by David Wayne
•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.
•The week before his death, Vince called a close and trusted advisor, James Lyons of the Lyons Law Firm in Denver; known as a “Super- Lawyer” in conflict resolution, Lyons was instrumental in successfully bringing the peace process to Northern Ireland. It’s clear that Lyons was a man whom Vince thought he could trust.
•Vince contacted Lyons the week prior to Vince’s death with a rather strange request. He asked Lyons if he could be sure to make himself available soon for a trip to Washington on very short notice. Lyons agreed to be available.
•On the following Sunday night, less than two days before Foster’s death, Foster again called Lyons and set up a special meeting with him in Washington for that Wednesday. Lyons agreed to be there.
•Foster was dead on Tuesday afternoon so their meeting never took place. But it obviously raises the question why a man who had any thoughts of committing suicide prior to it, would be taking very certain steps to set up a very important meeting with an old friend whom he knew he could trust; especially when the old friend is a specialist in extreme conflict resolution. Those would obviously seem to be the actions of a man who was not suicidal and was seeking counsel on an important matter from outside the Rose Law Firm and Arkansas power center.
•We know too that Vince had also scheduled a rare personal audience meeting with President Clinton—a face-to-face where he could have the total attention of the President—and that the topic of the meeting was reportedly Foster’s resignation and the reasons for it. That meeting was scheduled for the following day, what turned out to be the day after his death. Vince never made it to that meeting.
•At 9:00—9:30 AM on the same day that Foster dies, the FBI raids the Little Rock office of former Arkansas Judge David Hale, a powerful political supporter of the Clintons. This is the move that breaks the dam wide open on a series of corrupt political deals that were operating in Arkansas while Clinton was Governor. It is David Hale who implicates the Clintons. Indicted and convicted in what will become known as the Whitewater Scandal are Arkansas Governor Jim Tucker (Clinton’s successor), who is removed from office; Clinton’s Assistant Attorney General Webster Hubbell (a fellow law partner of Foster’s at the powerful Rose Law Firm); and Judge Hale; a total of fifteen persons convicted of over forty crimes.
•It’s also very noteworthy that, rather than the reaction that you would expect from close colleagues of a man who dies a violent sudden death—one of shock and investigation—the collective reaction of those who worked closely with Foster at the White House—Bernie Nussbaum, William Kennedy and Hilary Clinton—instead appeared to be one of immediately closing ranks after Foster’s death and attempting to seal the gaping holes in the so-called suicide scenario. The appearance was one of “circling the wagons” to protect the White House at any cost. For example, they played roles in “finding” Foster’s missing car keys (in a ludicrously convenient set-up) and “needed to get into Foster’s safe” immediately after his death, according to White House security records; Nussbaum (Chief Counsel to the President and, therefore, Foster’s immediate superior) was involved in the search of Vince’s office—which was technically part of a crime scene—prior to the arrival of police investigators. Uniformed Secret Service Officer Henry P. O’Neill testified that he was certain that items were removed from Foster’s office and that he saw folders being carried out of the office by Margaret Williams, Hilary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, prior to the arrival of police. It didn’t matter if Foster’s car keys had to magically and implausibly appear in his pants at the morgue after police had already thoroughly searched him and the crime scene and not found his car keys. It didn’t matter if Foster hadn’t been acting suicidal or that his office was technically part of a crime scene that should be preserved rather than invaded. And it didn’t matter that any violent death is supposed to be fully investigated and any ruling of suicide a determination that is to be made much, much later. It was officially labeled a suicide within minutes. Files left Vince’s office immediately. His car keys magically materialized in his pockets at the morgue. The White House had to be protected. So the White House took control.
Now let’s get back to that Tuesday, Vince’s last day. He worked all morning in his office, nothing at all unusual. He continued making arrangements for the forthcoming next-day visit of his sister’s family, a visit they were all looking forward to (he planned a lunch right at the White House to impress them and give them the “royal tour”). He wrote a letter to his mother to complete some family business and, although Foster was known far and wide as a loving family man, especially dear to his mother with whom he still remained very close, his last letter to her mentioned nothing out of the ordinary and was not particularly serious or otherwise noteworthy in any way— certainly not what one would expect had he known they would be his last words to her.
Vince typically worked hard and he would often ask a co-worker on their way to lunch if they could bring him back something in order to save time and be more productive. On his last day, a Tuesday at lunchtime, a co-worker did bring Vince his lunch from the White House cafeteria and she remembered it specifically— a cheeseburger, french fries, a Coke, and M&Ms candy. She remembered that right after she brought it to him, he had casually opened up a newspaper to read, as he took the onions off the cheeseburger. She then left and he ate it alone, seated on the sofa in his office. He left the M&Ms candy uneaten. He took his briefcase, mentioned to a co-worker (Linda Tripp) that she could have his M&Ms if she wanted them, and left the office, telling his secretary “I’ll be back.”
Those certainly don’t sound like the actions of a man about to commit suicide, do they? This is a guy who— shortly prior to his death and in his last known actions— takes the onions off his cheeseburger, offers some candy to a co-worker, and tells his secretary he’ll be right back.
WITNESS STATEMENTS:
If Vince Foster was Depressed, Why Does the Evidence Indicate Otherwise?
The later reports that Vince had been depressed simply do not hold up to serious scrutiny. Consider the initial reactions of those who worked closely with Vince (some later changed their stories to align with the official version, but below are their original statements):
•WEBSTER HUBBELL, ASSOCIATE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES (3rd-RANKING MEMBER OF JUSTICE DEPT.), PARTNER AT ROSE LAW FIRM, FRIEND AND ASSOCIATE OF FOSTER’S FOR MANY YEARS:
(FBI Interview) He had not “observed any noticeable behavioral or emotional changes ... prior to his death.” He noted no changes in Foster’s “personal appearance, physical ailments, headaches, loss of appetite, or any kind of stomach trouble.” As far as the brewing scandals, “Foster was upset, but not terribly so, about the criticism.”
•DR. LARRY WATKINS (VINCE FOSTER’S PERSONAL PHYSICIAN):
(FBI Interview) He “did not think that Foster was significantly depressed nor had Foster given the impression that he was ‘in crisis.’”
•DEBORAH GORHAM, PERSONAL SECRETARY TO VINCENT FOSTER
(FBI Interview) “She viewed (Foster) as reserved, not depressed or unhappy . He had a very long fuse so it was relatively rare for him to show agitation ... Foster had not ever made any statements or comments to Gorham indicating despondency and she had not noticed any physical changes in Foster from the time she started as his secretary to his death. (On his final day) he appeared relaxed and normal. ... Even with hindsight, Gorham did not see anything in Foster’s behavior which would indicate a distressed state of mind.”
•DAVID WATKINS, WHITE HOUSE ADMINISTRATOR:
(FBI Interview) Unaware of any “internal hostility”; “Watkins never heard directly or indirectly that Foster was distressed about (office issues), or about anything else for that matter.”
•BERNIE NUSSBAUM, COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (Foster’s immedi
ate superior):
(U.S. PARK POLICE interview) Foster “had not exhibited any unusual behavior” on the day of his death.
•BETSY POND, SECRETARY TO BERNARD NUSSBAUM
(U.S. PARK POLICE interview) “There was nothing unusual about his emotional state. In fact, over the last several weeks she did not notice any changes, either physically or emotionally.”
•FISKE REPORT:
Even the FISKE REPORT concedes that the victim had a very enjoyable and relaxing weekend only two days before his death:
“Foster jogged, went boating, hit some golf balls, read the newspaper and ate fresh crab for the first time.”
•DEE DEE MYERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY:
(On national television) “Okay. Let me just try to say what I think— what I said certainly on Thursday, which was that people— there was absolutely no reason to believe that Vince was despondent, that he was in any way considering doing what happened. Nobody believed that.”
•FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN BERYL ANTHONY
(Vince’s brother-in-law, with whom he was close and even lived with when he came to Washington, all the time until early June, when Fos-ter’s wife and children arrived)
(Asked on Thursday, July 22, if Vince had been depressed during the two weeks prior to his death—as other witnesses, Anthony later does a full “180”—but this was original response:)
“There is not a damn thing to it. That’s a bunch of crap.”
•TIMOTHY J. KEATING, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT (FBI Interview) “He described Foster as being ‘very professional and a strong individual ... together and on top of his game ... ‘“
•PHILLIP CARROLL, SENIOR LITIGATOR, ROSE LAW FIRM (Foster’s mentor, friend, neighbor, and godfather to Vince’s first son):
(FBI Interview) “Foster handled stress wonderfully.”
(Interview, Esquire Magazine) “He was so competent. He was a very strong individual. I keep coming back to foul play. There had to be foul play involved.” “Webb (mutual friend and Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell) called me at midnight the night it happened. He said ‘Don’t believe a word you hear. It was not suicide. It couldn’t have been’”
Source material for the above chart was derived primarily from the following:
The Strange Death of Vincent Foster, Christopher Ruddy, 1997
Failure of the Public Trust, John Clarke, Patrick Knowlton & Hugh Turley, 1999
“A Washington Tragedy by Dan Moldea: A Review by Hugh Sprunt”, Hugh Sprunt, April, 1998.
A Washington Tragedy by Dan Moldea: A Review by Hugh Sprunt, Hugh Sprunt, April, 1998.
Certainly no death in recent years has had more incongruities in the official version of events than the death of Vince Foster. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that the official death verdict is severely flawed in every aspect. In everything from the supposed murder weapon to a fake suicide note, from the eyewitness testimony to the forensic evidence, the facts simply cannot be reconciled with the purported version of events. The facts do not fit, and no stretch of the imagination can make them fit.
No one has adequately addressed a disturbingly obvious question: If Vince Foster had actually intended to commit suicide by shooting himself, why would he need to drive to a very remote area of a public park to do it? He wouldn’t, is the simple answer to that question—they have parking places all over Washing-ton, D.C., the last time we checked. So the exact same effect could have been achieved by much simpler means. A successful White House attorney, Vince Foster was clearly the very picture of intellectual efficiency; a man of methodi-cal means. Yet his death was diametrically opposed to efficiency—instead of a scientific mind reasoning methodically, he reportedly goes to a very remote area of an unattractive park for the purpose of killing himself in a distasteful location on a very hot, humid day, and one offering no view of anything pleasant (certainly not of the Potomac River, which was posted at one point, but which cannot be seen from where Foster’s body was found). Why would he do something so stupid? He wouldn’t.
Evidence like the absence of blood pooling is very important, yet it doesn’t tell us when the victim died. But something else does, and it’s one of those marvels of forensic science that surprise even the experts: it’s the summer flies. The flies in a hot and humid Washington summer behave in a very established and predictable manner—and that combined with another factor, clearly establishes the incongruity between the estimated time of death versus the time that the victim was in the park.
Believe it or not, it’s a well established fact (to biologists, at least) that the summer flies in a hot humid park on an afternoon in July will behave in a manner that is entirely predictable. Insect experts know it, and Emergency Medical Technicians know it too—because they’re called out to emergencies and they know that the flies begin to swarm around a dead body. They even know that it’s a process that takes an hour or two. They don’t begin to swarm immediately. But after two hours, or a bit less, the flies will inevitably begin swarming around a dead body and then, like clockwork, they will, after a certain period, begin laying eggs. As Professor Carl Jones, an expert on insects at the College of Veterinary Medicine determined, based on the date, the location, the temperature and the approximate time of day at Fort Marcy Park, the flies would have began laying eggs in “no more than one and a half hours.”497
But the flies hadn’t begun laying eggs when Vince Foster was found in the park, and the EMTs and first officers on the scene not only noticed it, they knew what it meant—that Foster’s body could not have been in the park for very long. Their testimony was clear—one of the officers on the scene, on three occasions, made specific reference to the presence of the flies on the body but the absence of fly eggs, because he was aware of its significance:
“Flies were buzzing around his face, starting to—no eggs were laid yet.”
“Again, the flies, I just—he hadn’t been there long because they are pretty fast workers.”498
“The blood was starting to clot—the flies work pretty fast once they start, but I would say they won’t go immediately.”499
Digestion stops at death. So a common forensic method that doctors use to get an accurate estimated time of death is examining the contents of the stomach. We know what Vince Foster had for lunch that day: cheeseburger, french fries, and a Coke. We also know when he ate it: approximately 12:45 PM, because after he finished his lunch in his office, he passed by his secretary and then a Secret Service agent, both of whom recall the time as approximately 1:00 PM.
As a result of examining the stomach contents, doctors concluded that Foster had eaten a large meal between two to three hours prior to the moment of death. Therefore, we can estimate death as occurring in a time window of 2:45 PM to 3:45 PM (12:45 PM, plus two to three hours).
But the officers in the park observed Foster’s corpse—absent of fly eggs—at 6:40 PM. Allowing a period of up to one and half hours—because fly eggs had not been lain—the earliest that Foster could have been dead in the park is 5:10 PM. The point is crucial because of what it proves— Foster’s body could not have been in the park prior to 5:00 PM, but we know that he was already dead by 4:00 PM. Therefore, in accordance with other evidence, Foster did not die at the location where his body was found. He died earlier, and his body was moved to the park!500
The semen stain found on the inside front portion of Foster’s underwear provides us with another important forensic clue. The stain was approximately four inches in size.501
The government maintains that the stain was the result of spontaneous ejaculation, which does sometimes occur at the moment of death. However, we researched this further and found that spontaneous ejaculation is somewhat rare and generally only occurs from two possible scenarios. Rigor mortis, the hardening process that begins in the body after death, can cause spontaneous ejaculation. It occurs as the result of increasing pressure upon the scrotum which forces out the release of semen. The implication is a
relatively small amount, whereas the stain in the victim’s shorts was apparently rather large (a stain of four inches is indicative of a lot of semen, especially considering that if it occurred spontaneously at death as the government alleges, then the victim would have been laying supine at the time, not standing).
However, the rigor mortis process begins at two to four hours after death yet does not begin to manifest (become active) until at least six hours post-mortem (six to twelve hours after death). Therefore, we can logically deduce that the 4-inch semen stain observed less than six hours after the victim had been dead was in all likelihood not the result of spontaneous ejaculation caused by rigor mortis.
Spontaneous ejaculation can also occur at the moment of death as the result of trauma to the spinal cord. For example, a person who suffers a broken neck, such as in a death by hanging, can experience spontaneous ejaculation. However, that is usually accompanied by bowel and bladder incontinence, meaning they lose control of all bodily functions and release contents at death. Other than a small urine stain, Foster apparently did not suffer bowel and urinary incontinence, nor was his death the result of extreme trauma to the spinal cord.