by Roger Stone
It was street fascism and the terrorists did not care that reporters were witnessing the thuggery firsthand. The two reporters notified Deputy Independent Counsel John Bates (now a statist federal judge) of what was happening to Knowlton. Bates issued no response.
“Sometime after midnight, Patrick telephoned me at my home in Bethesda,” recalled Evans-Pritchard. “By now he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Somebody had gotten inside his apartment building and was banging on the door. When he answered, there was nobody. Outside his window was a man in a green trench coat, staring up at him. The telephone kept ringing. Hang-up calls. ‘I can’t take it anymore. I want out of this,’ [Knowlton] said.
“’Stay calm, don’t let these criminals get to you,’ I said. ‘I’m going to come down and get you out of there. You’re going to stay at my house until this nonsense is over.’”409
A few days later, the FBI told Knowlton that it was Ruddy and Evans-Pritchard behind the harassment campaign.
Knowlton showed up for his grand jury testimony prepared to testify to exactly what he saw (or did not see) in the parking lot. Starr’s prosecutor Brett Kavanaugh (who, like Bates, is now a federal judge) questioned Knowlton before the grand jury. Kavanaugh adopted a hostile demeanor, intent on “hazing” or roughing up, disrespecting, and discrediting Knowlton. Kavanaugh asked a series of leading questions in which he attempted to paint Knowlton as a homosexual who was in Fort Marcy Park that day for a hook up. Knowlton erupted in rage at Kavanaugh as the jury laughed at the Starr prosecutors.
“Prior to going to the grand jury I was harassed and intimidated on the streets of Washington,” Knowlton said. “And during that time, a three-day period, my attorney John Clarke repeatedly called the FBI and the OIC’s office. They never responded to give me any protection or any help. It wasn’t until the following Monday that Russell Bransford showed up at my door and he interviewed me regarding the harassment. All the time I was telling him the story, of what took place, he sat there and smiled at me. And when I asked him at one point if I could trust him? He leaned over into my face and said, ‘Mr. Knowlton that is a good question, I don’t know.’
“Well, I was looking forward to going to the grand jury and telling them my story about my harassment and at that time, I did not realize that the FBI and the OIC were behind it.
“I remember when I went to the grand jury. And towards the end of this two-and-a-half-hour interview, I was asked by Brett Kavanaugh to step outside of the grand jury room so the grand jurors could ask questions. When I re-entered the room, Kavanaugh first asked me if I was sure that someone else didn’t see me in the park? And I replied that I hoped that someone else had seen me in the park. Then, he sarcastically asked me whether I came forward to the authorities because I was a good citizen or a good Samaritan?
“Then, John Bates who was seated behind me leaned forward and passed a note to Brett Kavanaugh, from which Kavanaugh read the following questions.
“He said, ‘Mr. Knowlton did the man in the park talk to you?’ And I replied, ‘no.’
“He asked me, ‘Did the man in the park pass you a note?’ And I replied, ‘no.’
“He said, ‘Did the man approach you?’ And I replied, ‘no.’
“‘Did the man in the park point a gun at you?’ I replied, ‘no.’
“And lastly Kavanaugh asked me, ‘Did the man in the park touch your genitals?’
“I looked at him and I was in shock. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe he asked me such a question. Of course, I replied, ‘no.’
“As I left the grand jury I was puzzled why the grand jurors would ask such questions? And as soon as I saw my attorney, John Clarke, I repeated verbatim the last questions I was asked. Now we know those questions were designed by John Bates and Brett Kavanaugh. They wanted to discredit me, and my testimony.
“Bates and Kavanaugh knew Foster’s car, that gray car, was not in the parking lot when Foster was dead. They also knew that all of the other witnesses and I all saw the brown car in the small parking lot. No one in that park saw Foster’s gray car.
“The press and the government claim that Vincent Foster drove to the park and shot himself. The fact is, Foster did not drive to the park.”410
“The proceedings were out of control,” said Evans-Pritchard “It had started as a charade; it had ended in a farce. At least Patrick now knew he could expect nothing from the Starr investigation. He was forced to conclude that the Office of the Independent Counsel was itself corrupt.”411
Indeed, all three men profited heavily from their “investigation.”
Starr, after being a federal judge in the 1980s as well as the solicitor general of the USA (often a stepping stone to a Supreme Court nomination) is now the chancellor and president of Baylor University. In 2007, Starr joined the legal team of notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, who had molested perhaps dozens of underaged girls, got off with a slap on the wrist, only serving thirteen months in prison. Epstein, while living a life of pedophilia with underaged girls was a close social friend of Bill Clinton.
Kavanaugh is now a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, the same circuit that Starr had been on. George W. Bush nominated this Yale graduate (both undergrad and law school) for a spot on the Appeals Court. Kavanaugh also was a partner at Kirkland and Ellis, the same law firm that Starr was a partner in. Kavanaugh later worked on the George W. Bush campaign for president and later joined his presidential staff. Kavanaugh’s claim to fame was penning the Independent Counsel’s report on the Foster death.
Bates is now a US District Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, appointed by President Bush in 2001. From 2006 to 2013, Bates served as a judge on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
When Knowlton went to physically deliver to the Office of the Independent Counsel a Report of Witness Tampering, Bates called security and had him thrown out of the building.”412 Subsequently, in October 1996 Patrick Knowlton filed a lawsuit “alleging a conspiracy to violate his civil rights, to inflict emotional distress, and to dissuade him from testifying truthfully before a federal grand jury. In the amended complaint he named the United States of America, FBI Agents Lawrence Monroe and Russell T. Bransford, and two mysterious Jordanians, Ayman and Abdel.”413
Knowlton was directly accusing the FBI of being part of the terror campaign that was engaged in criminal witness tampering.
John Clarke, the lawyer for Knowlton, wrote a letter that detailed the crimes that had been visited upon his witness. The judges who oversaw the Starr case ordered that the documentation of the witness tampering and harassment of Knowlton was attached to Starr’s report on the Foster suicide. This became a part of the official record of the Foster “investigation” despite Starr’s fierce objections.
The Federal Appeals Court eventually discarded Knowlton’s suit. Nonetheless, it is interesting to read excerpts of Knowlton’s motion to the court, which were attached to the Starr report. For instance:
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Upon learning that Mr. Foster’s body was found in Fort Marcy Park, Patrick Knowlton reported to authorities what he had seen in the park approximately 70 minutes before the discovery of Mr. Foster’s body.
FBI Agent Lawrence Monroe interviewed Patrick Knowlton in April and May of 1994. Agent Monroe falsified Mr. Knowlton’s account of the events he reported he had witnessed in Fort Marcy Park. At the time of these interviews, Agent Monroe was detailed to the office of regulatory Independent Counsel Robert W. Fiske, Jr.
Mr. Knowlton’s information refutes the official conclusions that Mr. Foster committed suicide in Fort Marcy Park, primarily because Mr. Knowlton is certain (despite official conclusions to the contrary) that no car fitting the description of Mr. Foster’s car was in the Fort Marcy lot approximately 70 minutes before Mr. Foster’s body was officially discovered, even though Mr. Foster was dead at the time. Agent Monroe covered up this and other facts M
r. Knowlton provided to Agent Monroe. Prior to 1996, Mr. Knowlton was unaware of this state of affairs and had assumed his information was irrelevant.
When he was provided copies of his interview reports by a reporter, Mr. Knowlton discovered that Agent Monroe had falsified his account, and his account of what he had witnessed at Fort Marcy and contradictory information from his FBI interview reports were published in a London newspaper.
On the same day that this newspaper reached American newsstands, October 24, 1995, the Office of Independent Counsel under Kenneth W. Starr prepared a subpoena for Mr. Knowlton to testify before the Whitewater grand jury in this Courthouse.
That subpoena was held for service for two days, apparently to allow time for the assembly of the men who subsequently harassed Mr. Knowlton, then served by FBI Agent Russell T. Bransford. At the time of the service of that subpoena, Agent Bransford was detailed to Mr. Starr’s Washington, DC, office. Agent Bransford had formerly been detailed to regulatory Independent Counsel Robert Fiske’s investigation, where Agent Bransford worked with Agent Monroe.
Beginning the same day Agent Bransford served Mr. Knowlton the secret grand jury subpoena, he was harassed by at least 25 men and Agent Bransford prior to testifying before the grand jury, and one man after testifying:
(a) Eleven or more men on October 26, 1995;
(b) Twelve or more men on October 27, 1995;
(c) Two or more men on October 28, 1995;
(d) FBI Agent Bransford on October 30, 1995; and
(e) One man on November 2, 1995.
The objects of the harassment were twofold, to:
(a) Intimidate and warn Mr. Knowlton in connection with his grand jury testimony; and failing that,
(b) Destabilize Mr. Knowlton and discredit his testimony before the grand jury.
This technique of subjecting a witness to an overwhelming campaign of harassment to (i) intimidate and warn, and alternatively to (ii) destabilize and discredit the witness, is known to federal intelligence and investigative agencies.
On Wednesday, November 1, 1995, Mr. Knowlton testified before the Washington, DC, Whitewater grand jury. Prosecutors questioning Mr. Knowlton during his grand jury appearance had been apprised prior to that appearance of his reports of being harassed by in excess of 25 men. The wrongdoers accomplished their object of discrediting him. Prosecutors did not believe Mr. Knowlton’s bizarre account of having been harassed, at one point asking him to “tell us a little bit about the alleged harassment.” Nor did prosecutors believe much of anything else Mr. Knowlton had to say.
On October 25, 1996, Mr. Knowlton filed a lawsuit in this District Court against FBI Agents Russel T. Bransford and Lawrence Monroe (and others), alleging that these FBI agents are vicariously liable to Plaintiff for his damages under the law of civil conspiracy for inter alia, violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985, “Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights,” part (2), “Obstructing justice; intimidating party, witness, or juror.” The Plaintiff alleges he was intimidated in an attempt to obstruct justice in connection with Mr. Starr’s investigation into Mr. Foster’s death.
As of the date of this filing, Monroe’s and Bransford’s motion to dismiss and alternative motion for summary judgment is pending. See Patrick James Knowlton v. FBI Agent Russel T. Bransford, et al., Civil Action No. 96-2467.
Investigative history of the Foster death
The 1994 Senate Banking committee was precluded by the limited jurisdiction of Resolution 229 from any independent exploration of the issue of how or where Mr. Foster died, and Senator D’Amato’s committee chose not to visit the issue of how or where Mr. Foster died. Therefore, save the sixteen-day US Park Police investigation, the only investigations into where or how Mr. Foster died were conducted by the FBI:
(1) First, a “preliminary investigation” in July of 1993;
(2) Second, under the auspices of regulatory;
Independent Counsel Robert Fiske; and
(3) Most recently, under the auspices of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.
Because of the initial FBI conclusion of “no criminal activity” in July of 1993, FBI agents who worked for Mr. Fiske the first half of 1994 would necessarily have embarrassed the Bureau had they concluded otherwise. And once the agents reported to Mr. Fiske that there was no criminal activity, there could be no abandonment of the FBI’s repeated conclusion of suicide in Fort Marcy Park without a horrendous embarrassment to the FBI and possible criminal exposure to the FBI agents detailed to Mr. Fiske’s investigation, some of whom subsequently were also detailed to Mr. Starr’s investigation.
Given the role and the conclusion of the FBI in its first two investigations into the Foster death, it is manifest that various FBI agents and the FBI operated under a conflict of interest in the role the FBI played in Mr. Starr’s investigation of the Foster death. Mr. Knowlton does not in any way seek to disparage Mr. Starr’s integrity. However, the propriety of Mr. Starr’s use of the FBI in his investigation of the death undermines a fundamental purpose of the Ethics in Government Act, to foster public confidence by maintaining the appearance that justice has been done. That FBI agents again investigating the death would not report to Mr. Starr their prior participation in obstructing justice was likely not lost on those who have relevant information contradicting the official conclusion, particularly in light of a steady stream of press leaks that the OIC was soon to issue a report validating earlier official conclusions.
ARGUMENT
Authority for relief requested. 28 U.S.C. § 594(h)(2) states in part:
The division of the court may make any portion of the final report filed under paragraph (1)(B) available to any individual named in such report for the purposes of receiving within a time limit set by the division of the court any comments or factual information that such individual may submit. Such comments and factual information, in whole or in part, may, in the discretion of the division of the court, be included as an appendix to such final report.
In re North, 10 F. 3rd 831, 835 (D.C. Cir. 1993), noted that one of the purposes of this section was to afford a measure of fairness to persons mentioned in the report:
To assure that the report is full and complete and to afford a measure of fairness to persons mentioned in the report, Congress authorized the court to furnish relevant portions of the report to such persons. Within a time limit set by the court, these persons may submit “comments and factual information” that the court may include as an appendix to the report. 28 U.S.C. § 594(h)(2).
Mr. Knowlton is mentioned in the Report. Mr. Knowlton must be mentioned in the subject Report in light of:
(1) Mr. Knowlton is suing an FBI agent detailed to Mr. Starr’s office for conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with the topic of the subject Report;
(2) The suit alleges an ongoing conspiracy to obstruct justice by FBI agents detailed to the Independent Counsels’ investigations, and that the FBI played an integral role in those investigations; and
(3) Mr. Knowlton’s information refutes the official conclusion of suicide in the park.
The As Insight on the News noted in its November 22, 1995, article “The Vince Foster Mystery”: “Starr will also have to explain—or be ready to dismiss—the strange intimidation that Knowlton claims to have suffered …”
Mr. Knowlton’s reputation is at stake and he continues to fight to clear his name. Patrick Knowlton did the right thing by calling the US Park Police in July of 1993. He was later harassed and intimidated in an effort to set him up to look like some kind of nut. Because he did not heed this warning regarding his grand jury testimony and continued to tell the truth, including the truth of the bizarre harassment he suffered, his testimony was discredited. He has been fighting for his credibility for the past 21 months. These efforts he has undertaken to establish his credibility include, inter alia:
(1) Undergoing a polygraph examination;
(2) Undergoing an extensive psychiatric examination including psychological testing;
/> (3) Giving a sworn interview;
(4) Obtaining sworn Affidavits of other witnesses;
(5) Assembling and publishing these documents (and photographs of two of the men who harassed him) along with a detailed description of the harassment he suffered in a 147-page Report;
(6) Avoiding affiliation with organizations known to be opposed to the Clinton administration;
(7) Avoiding obtaining funding from conservative organizations in order to avoid any appearance of political motivation or influence; and
(8) Filing his Complaint under seal of Court on October 24, 1996, because press reports of his claims on the eve of the presidential election would further undermine his credibility by the appearance of political motivation or influence.
In his opposition to defendants’ pending summary judgment motion, Mr. Knowlton proffers 118 exhibits in support of his claim of an overall conspiracy, 100 of which are part of the publicly available record in the Foster case. These exhibits appear under headings in that filing which, when viewed cumulatively, fairly raise a strong inference that FBI agents obstructed justice prior to and during the time that the FBI investigated under regulatory Independent Counsel Robert Fiske.
As more of the records of the Foster death investigations are declassified and analyzed by concerned citizens, Mr. Knowlton’s position that the intimidation he suffered were overt acts in furtherance of an overall FBI conspiracy to obstruct justice will slowly gain more acceptance. For example, just this week, counsel was provided with a copy of the Report of Investigation by Medical Examiner, signed on July 20, 1993, by Dr. Donald Haut, the only MD to view Mr. Foster’s body in situ at Fort Marcy Park. This report (a copy of which attached hereto), found at the National Archives on July 17, 1997, was not part of the Senate Hearings Volumes made public in January of 1995 although it was found in a box indicating that it had been so released. The following is an excerpt of the entry appearing on that Medical Examiner’s Report under the heading NARRATIVE SUMMARY OF CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING DEATH: “… gunshot wound mouth to neck …”