[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 19, 1994)] [House] [Page H] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [Congressional Record: July 19, 1994] From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] {time} 2000 WHITEWATER AND DEATH OF VINCE FOSTER The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Deutsch). Under the Speaker's announced policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks, I have been talking about the Whitewater affair, the death of Assistant White House Counsel Vince Foster, the strange circumstances surrounding his death, and other things connected to White House activities, or some of the people at the White House. As a result, I have been criticized by some members of the majority because they thought I was a little bit insensitive, particularly regarding the family of Vince Foster whose untimely death happened last July. They say, ``Why can't you leave that family alone?'' I am not insensitive to their concerns. A family that has lost a loved one under these kinds of tragic circumstances certainly should expect some kind of sympathy from the people who are in the Congress of the United States. Nevertheless, there are strange circumstances concerning his death that need to be explored. The investigation into Whitewater, the Arkansas Development Financial Authority and Vince Foster's death and the people who went into Vince Foster's office right after he died needs to be looked into by the Congress of the United States. Yet Special Prosecutor Mr. Fiske, in my opinion, has deliberately tried to limit the scope of the investigation so that Congress cannot get the answers that we should. As a matter of fact, Federal Judge Charles Richey, who has the Leach document suit pending before him, is very concerned about Mr. Fiske's activities as well. Richey denounced Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Fiske for his efforts to limit the scope of the Whitewater hearings that will be held by the Banking Committee later this month, saying Fiske was infringing on constitutionally guaranteed congressional rights and obligations. The judge said, ``I don't believe the Independent Counsel has the power to tell the Congress what they have the power to look into and when.'' I agree with that. But the fact of the matter is Mr. Fiske, in my opinion, is obfuscating the issues and keeping the Congress from getting to the bottom of many of these questions. U.S. News & World Report said this week in their magazine: Based on strong forensic evidence, Fiske's report concludes that Foster did indeed take his own life in the spot where he lay at Marcy Park. I want to talk about that tonight. I want to talk about a lot of things concerning Whitewater and the Fiske investigation. I do care about the feelings of the Foster family. That is why I want to find out really how he died and why. This weekend when I went home to my district, I took the opportunity to do some investigative calling on my own. I called a ballistics expert in California who deals with this type of homicide or suicide. He said that a .38-caliber bullet like that which was fired into Mr. Foster's mouth would have traveled a maximum of 1,200 to 1,600 feet after it exited his skull. That is about 500-yards maximum. The investigation, which took place 9 months after Mr. Foster's death, never found that bullet. You say, ``That is like finding a needle in a haystack.'' That is not so. With the expert people that they had out there, they had 16 FBI agents going all over the place with all kinds of modern technological equipment, they should have found that bullet. But it was not there. They found all kinds of other bullets, even Civil War bullets that were buried under the soil. But the fact of the matter is they did not find the one that killed Vince Foster. If you go 500-yards back and you take a pie shape out this way, you are looking at an area that is no more than 100- to 150-, 200-yards wide and 500-yards deep. They should have found that bullet. Foster's body was not x rayed because the county coroner in Virginia who investigated this said the x ray machine was broken. Why didn't they find another x ray machine? They should have, to find out if there were fragments in the skull that would have given more information regarding how far the bullet may have traveled if it was exiting his skull at that particular location. The Fiske report contains voluminous material on the background and qualifications of the forensic experts who examined the physical evidence of Vince Foster's death. No doubt these people are well qualified and hardworking. But they had limited physical evidence because their work started 9 months after Vince Foster was dead. They did not see the body. All they saw was paper evidence, other people's work. They had no x rays. They were looking at secondhand evidence. No fingerprints were found on the gun in Vince Foster's hand. The man allegedly committed suicide at Fort Marcy Park, but there were no fingerprints on the gun. Fiske's report says the hot summer day may have melted the fingerprints off the gun. Come on, now. Give me a break. In addition to that, there were no fingerprints on Vince Foster's suicide note. They looked in his briefcase on two separate occasions looking for evidence concerning his suicide, and they did not find anything. The third time they looked, then they found 27 pieces of paper, 27, a suicide note, but there were no fingerprints on them. If Mr. Foster was such a close friend of President Clinton, why did President Clinton wait 9 months before beginning an FBI investigation? He had the Park Police out there looking into this. Clearly the FBI has much more experience with this type of investigation than does the National Park Service. Clinton should have had the FBI begin the investigation immediately. But they did not do it. They waited almost a year. The Fiske report says blonde hair, carpet fibers and wool fibers were found on Foster's body and clothing. Whose hair was on his body? It was not his. Foster's diary, which they took out, which Clinton's people when they went into Foster's office later that day, when they took that diary out of there, that diary could have told us a lot about who possibly was with Foster and whose hair that might have been on his body. The other body went to great lengths to obtain a diary of one of its Members in a sexual harassment case. This one is a death. Yet we have not heard one word from the special counsel about the diary. Did Fiske read Vince Foster's diary? Why hasn't he said anything about it in his report? Because it could give us evidence and maybe even tell us whose blonde hair was on his body and where Fiske was between 1 and 5 that afternoon. Robert Novak, columnist Robert Novak is the only one that I know of that has been able to get Robert Fiske to respond to any questions. He asked Special Counsel Fiske why they found no skull fragments in the park. Fiske responded, ``Because the search wasn't conducted for 9 months.'' That is a terribly sloppy way to conduct an investigation. If someone is killed in a given location or commits suicide, the forensic expert should be out there that afternoon or the next day, especially if it is someone as highly visible as the Assistant Counsel to the President of the United States. Any kind of mysterious death or murder that takes place like this, they are out there right away, yet they waited 9 months before they went out there with the FBI and the forensic experts. Mr. Novak asked Fiske why he did not try to identify the hair. Fiske's response was almost insulting to the intelligence. He said: While we have not concluded where this blonde hair came from, there is no evidence to suggest that it provides any evidence of circumstances connected to this death. Let us just go back and look at all of the questions about the Foster suicide, or alleged suicide. There was no bullet found in the park. There were no skull fragments found in the park. There were no skull fragments found in the park. There were no fingerprints on the gun. There were no fingerprints on Vince Foster's suicide note. The hairs and carpet fibers on Foster's clothes were never explained in the report. The gun was in the wrong hand. He was left-handed, the gun was in his right hand. The head was straight up. His head was straight up when he was found by the gentleman in the white van who stopped in the park. But if you look at the report, they will say that Vince Foster had blood on his cheek and blood on his shirt and it was evident that his head laid against his shoulder. Who straightened his head up? In the report they say that one of the people who came there to investigate it must have moved his head. But they forgot that the man who found him said his head was straight up when he found him. So who moved the body? Where did the carpet fibers come from? Whose hair was it on his body? Why were there no fingerprints on the gun? There is all kinds of questions that are not answered in this report. Yet we are supposed to accept it at face value. Finally, the gentleman who found the body said he walked up to within 3 feet of the body, and he looked right down into the glazed eyes of Vince Foster, and he said the head was straight up, and he looked in both hands, and there was no gun in either hand. And he said that not once, not twice, but three times in a conversation with Mr. Liddy over a kitchen table. Mr. Liddy asked him, he said, ``Hey, did you see the picture that showed the gun in his hand?'' The man looked surprised and said, ``There was no gun in either hand. I looked at it very closely.'' He was asked twice more by Mr. Liddy, was there a gun in either hand. He said no. He was absolutely sure of it. Yet in the report they said that the hand had the gun in it, the thumb was in the trigger guard and the hand was down underneath the leg, in the foliage. {time} 2010 After they asked this gentleman several times he said, ``Well, perhaps we could have been wrong.'' But he insisted time and again that the head was straight up and the hands were at his side so there are all kinds of questions about the death of Vince Foster. And they need to be answered, and the only way we are going to get a complete answer to all of these questions is to have a congressional investigation and Mr. Fiske, in my opinion, is trying to stop Congress from having an investigation by prolonging this thing and holding evidence away from us. In addition to that, we have some other questions that must be answered. A number of them. At 6 p.m. on July 20, 1993, 1 year ago, Vince Foster was found dead in Marcy Park. Shortly after 9 p.m., the chief of staff at the White House, Mack McLarty was told about Foster's death. McLarty ordered Vince Foster's office closed and sealed. However, the office remained opened and unlocked overnight and was not sealed until 11 a.m. the next day. At that time they posted a guard on the door but what happened between the time Vince was killed or committed suicide and they put a guard on that office? Despite the order from McLarty, less than 3 hours after the body was found, White House officials went into Vince Foster's office and removed records of business deals between President Clinton and his wife and the Whitewater Development Corp. from Mr. Foster's office without telling the FBI or Federal authorities who were investigating the death. They went in there for 2 hours and took files out and the people who went, whether White House counsel Bernie Nussbaum, the President's special assistant Patsy Thomasson and Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff Margaret Williams. Now, Bernie Nussbaum said they were only in there 10 minutes but the Park Police said they were in there for over 2 hours taking files out of that office. During this first search Whitewater files and President Clinton's tax returns were removed and turned over to David Kendall, President Clinton's attorney. White House officials did not confirm that this search of Foster's office on July 20, took place until December. They did not even tell anybody they had been in there taking those files out for almost 6 months when they had to because it came out. Two days later on July 22, 1993, Mr. Nussbaum and White House officials went into Vince Foster's office for a second time. By now the office was locked and under guard. They collected more documents. Some were sent to President Clinton's attorney and others were sent to Vince Foster's attorney, Mr. James Hamilton. During the second search Mr. Nussbaum, using executive privilege, told the FBI to stay out of the room and the Park Police to stay out of the room. Dee Dee Myers, the White House press secretary said: Bernie,-- That is Mr. Nussbaum-- went through and sort of described the contents of each of the files and what was in the drawers while representatives of the Justice Department, the Secret Service, the F.B.I. and other members of the counsel's office were present. According to other sources, the FBI agents and the Park Police were ordered to sit on chairs in the hallway while the White House staff went through documents that Mr. Nussbaum gave the FBI agents and Park Police no indication of what he was doing or what he was taking. One FBI agent was reprimanded when he stood up to look in the room. ``This is Executive privilege, you stay out there and sit down.'' Park Police later discovered that Whitewater records had been removed from Vince Foster's office during the second search, after they visited James Hamilton, Foster's lawyer a week after the death to review a personal diary that was also taken during one of the searches and that personal diary I think could very well tell us whose blonde hair was on Vince Foster's body and where he might have been between 1 and 4 that afternoon and whether or not he actually died at Fort Marcy Park because the body was moved, in my opinion. They never found the bullet. No fingerprints on the gun, carpet fibers all over the body. And the body obviously had been moved at least at the location they found it and it may have been moved from someplace else but the diary may have given more evidence but nothing has been done about that. The attorney, Mr. Hamilton, allowed Park Police to briefly inspect Vince Foster's diary and other documents. However he did not allow them to make any copies citing privacy concerns and he refused a request for access to the diary and documents by the Justice Department. He would not let them look at it. Did Robert Fiske review Vince Foster's diary, the special prosecutor? His report says not one thing about it. If it does not, why did he not look at it? He is the guy that is supposed to investigate all of this stuff. It might identify to whom the blonde hair on the body belonged. This is important evidence and it has never been checked. On July 27, 1993, White House officials reviewed that. On July 26 they found a note supposedly written by Vince Foster in the bottom of his briefcase which was in his office and that note as I said before like the gun, had no fingerprints on it but it was not out of the sun so they could not have melted off of that note. They said they missed the note in their first two searches. They had looked through that briefcase twice and they missed 27 pieces of torn up paper. The note was unsigned, undated and torn into 27 pieces and it bore no fingerprints. Here is a few questions I would like Mr. Fiske to answer. First, when did White House chief of staff Mack McLarty give the order to seal Vince Foster's office and how was the White House staff informed of McLarty's order? Second, why was the office not sealed until 11 a.m. the next morning? Was it because they wanted to get in there, Bernie Nussbaum and Patsy Thomasson and others to get in there and get files out that they wanted? How did they first learn about Vince Foster's death, the people that did go in the office and the people at the White House? Did somebody order Nussbaum, Thomasson, and Williams to search Vince Foster's office or did one of them make the decision to do that on their own, and if so, who? Fifth, if someone ordered them to search the office, what were they told to look for? If it was Nussbaum, Thomasson, or Williams' idea to search the office what were they looking for? Why would Hillary Clinton's chief of staff be involved in the search of Vince Foster's office? Why would the First Lady's chief of staff be going in there looking around the files? Seventh, why did they remove the Whitewater files, and whatever happened to them? Eighth, were other documents taken? Were documents destroyed? How can we ever know for sure at this point? Ninth, where were the documents when they entered the office? Were they locked in safes, or in locked files? And if so, how were they opened? Tenth, should they not have left everything alone for the police and FBI to investigate? Would you think so in a case like this? One of the leading people in the U.S. President's administration, would you not think they would want the FBI and police to do a thorough analysis of everything? But no, they were in there like that, getting everything out that they could. Eleventh, instead of keeping the FBI from doing its job, should not the White House staff have given law enforcement their full cooperation after their friend and colleague was found dead? Twelfth, if Vince Foster was President Clinton's friend, and he was, why did not the President immediately order the FBI to take charge of the entire investigation instead of allowing the Park Police to take charge? They did not have the kind of experience to conduct this kind of investigation and if you read the report you will find out why. They laid his clothes on contaminated paper so a lot of evidence was damaged. The pictures they took were overexposed so they did not get proper pictures. The Park Police does a great job in many respects but they were not qualified to do this and I think those around this case know it. And they should have had the FBI and the experts in there right away. The Park Police has little experience in investigating suspicious deaths. Did anyone else besides the three I mentioned go into Vince Foster's office that night, and if they did what did they take out? Thirteenth, did the White House officials purposely mislead the Park Police about the existence of Whitewater documents in Vince Foster's office? They did not let anybody know about that first trip into his office for almost 6 months. Fourteenth, how did the White House staff miss a note torn into 27 pieces in the bottom of Vince Foster's briefcase during their first 2 searches of his office? Fifteenth, why were there no fingerprints on the note? Why were there no fingerprints on the gun? Why was the gun in the wrong hand? Sixteenth, what documents were given to Vince Foster's attorney, James Hamilton, and what was given to the Clinton's attorney, David Kendall? Were any of these documents destroyed? Seventeenth, who were all of the White House officials involved in the second search of Vince Foster's office and what did they take out of there? {time} 2020 Eighteenth, did the White House staff have a legal right to prohibit the FBI and Park Police from searching Foster's office as part of an investigation into Foster's death? They used Executive privilege to keep the Park Police and FBI out of there. Nussbaum said that to them according to the information we have, told them to stay out in the hall. Did he have authority to do that in this kind of a case? Nineteenth, has the Banking Committee requested the phone logs of Bernie Nussbaum, Patsy Thomasson, and Margaret Williams for the period immediately following the Foster death until the actual search of his office? If not, why have they not checked those logs to find out who they talked to? We should know who these three officials talked to before they went into and removed these documents from Vince Foster's office. There are a million questions that need to be answered, and when I see that they are accepting at face value this report, it really makes me ill. It makes me very ill. And yet that is exactly what happened, and when I see U.S. News & World Report saying the forensic evidence was so overwhelming that he had to commit suicide at Fort Marcy Park, it sickens me, because the forensic evidence, if you really take a look at it, does not prove that at all. It leaves all kinds of gaping holes and questions in the investigation. You just have to look at the thing. Read it. I do not know how many news people I have talked to who say, ``Oh, my gosh, that was a very comprehensive report.'' And when I say, ``Did you read this, did you read this, did you read this,'' they do not know what I am talking about. I had one news reporter from a major network contact me and ask me questions about it when they had the document in front of them. I think that is very, very unfortunate. Now, let us look at the Rose Law Firm down in Arkansas. Jeremy Hedges, a part-time courier at the Rose Law Firm, told a grand jury that he was told to shred documents from the files of Vince Foster after special prosecutor Robert Fiske had announced he would look into Foster's death. Fiske was appointed January 20, 1994, and yet down at the Rose Law Firm they are saying, ``We want you to shred these documents,'' even though an investigation was already commissioned and ready to start. Even before a subpoena is issued, the law prohibits people from intentionally impending an investigation by destroying evidence they know investigators want. So the people at the Rose Law Firm who asked this Jeremy Hedges, this part-time courier, to start shredding documents may have been guilty of violating the law and impeding an investigation into this death. In February after Fiske served subpoenas on the law firm's employees, Hedges and the other couriers employed by the firm were called to a meeting with Ron Clark and Jerry Jones, two of the firm's partners, after Fiske had served subpoenas on the law firm. These couriers were asked to meet with Ron Clark and Jerry Jones, two of the partners in the firm. Jones challenged Mr. Hedges, that is, this part-time courier, he challenged his recollection that he had shredded documents belonging to Foster and cautioned him against relating assumptions to investigators. He started trying to tell him what to say. ``I said,'' Hedges recounted, ``I shredded some documents of Vincent Foster's 3 weeks ago.'' Jones replied, ``How do you know they were Foster's? Don't assume something you don't know.'' Hedges said he was certain they came from Foster's files. Jones then said, ``Don't assume they had anything to do with Whitewater.'' Sounds like they were trying to cover up something, does it not? We have not heard anything from Mr. Fiske about this yet. The box Hedges was told to shred, and all of its file folders, were marked ``VWF,'' and that is the firms's shorthand for Vince Foster, and he was shredding these documents. None of the documents he saw related to Whitewater development, Hedges said. How does he know? He was shredding these documents fast as he could going through there. However, another Rose employee told the Washington Times documents showing Clinton's involvement in the Whitewater project had also been destroyed and had been ordered to be destroyed. The shredding reportedly occurred February 3, 1994. During the 1992 Presidential campaign, three current or former Rose employees said the couriers from the Rose law firm were summoned to the Arkansas Governor's mansion by Hillary Clinton who personally handed over records to be shredded at the firm's downtown office. The shredding began after the New Your Times reported on March 8, 1992, the involvement of Bill Clinton, Governor Bill Clinton, and his wife in the Whitewater development. They were sending documents from the Governor's office over to the Rose Law Firm to be shredded. This is documented. Couriers made at least six other runs during the campaign. They were given sealed, unmarked envelopes with instructions that they were to be shredded at the firm. The shredding continued through the November 3 general election. Records belonging to Webster Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William H. Kennedy III also were shredded. A current employee said, ``A conservative estimate would be that more than a dozen boxes of documents were ultimately destroyed.'' What was in those boxes, do you think? James McDougal and his wife Susan, now divorced, have said they personally delivered all the Whitewater records to the Governor's mansion in December of 1987 at Hillary Clinton's request. She wanted all of those documents over at the Governor's mansion. Then in 1992 they are sending them over to the Rose Law Firm to be shredded. Is that obstruction of justice? I do not know. We ought to look into that. So here are a few questions. First, why would the Clintons order the records from the Governor's mansion be shredded during the 1992 Presidential election? why would they do that? Second, could it be just a coincidence that the shredding began just after a March New York Times article detailing Bill and Hillary Clinton's involvement in Whitewater? It started right after that. Third, why would officials at the Rose Law Firm order a courier to shred documents bearing Vince Foster's initial after Robert Fiske announced he would investigate Foster's death? I mean, after his death, Fiske said he was going to investigate it, and they start shredding documents with his initials on it at the firm. Would not Vince Foster's former colleagues at the firm want to cooperate in every way with an investigation of their good friend's death? So why were they shredding these documents? Who gave the initial order the Rose Law Firm documents belonging to Vince Foster, Webster Hubbell, and William Kennedy be destroyed during the 1992 Presidential election? Who gave the initial order that Vince Foster's records be destroyed this year after Fiske was appointed special prosecutor? Who told them to destroy those records at the Rose Law Firm? Or was it somebody from the Rose Law Firm? Who gave the order that Bernie Nussbaum and Patsy Thomasson search Vince Foster's office and remove files right after Vince Foster's death? These are questions that must be answered. I do not believe Mr. Fiske is going to give us these answers or get these answers. There is a growing suspicion that Mr. Fiske does not want all of this investigation put out into the public. I hope that is wrong, but there is a growing concern about that among people in this body, and I am one of them. I am very concerned about that. As a matter of fact, I have written a letter, along with nine of my colleagues, to the three-judge Federal panel urging them, if Mr. Fiske is suggested to be the independent counsel, that they pick somebody else, because we really need to get all of the information before the American people so the American people will know what really happened. And in order to do that, we need to have complete and thorough congressional hearings, and every time we try to do that we are stopped saying, ``Oh, my gosh, you are going to impede the investigation by Mr. Fiske.'' And yet when we look at what Mr. Fiske has come up with in the Vince Foster death, we find holes big enough to drive a truck through. Yet, when you look at the media like U.S. News & World Report, they say the forensic evidence is so conclusive obviously he did commit suicide at Fort Marcy Park. I do not think so. I think anybody who is discerning and looked at these facts and questioned this report will come to the same conclusion that I have, and that is that we do not have the answers. We do not know why there were no fingerprints on the gun. We do not know why his head was straight up when it was obvious his head was on the side. We want to know who moved the body. Whose hair was on his body? Why were there no fingerprints on the gun? Why were there not fingerprints on the notes? Why did they shred those documents? Why did they go into his office and take those files out within hours after he died, all relating to income tax returns and Whitewater and Lord only knows what else? Why did they, after the Fiske investigation started, start shredding documents with Vince Foster's initials on them at the Rose Law Firm? These are things the American people need to know. To the media, I would say, ``Start asking these questions.'' These questions should not be left unanswered, and this body should be investigating it, and we will continue to do our best, but we are up against a stone wall right now with the special counsel. We need these answers, America. ____________________