[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 104 (Tuesday, August 2, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: August 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATIVE REPORT ON VINCE FOSTER SUICIDE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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 minority leader's designee.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, over the past several weeks there
has been a lot of questions about the death of Vince Foster and the
connection of his death to the Whitewater investigation, and I have had
nine people on my staff at the Republican Study Committee and my
personal staff and some outside sources investigating this, because the
Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs here in the House that
is doing the Whitewater investigation on a party line vote has limited
the scope of the investigation to such a degree that one Member said
that if the same principles had been applied to the O.J. Simpson case,
the one thing you could ask O.J. Simpson is how was your trip to
Chicago. You couldn't ask any other questions. That is how limited the
investigation is. There is a deliberate attempt to minimize the
investigation and, I think, to cover up a lot of the facts.
On the Senate side we have a similar problem. It is not quite as bad
over there, but nevertheless a lot of the information that must come
out regarding Vince Foster's death and his connection to the Whitewater
matter needs to be explored.
{time} 1920
So tonight, even though I have been castigated by a lot of the people
in the media, even though some Members of the Senate committee and the
House Banking Committee have indicated that we have made some comments
that are not very understanding as far as Mr. Foster's family is
concerned, I feel compelled to go through this tonight one more time
with one addition. Because we have been taken to task because of things
I have said on the floor, I went out and found the confidential
witness, the man that found Vince Foster's body, and I got a sworn
statement. He swore before God the things that I am going to read to
you tonight are factual.
So I am going to go into the entire litany, the entire chronology of
Vince Foster's death and the connection to Whitewater. Then I will read
to you excerpts, very important excerpts. I would read the whole thing
to you, but we would be here all night because it is a 50-page sworn
statement. But I will read to you excerpts that verify everything I
have been saying before this body.
On July 20, 1993, Vince Foster left his White House office at 1 p.m.
He was later found dead by a confidential witness at Fort Marcy Park.
The confidential witness is the person that gave this sworn testimony
to me. Nobody knows who he is except two FBI agents, Gordon Liddy, and
myself.
Emergency medical service personnel discovered the body shortly after
they arrived at the park at 6:09 p.m. The confidential witness was
interviewed by G. Gordon Liddy on March 27. He was interviewed by me on
July 21st, and in between he was interviewed by the FBI agents who Mr.
Liddy urged him to talk to.
The confidential witness told Mr. Liddy and me that he approached to
within 2\1/2\ to three feet of Vince Foster's head and he leaned over
and looked directly down into Mr. Foster's eyes. He stated very
specifically that the head was looking straight up and that the hands
were at his side, palms up with no gun in either hand.
The Fiske report quotes the confidential witness as saying that he
may have been mistaken and that there may have been a gun in Foster's
hands, that he did not see because of the dense foliage and the
position of the hand.
The confidential witness told me that the FBI agents pressed him on
the issue of the gun, asking him as many as 20 to 25 times if he was
sure there was no gun. And according to the confidential witness, the
FBI said, ``what if the trigger guard was around the thumb and the
thumb was obscured by foliage and the rest of the gun was obscured by
the foliage and the hand?'' In other words, the trigger guard would be
around the thumb, the gun would be underneath the thumb and a leaf
would be over that and you would not see it.
The confidential witness, after being asked about 20 to 25 times
said, ``If what you described were the case, then I suppose it could be
possible because I did not count his fingers, but I am sure that the
palms were definitely opened and facing up.''
At this point the confidential witness still had not seen a copy of
the photograph of Foster's hand that was shown on ABC news. The photo
showed the right hand palm down with the thumb trapped in the trigger
guard. He had not seen that. When I went to see this gentleman, I
showed him the photo. He was sitting at his kitchen table, and he stood
up and walked around the table twice saying, That is not the way it
was; that is not the way it was. Those hands, that hand was moved.
Why did he get so angry when he saw the photo? He told me not only
that the hand had been moved but some of the things he told the FBI
were not mentioned in the report. For instance, the vegetation at the
bottom of the body had been trampled like somebody had been walking
around there. Why was no mention of the trampled vegetation in the
Fiske report?
The confidential witness also reported that he saw a wine cooler
bottle near Mr. Foster's body. Such a bottle was not noted in the Fiske
report. We are going to talk about these wine cooler bottles a little
later. There was in the Fiske report, there was a blood stain on the
right side of Mr. Foster's face. Mr. Fiske's report noted that the
blood stains on Foster's right cheek and his right shoulder were
inconsistent with the head being upright. In other words, if the head
was sitting up, how did the blood get on the cheek and the right
shoulder? So somebody had to move the head.
But the problem is, before the police or anybody got there, the head
was already straight up. So who moved the head? The report describes
the stain on his cheek as a contact stain, typical of having been
caused by a blotting action such as would happen with a blood soaked
object brought in contact with the side of the face and taken away.
So at sometime his face had to be in contact with his shoulder
according to the report. Mr. Fiske's report assumes that one of the
early emergency personnel that came to the park moved the head. But the
confidential witness said the head was already moved. And he was the
first person to see the body before anybody got there.
In addition, Mr. Fiske, after interviewing all the people at the
scene, fails to identify anybody that admits to touching the body and
moving the head. So he assumes it was moved by somebody after the body
was found, but he does not know who it was. Yet the confidential
witness that found the body said it was already straight up. Why did
not Mr. Fiske assume that one of the persons who arrived after the
confidential witness moved his head, when the confidential witness was
the first person to find Foster's body? He said the head was facing
straight up at the time.
Now, the FBI did not find the bullet or skull fragments at the park.
On July 20, 1993, the park police conducted a search for the bullet
that killed Foster using only one metal detector. And they found
nothing at all after lengthy search. Why did they only use one metal
detector? This is one of the highest ranking people in the Clinton
White House. They had one metal detector running around through the
woods there, and this did not find anything. Then 9 months later, on
April 4, 1994, 16 FBI agents and experts searched Fort Marcy for the
bullet and they found 12, not one, not two, but 12 modern day bullets.
But they did not find the one that killed Vince Foster.
The FBI searched immediately beneath where Foster's body was found by
digging and hand sifting the soil and other debris. They excavated down
a foot and half. They found no bullet and no bone fragments. In the
search for the bullet, the FBI personnel marked out a grid of the most
likely area for the bullet to be found after passing through Foster's
skull. The area was searched using a metal detector. Once against, 12
modern day bullets were found, but the FBI lab determined that none
were the ones that shot Vince Foster or came out of his gun.
Now, I contacted a ballistics expert in California who stated that
after passing through a man's skull a 38 caliber bullet should travel
no more than 1,200 to 1,600 feet or about 300 to 500 yards. The FBI
should have been able to find that bullet with all the people that were
out there and all the expertise they had, if the bullet was in the
park. So why was it not found?
Get this, once again this is very important. There were no
fingerprints on the gun, and there were no fingerprints on 27 separate
pieces of the suicide note. Can you imagine a suicide note torn into 27
pieces without a fingerprint on it? You would have to wear surgical
gloves. Here is how he explained that. The FBI found no fingerprints on
the 38 caliber Colt revolver. The Fiske report states, ``the latent
fingerprints can be destroyed due to exposure to heat.''
So if it was a real hot day, they are saying the fingerprints could
have melted off the gun. Yet they do not explain why, when they took
the trigger guard off the gun, there was a fingerprint on it that had
been on there probably for years. But the fingerprints of that Vince
Foster allegedly put on the gun were melted off. I went out to the site
and walked all over that area. There is no sun that hits the place
where they found his body. The sun could not have done that. Even on a
hot day, it is very doubtful, according to forensic experts I talked
to, that there would be no sign of any fingerprints on the gun but it
was completely smooth, no fingerprints on the gun, except a little bit
on the trigger guard where they found his thumb. I do not know how you
could hold a gun with one or both hands and not leave one fingerprint.
In addition, the note that was found in Foster's briefcase was torn,
as I said, in 27 pieces and had no prints. It was not exposed to the
heat. So why were there no fingerprints found on either the gun or the
note? Makes no sense.
There was no dirt on his shoes. There was a little bit of mica, but
there was no dirt on his shoes. When Mr. Foster's clothing was examined
by the FBI lab, ``it did not contain any coherent soil.''
{time} 1930
They did find small parcels of mica, which is off of leaves, on much
of Foster's clothing, including his shoes, which is consistent with the
soil in Fort Marcy Park.
The Fiske report states it was dry on the day that Foster died and
that foliage leading up to and around Foster's body was dense. It
concludes that ``It was unlikely that there was a great deal of exposed
moist soil in the park that would have soiled Foster's shoes.''
Foster would have had to walk a long way from his car to the second
cannon. I walked all the way from the parking lot up to that second
cannon, and it was a dry day and I had dust all over my shoes. It is
about 300 yards.
For them to say there was no dirt on his shoes does not make any
sense, unless possible he had been moved to that position. Even on a
dry day his shoes would have been stained by either grass or dirt or at
least dust. Why was no dirt or dust or grass found on his shoes?
Now, there was blond to light brown hair that did not match Mr.
Foster's hair found on his tee shirt, pants, belt, and socks and shoes.
In response to a question from Robert Novak, Mr. Fiske said ``While we
have not concluded where the blond hair came from, there is no evidence
to suggest that it provides any evidence of circumstances connected to
his death.'' How does he come to that kind of a conclusion?
Carpet fibers of various colors were found on his jacket, tie, shirt,
shorts, pants, belt, socks and shoes. Did they check his office to see
if the carpet fibers were off of his office carpet? Did they check his
home to see if the carpet fibers were out of his home, and if they were
not from either one of those places where did those carpet fibers come
from?
It is not mentioned in the report. You just forget about that. Yet
everybody, the media and everybody, is accepting this report at face
value, even through the confidential witness that found that body said
the hands were moved and so was the head.
Why didn't Mr. Fiske attempt to find out who the blond hair belonged
to? Why didn't Mr. Fiske attempt to determine where the carpet fibers
and wool fibers found on Foster's body came from? Why would Mr. Fiske
assume that this evidence was not relevant without investigating it
first?
Then 70 pages of the report are devoted to the credentials of the
four forensic experts that wrote the report on Mr. Foster's death. They
had four experts that wrote a report saying it was a suicide at Fort
Marcy Park, but they based their conclusions, probably 90 percent of
them, on the coroner's report.
Now if the coroner made a mistake and he screwed up the report, then
their report has to be questioned as well. Let us check on the coroner.
He testified 2 days ago before the Senate.
Fiske goes to great length to highlight the credentials of the four
pathologists, as I just mentioned. Their resumes take up 70 pages of
the report. Yet none of these people ever saw Foster's body, because he
had been dead and buried for 9 months before they wrote the report.
Their findings were wholly reliant on Dr. James Beyer, northern
Virginia's deputy medical examiner.
He said that Vince Foster's death was consistent with a self-
inflicted wound, but according to the Washington Times, Dr. Beyer, the
coroner, overlooked critical evidence in the 1989 Timothy Easley
stabbing and supported a police finding that the death was a suicide.
The death was later changed to a murder, a homicide, after an outside
expert, Dr. Harry Bonnell, noted that Dr. Beyer's original report
contained glaring errors, including a missing stab wound in the
victim's hand where he was defending himself and getting the color of
his hair wrong.
The coroner did not even get the color of his hair right. This is the
guy on which they are basing the entire forensic report of Vince
Foster. The autopsy report said Tim Easley's hair was gray when his
hair was dark brown.
Regarding the stab wound in his hand, Dr. Bonnell said ``I cannot
understand how any competent forensic pathologist would miss a stab
wound in the hand.'' Dr. Beyer later said ``The cut on Easley's right
hand was consistent with a needle mark,'' though he noted no such mark
on his report. Forensic pathologists are supposed to make note of
everything in their reports.
Dr. Bonnell also said that it was doubtful that the Easley stab wound
to the chest could have been self-inflicted. He said it could not have
been self-inflicted, and yet the coroner said it was.
Eventually it was found out that Easley's girlfriend, Candy Wharton,
was the killer, and she admitted stabbing Easley to death. So he missed
it.
He made a terrible mistake, and he missed very important things that
any forensic expert would have found, according to Dr. Bonnell, any
competent expert.
Then in December 1991, in another autopsy, Dr. Beyer ruled the death
of Thomas Burkett, Jr., as ``consistent with a self-inflicted wound,''
and this was a gunshot to the mouth, much like Vince Foster's.
According to the New York Post, a second autopsy conducted by a Dr.
Erik Mitchell detailed serious omissions in the Beyer autopsy.
This second autopsy came after the family had the body exhumed. They
dug him up. It noted trauma and discoloration to this gentleman's right
ear, which could indicate he was beaten to death before the shot was
fired into his mouth. His ear had been all smashed up, and at the
funeral they noticed it and they thought he had been shot in the ear,
but he was not, he had been shot in the mouth.
Burkett's family noted that the ear was so disfigured and bloody,
they thought he had been shot there. Dr. Beyer never even mentioned the
trauma to the man's ear in the report.
Dr. Beyer also failed to identify a fractured lower jaw. His jaw was
broken. He did not mention that in the report, which could also
indicate a beating.
The second autopsy also noted that Burkett's lungs had not been
dissected, although the report said they had been. He said he did a
complete autopsy, cut open the man's chest, checked his lungs. When
they exhumed the body and did the second autopsy, they found he lied.
He did not even do that. This is the man on whom they based their
findings in the Vince Foster case.
The second autopsy in this case also found no trace of gunpowder in
the mouth, and Dr. Beyer said he inadvertently left the section for
powder burns off of the gunshot wound chart.
So why did Mr. Fiske's pathologists base so much, if not all of their
report on the conclusions of a medical examiner who has been challenged
in the past for flawed and erroneous autopsies? Why did Mr. Fiske's
pathologists base so much of their report on the autopsy of a medical
examiner who has a history of omitting important evidence from his
autopsy reports?
The Fiske report states that Dr. Beyer was unable to take x rays of
Mr. Foster's head because his x-ray machine was broken. However, the
Park Police report, which was submitted last summer, quotes Dr. Beyer
as stating that the x rays of Mr. Foster's head indicated there was no
evidence of bullet fragments in his skull.
Determining if there are bullet fragments in the skull is very
important to determining how far the bullet would have traveled. Did
Beyer take x rays of Vince Foster's head or didn't he? At the Senate
the other day he said he did not, so why did he tell the Park Police he
did? I don't know.
Mr. Speaker, the security guards, directly, about 100 yards away from
the place they found Vince Foster's body, across Chain Bridge Road,
there is the Saudi Arabian Ambassador's residence. There are five
trained security guards there all the time. There are three that roam
around, one in a van and one in a little security guardhouse there.
There people were there all the time. They even checked that park
across the street occasionally, because they are concerned about
somebody trying to get to the Saudi Arabian Ambassador, and they said
that day they heard no gunshot. The Fiske report says that as result of
traffic out there and construction traffic, and because with a gun in
the mouth in that position there would not have been a lot of noise.
We, at my house, with a homicide detective, tried to re-create a head
and fired a .38 inch barrel into that, to see if the sound could be
heard from 100 yards away. Even though there was an earth mover moving
around in the background, making all kinds of racket, you could hear
the bullet clearly.
Now, this is the information that I have used in the past. I went out
to see the confidential witness, and when I showed him the picture he
was upset. He told me that rather than me writing down a statement for
him to sign, he wanted to give me a statement in his own words. I let
him dictate a statement to me in his own words and he signed it.
I came back to this body and I gave my colleagues this signed
statement. I did not give his name, because I promised I would keep his
confidence. However, I read into the record what he said, and I sent it
out to many people in the media.
Mr. Speaker, some people said ``We don't know if Burton is credible
or not, we do not know if he is making this up,'' so they started
questioning whether or not I was just once again beating a dead horse.
What did I do? I called the confidential witness there to get his
sworn statement.
So last Thursday night on July 28, I took two other Congressmen,
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California and Congressman John Mica of
Florida, with me, and we took a court reporter from the Block Court
Reporting Services and we recorded 50 pages, 49 pages, of statements
from the confidential witness.
So tonight, Mr. Speaker, I want to read into the Record excerpts from
that which will verify everything that I have said. This man was sworn
and he took an oath before God that what he is saying is absolutely
correct.
So we started off, I said, ``Why don't we start off by reading into
the record what you said.'' Here is the confidential witness reading
into the record:
Involving the statement about the gun in Vince Foster's
hand, I made it very clear that the palms of his hands were
facing up and at his sides. The agents investigating stated
that the gun was hooked on his thumb and partially obscured
by the back of his hand. Based on their explanation of how
the gun was being held, I conceded that all that was
visible--that if all that was visible was the trigger guard
on his thumb, and the dense foliage, that I could have missed
seeing it. I again stated that I saw both of the man's palms,
but did not count his fingers.
After having seen the photo of the hand and the gun, I am
sure, I am sure the hand had been moved, because the palms
were both face up when I saw Mr. Foster's body.
{time} 1940
Then I started questioning him as well as did Congressman Rohrabacher
and Congressman Mica.
``Would you tell us how close you were to the body and how close you
got to his face, his hands and everything else.''
The confidential witness said, ``I stood directly over the top of his
head at the head of the berm. My right foot, I'm sure that it was my
right foot, was somewhere between 24 to 30 inches from the top of his
head. No closer. At that point, learning over with my left foot
extended behind me I looked directly down into his eyes from about 3
foot to 4 foot maximum above his face, my face from his.''
I said, ``You were directly above him?''
He said, ``Directly above him looking straight down the body. The
man's head was facing straight up. If it was tilted, it was tilted very
slightly because I looked into both eyes. I was questioned numerous
times by the agents about are you sure the head wasn't tilted, and I
kept telling, no, I looked straight down into both eyes. Do you want me
to go on and explain what I say?''
I said, ``Yeah, Go ahead. Tell us what you saw.''
He said, ``I saw blood traces on his nose and around his lips. There
was not streams of blood on the side of his face. There was not
trickles of blood as indicated in the Foster report. I was looking
straight down into the man's face and saw the blood.''
``On his mouth and nose.''
Congressman Mica said, ``Was there a gun in the hands?''
The confidential witness says,``There was no gun in his hand. His--
both palms were face up, thumbs out to the side.''
Congressman Mica. ``You did not see a gun?''
He said, ``I did not see a gun next to the body.''
Congressman Mica, ``Did you touch the body or did you shake him?''
The confidential witness said, ``Oh, God, no. I wouldn't touch him
for no amount. I mean, no way would I disturb any evidence, period.''
Then I said, ``I want you to look at this picture because you say you
saw no gun in the hands.''
And I showed him once again the hand that was on ABC News, the
picture.
He said, ``I also, when I saw nothing in his hands, I leaned to both
sides of his head and to the back of his head to see if he had been hit
in the head and saw nothing visible.''
Congessman Mica said, ``Did you look at his hands again?''
He says, ``I did not look back at his hands again because I clearly
saw his hands were empty and he had no signs that he had, was defending
himself or something.''
Then I said, ``Now, you said--what did you see beside the body?''
He said, ``There was a wine cooler bottle laying I would say 24 to 30
inches to the right, between his shoulder and his elbow, laying on the
berm, held up by some twigs, not on the berm but on the down side of
the hill being held up by some twigs because it's a very steep grade.''
Then I said, ``Was it sitting straight up or just laying on its
side?''
He says, ``Laying sideways still probably one quarter of its contents
in the bottle.''
Then Congressman Mica said, ``Did you see--you said the palms were
out?''
And the confidential witness said once again. ``The palms were face
up.''
I said, ``Both? Both palms?''
He said, ``Right beside him neatly. Just like that.''
And he showed us, just like that.
He said, ``So that they were not in this position? Congressman Mica
rolled his hands over.''
He said, ``It was not in that position at all.''
Then I said, ``Tell me about the picture. You--the FBI--you asked the
FBI what, about the picture, and the head?''
The confidential witness said, ``Numerous times.''
I said, ``What did you ask them about the head and----''
He said, ``If you will show me the picture.''
This is what he said to the FBI agents.
He said, ``If you will show me the picture of the head and the
picture of his hands that you said there was no gun in--that I said
there was no gun in and you said there was, then I could tell you point
blank if somebody had tampered with it, with Mr. Foster's body.''
Then I said, ``What did they say when you asked them to see the
pictures?''
And this is what he said the FBI people said. ``Well, it will
jeopardize our investigation, I cannot show it to you at this time. We
will be more than glad to show it to you when all this investigation is
over and that was the common answer I got from the FBI every time.''
Then I said, ``Over how long a period of time--how many times did
they say that to you?''
He said, ``4, 5 times I directly inquired, let me see the picture.''
They never let him see the picture of the hands.
Congressman Mica said, ``You have never seen this picture before?''
The confidential witness said, ``I had never seen that picture until
the Congressman,'' that is me, ``handed it to me. Mr. Liddy had told me
that that picture had been published somewhere but I had never saw it
or I would have probably been--I know I would have been screaming.''
Then I said, ``So you were no more than 2 feet, 3 feet above his
head?''
He said, ``I would say 2 to 3 feet. I had said 24 to 30 inches, my
face was from his face.''
Then he went on to say that he thought he had been there for a while
because his clothes were very tight, there was a stain, just about like
that, he showed me where the stain was on his shoulder.
Congressman Rohrabacher said, ``What color?''
Congressman Mica said, ``You are pointing to your shoulder.''
He said, ``On his right shoulder. It was a--the stain on his shoulder
was----''
Congressman Rohrabacher said, ``Was it red? Or was it blood?''
The confidential witness said, ``No, it was very light purple, almost
identical color of the wine cooler.''
I said, ``So you don't think it was blood?''
He said, ``I do not think it was blood. In the very center of--it
looked like he had thrown up on his right shoulder. In the very center
there was one small speck area, probably no larger than a silver dollar
that was black, that could have been blood in the very center of it.''
The reason I'm skipping through is there is a lot of repetition here
because we kept asking the questions over to make sure we had it
correct.
Congressman Rohrabacher said, ``Hold on. Let's make this point very
clear. The FBI when they were talking to you and when they kept going
on this question referred to the palm being up and the gun being
underneath the palm?''
The confidential witness says, ``He, the FBI agent, demonstrated with
his hand like this with his palm up.''
And he showed the palm to us like this and said that the trigger
guard was on the thumb and the gun could have been obscured underneath
the hand and that leaves might have been covering the thumb so he would
not have seen the trigger guard.
Congressman Rohrabacher said, ``So the question--when they claim that
you had in some way conceded that, well, maybe perhaps you didn't see
it, if indeed it was below the palm, that was based on a description by
the FBI that the palm was up and that the gun was underneath the back
of the hand?''
Then I said, ``But it's not possible. Look at this.''
Because I had a gun and I put it on my thumb to show.
Congressman Rohrabacher said, ``No. But that's not what this picture
shows.''
The confidential witness said, ``Exactly.''
Then I said, ``But if the thumb is in there, look at this, you
can't----''
Then Mr. Rohrabacher said, ``The more important part is that the FBI
was describing something to him that was not----''
The confidential witness said, ``Exactly right.''
Then I asked him, ``But in the report they say you believed that the
palms were up but you say there is no doubt?''
He said, ``I never said--I said I believe it. I mean, I know it.''
He said, ``I never said I believe it. I know it.''
That the palms were up.
Congressman Rohrabacher said, ``Okay.''
Then the confidential witness says: ``And he said the confidential
witness believes it, and that's as straight as they can be.''
Mr. Mica, ``But you never indicated----''
He said, ``Otherwise. Those palms were up always.''
Congressman Mica, ``And both palms?''
Confidential witness, ``Both palms, neatly at his side and they were
just like that.''
Congressman Mica, ``With nothing in them?''
He said, ``Nothing in the hands.''
Congressman Rohrabacher. ``And when you made the concession to the
FBI after repeating that you didn't believe there was a gun in the
hand, over and over again, when you finally made the concession it was
based on a description by the FBI that the gun was found with--the man
was found with his palms up and that gun was underneath the palm?''
He said, ``That was all that would have been visible was the trigger
guard, would I have missed seeing a gun, with the dense foliage? If
that being the case, it's possible I could have missed it.''
In other words, if it was only the trigger guard and if the gun was
obscured under the hand. But when we put the gun in the hand in the
position it was in in the picture and we rolled the hand over, the butt
of the gun was up or the gun was lying across the palm of the hand. You
could not have missed it. It would have been impossible. And I do not
know why Fiske did not check that out. A blind man could see it. Yet
everybody is accepting this report at face value, saying it is a great
report, and forensic experts are perfect, everthing else is perfect and
it is so full of holes you could not put water in it. It is terrible.
It makes me sick.
I do not want to upset Mr. Foster's family. I am sure that they would
like this thing to go away. I am sure that O.J. Simpson, the families
of the people who lost their lives in the O.J. Simpson case, I am sure
they would like for it to go away. But you do not stop an investigation
because people want it to go away, especially if there are questions
that are not answered. You get to the bottom of it. When a homicide
detective goes out to investigate a site like Mr. Foster's death scene,
they assume it is a homicide until they prove it is a suicide. In this
case, they tried to do just the opposite.
Other questions.
Congressman Rohrabacher. ``Well, we have two discrepancies here. We
have one discrepancy when he says he doesn't--he never saw the gun and
the other discrepancy is that he is absolutely certain that the palms
were up. So thus, we have two major descrepancies.''
Then we go on.
I said, ``But the point is, see, that gun is shoved under his leg
partially, but you are saying the palms were definitely----''
The confidential witness said for about the 90th time. ``The palms
were up.''
I said, ``And if the palms were up in that position, you would have
seen the gun?''I11And he said, ``I would have seen the gun.''
Other questions.
I said, ``Okay, now tell us about the cabin.''
There was a cabin there.
I said, ``You said you knew the guy that owned that cabin years
ago.''
There's a cabin about 175 yards away from the site where they found
the body.''
He said, ``I knew a retired Navy commander who lives in that project.
He was going to set me up with the owner.''
I said, ``But there is a private road that goes back to that cabin''
He said, ``There is a private road that goes right back to it from
the housing development right next to it.''
I said, ``If somebody came back that road, they wouldn't be seen?''
He said, ``They would not be seen, period.''
I said, ``How far is that from the cabin?''
He said, ``150 to 175 yards.''
{time} 1950
Congressman Burton. ``So they could have walked around that and come
right up----''
He says, ``They are dead in the woods all the way, and there is a
path that leads right straight up to where they found the body.
I do not know if somebody brought the body in that way or not. I had
no idea. But that was something that was not investigated, because when
they told the FBI about it they did not even know there was a cabin
back there. He had to go show them.
Then we started talking about when he left to call the police after
he found the body. He said,
I went, got in my van, started up the parkway because I was on the
parkway, I got up to where the park headquarters are, about two, two
and a half miles, maybe a little further up the road, the right-hand
side. There is a little phone sign right there. I pulled in, there was
a couple of vehicles on the left. I had never been in there before.
There is two phones there. I never saw them because I saw the guys
there, the phones sat back behind the trees over here on the right
side. I saw the guys there. I was looking at them, drove by, still
didn't see any phones, looked both ways but apparently drove right by
the phones and never saw them, backed up, turned around, started back
out, was going to ask them to use the phone, motioned for them to come
over. The younger white man walked over. I asked him for a phone. He
stated that, you know, why? And I says, well, it's an emergency, I need
to use the phone. Can you get me to a phone? Yes, but why? And he
says--I think he said it the third time. At that point I went, wait a
minute. Fine. Are you familiar with Fort Marcy? Oh, yeah, I know it
well. Do you know where the two cannons are? Oh, yes, I know it well.
Do you know the one up on the hill to the right? Oh, yeah. The next
Chain Bridge Road now. Not the one on the left up there, the one on the
right all the way up on top. Oh, yeah, I know it well. I says, right
beside it, down over the bank is a dead man. You call the police and
tell them. Oh, sure, great. I don't need the headaches that go with
possibilities of going to courts and hearings and crap that all I done
was come onto a body. That's all. Hey, I done my duty, I'm gone. He
went to call the police, I simply drove off. And I stayed quiet for
approximately six months.''
The reason he stayed quiet for 6 months was because he was afraid. He
found this body under mysterious circumstances and did not want to get
into it.
Now he got into it, decided to become semi-public when he was coming
back from Africa. He went over there to take some pictures of some
animals. And I said, ``Now, you were coming back from Africa, you went
to Kenya. Tell them about coming back from Africa and how you decided
to call Gordon Liddy,'' to talk about it.
He said: ``When I got back from Africa I was reading--the London
Times was eating that story up and I was sitting in the hotel reading
it.''
Congressman Burton. ``This was what month?''
He said ``This was April. Yeah. It was, I believe it was in April. It
was either April or May.'' He is talking to his girlfriend:
``Hun, when was I in Africa?''
She says: ``I don't know. I didn't go. You left me home, remember?''
Congressman Burton. ``Okay. Go ahead.''
CW. ``And it's when I got back, my brother came over and told me,
says you hear the story that the New York Times printed about the two
park rangers have changed their story and stated that they had made up
the story about the guy in the white van, that they had snuck off down
to the park to have a drink and discovered the body and to cover
themselves they made this story and at that point I went wait a minute.
Who in the world can put that kind of pressure on two career employees
to make them tell that kind of garbage? I better cover my hind
quarters. So I was thinking about what to do and my brother had been
listening a lot to Liddy and I have also respected Liddy for his word.
And he went into his background and he said, ``And he was really
hammering on the evidence, you know, that was being presented about the
Foster case and the doubts.''
So he called Gordon Liddy.
He said, ``But having read about him, I decided that would be as good
a--what I knew would become public and if there was a threat to me,
that, that possibility of danger would be greatly, greatly reduced
simply by the fact that what I knew would have been now made
official.''
Congressman Burton, ``So you called Liddy because you wanted to get
the facts out number one and number two you thought you would be safer
if the facts were?''
CW, ``Exactly right.''
Then Congressman Rohrabacher said, ``There wasn't any--foliage didn't
seem to be--did it seem like somebody dragged him up there?''
The confidential witness says, ``Now, I did not read anything in this
report and this has been stated numerous times. Below this man's feet,
all the way down into the bottom of the ditch, approximately ten feet
or better, up the berm on the other side, over the hill to the walking
trail, everything had been trampled completely flat like the man had
walked back and forth at least a dozen times or better. It was, at
least 24, maybe 30 inches wide that everything was trampled completely
flat. Every twig, every leaf trampled from the bottom of his feet all
the way down the valley and over the hill?''
CW, ``Completely flat.''
Congressman Burton, ``Like somebody had been walking back and forth
there?''
CW, ``He had paced back and forth many times. At least a dozen times.
You can't trample down that flat.''
Congressman Burton, ``And they didn't put that in that report?''
CW, ``Nothing in the report that I read. That I have read.''
That is not in the report. Below the body somebody had walked back
and forth along this ditch, along this hill.
Congressman Burton: ``Let me get this straight. You are saying that
there was a path almost from the bottom of his body down into the
bottom, up over this other hill?''
CW: ``And out to the walking trail on the other side. As I showed you
here, from here, down and out over that hill. This is, this was very,
very dense.''
Congressman Burton: ``And it was flattened out?''
CW: ``It was walked completely flat. The agents had known about this
and known about this. Nothing in that report. I don't know. I don't
know. Did it disappear or what happened ?''
Congressman Rohrabacher: ``Your analysis----''
Congressman Burton: ``Wait a minute. This is very important. You are
saying that you told the agents this?''
CW: ``Oh, I told them numerous times.''
But it was not in the report.
Congressman Burton: ``That the ground was----
Then I said, ``Let me finish here. You went out to the site with the
FBI and you told them at the site where the ground was trampled and how
far it went?''
CW: ``Yes. I also walked them--that doesn't make any sense was their
statement about, why would they bring him in this way. It was simple
from the cabin. What cabin is what their answer was. The one right over
there.''
Congressman Burton: ``So they said, that makes no sense, why would
there be a path here like this and you said because that's where the
cabin and the driveway is?
CW: ``Uh-huh. And they did not know about the cabin and I walked them
back there and showed it to them.''
Then Congressman Rohrabacher says, ``Is it conceivable that somebody
could have been on that path when you were relieving yourself without
you seeing them?''
The confidential witness went into the park to relieve himself
because of the traffic. And so Congressman Rohrabacher was asking him
is it conceivable somebody could have been there with the body and
hiding in the woods while you were there. The guy says, the
confidential witness says, ``Absolutely. Absolutely. It was that
dense,'' that they could have been hiding in the trees.
Congressman Mica says, ``And you didn't see any--you didn't see any
evidence that someone had committed suicide, any blood in, say around
the grass or anything behind the head?''
CW: ``We had no significant rain for 30 days. The ground at the top
of the hill in this area might get a small amount of sun a day because
there is very big trees around that area. Anything over that berm and
down that berm never gets any sun; completely shaded out.'' Yet they
say the fingerprints melted off of the gun.
Congressman Mica: ``But around the head----''
CW: ``There was no--I mean I bent over and looked. I didn't lay my
head flat on the ground. I probably lent my head down to within 16
inches of the ground. No signs, not a sign of,'' blood around the head.
Then I said, ``But you didn't see any blood as close as you got
around the head or anything like that?''
CW: ``None.''
Then Congressman Mica talking about when he went back out to his car
after he found the body. ``Did you look at the cars when you came
back?''
CW: ``As I walked down the hill, you are coming off and you are
parked in the parking lot. You go up on either side of the parking lot
to a walking area that's elevated well above the parking, up to a sign
with the description of the fort area and what it was all about and the
history. As you are walking back down, which I'm walking back down the
hill to go back to my van, as you are coming down the hill you can see
right down into the car and the car was parked either second or
third.''
Congressman Mica: ``What kind of a car was it?''
CW: ``White Honda and it was a light brown or a cream colored
Japanese made car on the other end of the parking lot. On the passenger
seat of the white Honda was a folded jacket, very, very similar in
color to suit pants,'' worn by Mr. Foster. ``The FBI tells me I have
got the wrong car, that was not his. They said the brown one was his.''
Congressman Rohrabacher: ``Say that again.''
CW: ``The FBI said that that was not his car. I thought sure that was
his car because the jacket was so similar to the pants he had on.''
Congressman Burton: ``Yeah.''
CW: ``In the passenger floor board was a four-pack wine cooler, two
gone.''
You remember the wine cooler bottle by his body, and there were two
wine coolers gone out of the four pack.
Congressman Rohrabacher says, ``This was in the car the FBI said did
not belong?''
CW: ``Was not belong. And I asked them, how well did you check out
those other two people that were still in the park when you got there?
Oh, there is no doubt, they were just two lovers up there.''
{time} 2000
Then I said, ``But you're saying in this car you saw a jacket that
looked like the one that matched the pants on the body?'' He said,
``Exactly.'' I said, ``You said that also you saw a wine cooler pack on
the floor?'' The confidential witness said, ``A four-pack wine cooler
with two gone, the same color as it was--it had a light pink-like
label.'' I said, ``OK, but did it look like the bottle you saw beside
the body?'' He said, ``Exactly like the bottle beside the body.'' But
that was not in the report. The confidential witness said, ``Strange
thing, when I went back with the agents, one of the agents spent about
15 minutes kicking around all of the leaves and everything looking for
the wine cooler bottle,'' but that was 9 months later, for crying out
loud.
``The palms were up, you say?'' This is, once again, talking to the
confidential witness. He said, ``Absolutely,'' about the 90th time.
``How sure are you the palms were up,'' Congressman Mica said. The
confidential witness says, ``As sure as I am standing right here, I am
absolutely and totally, unequivocally, the palms were up. I looked at
both palms. There was nothing in his hands. I didn't look at one and
assume the other. I looked at both of them.''
This is the man that found the body.
Congressman Mica, ``How long did you spend over the body, 5 seconds,
10 seconds?'' He said, ``Oh, no, 2 minutes.'' Congressman Mica, ``Two
or 3 minutes?'' ``Not--well, that is a tough one. Because I wasn't
panicked. I think I was fairly deliberate in studying.''
That is the end of the relevant information in the report. This is a
sworn report by the only person to find the body. He says the Fiske
report is wrong, and yet nobody is paying any attention to it.
Mr. Fiske, who is a friend of Bernie Nussbaum's, a close associate of
Presidents Clinton's, has worked with him on Wall Street, he is the
special counsel. Mr. Fiske has chosen not to pursue these very
important questions. It is just terrible.
And yet we are supposed to walk away and not even talk about it.
Now, they said there is no connection between Vince Foster's office
and the Whitewater files that were taken out of his office.
I am going to try to finish up this. I want to go through this
hurriedly, because there are a lot of things that need to be talked
about.
I am going to tell my friends and my colleagues now why I believe
there is a connection between Vince Foster's death and the Whitewater
investigation that is not being pursued.
First of all, he died under very mysterious circumstances. His body
was moved. There is no question about it. Yet nobody accepts that.
At 6 p.m. on July 20, 1993, Vincent Foster was found dead in Fort
Marcey Park. Shortly after 9 p.m., White House Chief of Staff Mack
McLarty was informed of his death. McLarty ordered the Vince Foster
office sealed. However, the office remained unlocked overnight. They
did not seal it even though they were told to by the chief of staff.
Despite this order, less than 3 hours after the body was found, White
House officials removed records, business deals between President
Clinton and his wife and the Whitewater Development Corp. from Foster's
office without telling the Federal authorities about it.
They were the people that went in there. Bernie Nussbaum, the White
House counsel, the President's special assistant, Patsy Thomasson, and
Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, Margaret Williams.
Bernie Nussbaum said they were in there 10 minutes, but the Park
Police said they were in there over 2 hours.
During this first search, Whitewater files and President's Clinton's
tax returns were removed and turned over to David Kendall, President
Clinton's attorney. Why did they not give them to the FBI? Why did they
not give them to the people investigating his death?
White House officials did not confirm the July 20 search of Foster's
office until December. They did not even tell anybody they were in
there taking those files out until December. Why? This is an
investigation of a man's death, for crying out loud.
Then there was a second search 2 days later on July 22. Mr. Nussbaum
and White House officials searched Foster's office for a second time.
They got more documents. Some were sent to President Clinton's
attorney, and others were sent to Vince Foster's attorney, James
Hamilton.
During the second search, Mr. Nussbaum, citing executive privilege,
kept Park Police and FBI agents from going through and watching them go
through the files. Dee Dee Myers, the White House press secretary, said
Bernie Nussbaum went through and sort of described contents of each of
the files and what was in the drawers while representatives of the
Justice Department, the Secret Service, the FBI, and other members of
the counsel's office were present.
According to other White House sources, however, FBI agents and Park
Police were ordered to sit on chairs right in the hallway right at the
entrance while White House staff went through the documents, and Mr.
Nussbaum gave the FBI agents and Park Police no indication of what he
was taking. One FBI agent was reprimanded when he stood up and peered
into the room to see what was going on.
Park Police later discovered Whitewater records had been removed from
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.
Hamilton allowed the Park Police to briefly inspect Vince Foster's
dairy and other documents. However, he did not allow them to make
copies, citing privacy concerns. He refused to request for access
to the diary and documents from the Justice Department.
Did Fiske review Vince Foster's diary? His report says nothing about
it. Foster's diary might help to identify whom the blond hair on his
clothes belonged to, maybe where he was that day, and maybe they could
find out from the carpet samples. This is important evidence.
On July 27, 1993, the White House officials revealed on July 26 they
found a note supposedly written by Vince Foster at the bottom of his
briefcase in his office torn into 27 pieces with no fingerprints on it.
Now, you go home tonight and tear a piece of paper into 27 pieces and
tell me there is no fingerprint on it. It cannot be done. It was not
out in the sun. Those fingerprints did not melt off of that.
And yet they said they did not explain why there were no fingerprints
on it. They said they missed the note in their first two searches even
though they had looked in the briefcase. How can you miss all of that
torn-up paper in the briefcase if you looked in there twice? Maybe
because it was not in there. I do not know.
Now, we have a million questions we want to ask about all of this. I
am not going to go into the questions now. I think I have pretty well
covered that.
Now, I want to go to the Rose Law Firm down in Little Rock, AR.
Jeremy Hedges, a part-time courier at the Rose Law Firm, told a grand
jury 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 on January 20, 1994.
Even before a subpoena is issued, the law prohibits people from
intentionally impeding an investigation by destroying evidence they
know investigators want, and yet even though after they had picked the
special counsel, they were down there shredding these documents.
In February after Fiske served subpoenas on the law firm's employees,
Jeremy Hedges and the other couriers employed by the firm were called
to a meeting with Ron Clark and Jerry Jones, two of the Rose Law Firm's
partners. Jones said to Hedges, he challenged his recollection that he
had shredded documents belonging to Foster. He cautioned him about
relating assumptions to investigators. ``I said,'' Hedges recounted,
``I shredded some documents of Vincent Foster's 3 weeks ago.'' And
Jones, the partner, replied, ``How do you know they were Foster's?
Don't assume something you don't know,'' trying to lead him. Hedges
said he was certain they were Foster's files. Jones then said, ``Don't
assume they had anything to do with Whitewater.'' It is funny.
The box Hedges was told to shred and all its file folders were marked
``VWF,'' Foster's initials. None of the documents he saw related to the
Whitewater Development, Hedges said, but how would he know when he was
shredding as fast as he could.
However, another Rose employee told the Washington Times that
documents showing the Clintons' involvement in the Whitewater projects
had also been ordered destroyed, and the shredding reportedly occurred
February 3, 1994, at the Rose Law Firm.
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, three current or former Rose
employees said that 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 Rose Law Firm downtown. The
shredding began after the New York Times reported on March 8, 1992, the
involvement of Governor Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the
Whitewater deal.
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, Vincent Foster,
William H. Kennedy III were also shredded.
A current employee said a conservative estimate would be that more
than a dozen boxes of documents were ultimately destroyed. A lot of
people say, well, are you sure those were Whitewater documents? Why
would you think they were Whitewater documents? They were at the
Governor's Mansion. Well, let us look into that.
James McDougal and his wife, Susan, who are now divorced, have said
they personally delivered all the Whitewater records to the Governor's
Mansion in December 1987 at Mrs. Clinton's request, and she was the one
giving the couriers the documents to go back over to the Rose Law Firm
to be shredded after the New York Times article in 1992 during the
President's campaign.
And then during the Presidential campaign, President Clinton and his
wife said that the records had disappeared.
Now, where do you think they disappeared to?
Today in the Washington Post, Margaret Williams, and remember
Margaret Williams is Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, and I want you
to listen to this:
A Whitewater file taken from the office of White House
Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster after his death last year was
given to Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief of staff and, at the
First Lady's direction, transferred to the White House
residence before being turned over to the Clintons' personal
lawyer, administration officials said yesterday. It was
unclear yesterday why then-White House Counsel Bernard
Nussbaum gave the file to the First Lady's chief of staff,
Margaret Williams, rather than transferring it directly to
Robert Barnett, the Clintons' personal lawyer at the time.
Why did they not give it to the police? They were the ones
investigating this case.
``A White House official said Williams, after being asked by Nussbaum
to take charge of the documents, checked with the First Lady in Little
Rock, AR. Hillary Clinton told Williams to check with another White
House employee about a safe place in the residence to store the
documents, the official said.''
{time} 2010
The files were moved from the west wing of the White House where
Williams and Nussbaum worked, to a locked closet on the third floor of
the White House residence, where other personal papers were kept.
Williams had a key to the closet, the official said. Barnett picked up
the documents 5 days later.
Now, get the rest of this: After Foster's death, officials said his
personal papers were given to the Foster family lawyer and his official
files were distributed among other lawyers in the counsel's office.
In December the White House disclosed that a Whitewater file also had
been found in Foster's office. The revelation helped fuel the White
House controversy and raised suspicion the White House was not
providing a fair picture of the events. I wonder why.
At that time the White House did not reveal Williams' involvement or
the fact that the files were kept at the residence. They did not tell
anybody that. The statement at the time by communications director Mark
Gearan said only that the files were sent to the Clinton personal
attorney. White House sources said that the statement was drafted by
Nussbaum and that he, Gearan, did not know of Williams' involvement at
the time. They did not even tell this guy they were giving the report
out that Williams had taken the files up to Hillary's residence and
locked them in her closet.
Sources familiar with the handling of the file said Nussbaum called
Williams 2 days after Foster's death to ask her to take charge of
Clinton's personal papers. Williams checked with Hillary Clinton, who
agreed that the papers should be given to Barnett. Then they said that
the President and the First Lady never looked at the papers before they
gave them to the attorney.
They took them upstairs, she was instructed to take them up there and
lock them in their closet, and then they later gave them to their
attorney, but they said they never looked at the papers.
Well, the bottom line is the Fiske report is inaccurate, the Fiske
report has glaring holes in it, the Fiske report, as it is presently
constituted, is not worth the paper it is written on.
I do not care about the credentials of the four forensic experts. I
am sure they were very competent men, but they based their findings on
the coroner's report 9 months earlier and the coroner has been proven
on two separate occasions to be incompetent as far as autopsies are
concerned.
There just is no question about the major question about the death of
Vince Foster. The man who found the body said the hands were moved. He
swears before God that the hands were moved in a court report. He
swears the head was moved. There were no fingerprints on the gun. There
were no fingerprints on the suicide note.
The counsel, Mr. Fiske, never checked the carpet samples from his
office to see if those were the same ones on his clothes. At least he
did not say so in the report. He did not check his house to see if the
carpet samples were off his home. Where did those carpet samples come
from? There is just a ton of questions that need to be answered.
For any intelligent person to hear what I have said tonight and to
read this report and to conclude that this is accurate, they just must
have their eyes closed. I just do not know how they can believe that.
So, Mr. Speaker, as I conclude my remarks, let me say once again that
this investigation should not be closed, it should be reopened. We
should bring the confidential witness, keep his confidentiality, we
should bring the confidential witness in a confidential way so he can
be protected before the people that are involved and let me them see
what I have seen. In fact, if you do not bring him forth, take my
report before anybody in the Congress, take my document here that is
sworn before a court reporter, and at least look at it, at least look
at it.
You know, there is a poem by Cesar Gilbert Horn, Mr. Speaker, which
says, in part: ``Long rules the land and waiting justice sleeps.'' And
I think that is the case with Vince Foster.
He may have committed suicide, I do not know, but I do not this: That
body was moved, and if the body was moved, the report is wrong, and if
the report is wrong, we need to ask Mr. Fiske why.
____________________