President Clinton for Wednesday morning at which he quite apparently intended to inform the President of his decision to resign. And he was apparently killed less than 24 hours prior to that scheduled private meeting.

Three handwriting experts independently determined that the note supposedly written by Foster was an “obvious forgery” that was apparently pieced together from samples of things that Foster had actually written.

27. No Warning Sign

Suicides have warning signs. As personal attorney to the President of the United States, Foster was certainly no stranger to stress. Yet the last day of his life was one of his least stressful. He spent the morning at his desk, paying bills and taking care of some family matters, which were child’s play in comparison to the legal concerns with which he typically dealt, such as the emerging scandals of his lifelong friend and client, President Bill Clinton.

He wrote a letter to his mother, with whom he was close—he was known as quite the “Southern gentleman”— he mentioned nothing out of the ordinary in the letter. He had been looking forward to the Washington visit of his sister, Sharon, with whom he was very close and who had just come to town with her daughter— Vince had promised to show her a great time in Washington and one of his plans was to take his niece to have lunch at the White House.

For lunch, he sat on the couch in his office, calmly opened up a newspaper, and ate a hamburger and french fries. He asked a co-worker if she wanted some of his M & Ms candy. He then left his White House office, calmly telling Executive Assistant Betsy Pond: “I’ll be back.” Linda Tripp, the Executive Assistant to whom Foster had given the candy prior to his departure, told the FBI that there “was nothing unusual about his demeanor and he did not seem distressed.” Foster’s personal Executive Assistant Deborah Gorham said that Foster had been “relaxed and normal,” and that he had left a couple of letters and a memo for her to type, which were nothing out of the ordinary. Foster then walked by guard post E-4 of the west wing of the White House; Uniformed Secret Service Officer John Skyles remembered Foster passing by— he was his usual friendly self. Skyles “distinctly recalled that Foster did not appear to be at all depressed or preoccupied as he walked by.” Skyles said “How are you doing sir?” and Foster smiled and responded “Hello- fine.” And that was the last time he was officially seen alive.

28. No Log Entry

The White House is the most secure residence in the world— video and log entries record each entry and exit. There is no Security log or White House Gate Record entry known to exist anywhere showing Vince Foster leaving the White House complex that day, under his own power, or otherwise.

29. No Surveillance Tapes

The tapes from surveillance cameras that would have shown Foster’s car leaving the parking lot are said to have disappeared— they were stored in a safe in the White House and they were apparently taken from that safe. No one from the Clinton Administration was willing to address what happened to the missing surveillance tapes which, as standard security measures, obviously once existed.

30. Violation Of Crime Scene

Police requested that Foster’s office in the White House be sealed off. Technically, his office was part of a crime scene. The White House blatantly failed to comply with that request. The President’s top lawyer (Foster’s boss) ordered the immediate removal of sensitive files from Foster’s office. Files and papers of Foster’s were removed and brought to Hilary Clinton’s Chief of Staff— and that was documented by a uniformed Secret Service Officer.

31. Vince’s Safe Was Broken Into

The White House made sure that Foster’s safe was “cleaned out” before any official investigation of his office. Even before Foster went missing, high-level White House action was trying to gain access. Only the White House Security Office, and Foster himself, had the combination to his safe. An aide told the Security Office that “Bill Kennedy (another lawyer to President Clinton) needed to get into Mr. Foster’s safe.” The Security Office checked their records and, seeing that Foster had only authorized himself to have the combination, correctly denied the request for the combination. The safe in Foster’s office was later broken into on the night of his death by a security team who knew how to get into it, and items known to be in it then disappeared. Foster’s personal secretary, Deborah Gorham, verified that documents and letters that she knew to be in that safe had vanished, as well as Foster’s file index which was a complete master list of everything contained in his files.

32. Witness Intimidation By FBI

FBI agents clearly employed intimidation tactics against witnesses. For example, Patrick Knowlton was a crucial witness because of his certainty that Foster’s car was not present in the parking lot at the time when the body was already in the park. Knowlton said the FBI falsified his official witness statement, and he brought a lawsuit against the FBI. He also states that he was targeted and harassed, that when he would leave his home he would be followed by several different men who would make a point of glaring at him in an intimidating manner. When a reporter expressed doubt about the veracity of that claim, he was invited to accompany Knowlton for a walk, witnessed the intimidation firsthand and was certain that it was clearly intentional (it was very intimidating). He was followed by teams of agents, when on foot and when driving, he was given threatening gestures, awoken in the middle of night, etc., in a vivid pattern of harassment that was witnessed and confirmed by other people. In addition to suing the FBI, Knowlton co-authored the book Failure of the Public Trust, with his attorney and an investigator. The FBI pressured this and other witnesses to change testimony that did not fit the official version of events.