[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. ____________________