Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups (53 page)

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Authors: Richard Belzer,David Wayne

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #Political Science, #History & Theory, #Social Science, #Conspiracy Theories

BOOK: Dead Wrong: Straight Facts on the Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups
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24. X-rays of Foster’s skull have either disappeared or were never taken in the first place. They do not officially exist. Original crime scene photos have also “disappeared” they do not officially exist.

25. The death was immediately labeled a suicide, precluding a homicide investigation. Standard operating procedure in the case of a violent death is to assume, investigate, and exhaust all possibilities of homicide first.

26. Foster was, by all accounts, a loving family man and very devoted father of three. On the morning of his death, he mailed a letter to his mother which stated nothing at all out of the ordinary. Nor did he make any mention to his wife or children, or leave any explanation of any type. His sister had just traveled 1,000 miles to visit him on the day of his death, and Foster was upbeat about it and had promised her an exciting tour including lunch at the White House. Therefore, it defies credulity that he was even remotely considering suicide.

 

Bullets don’t magically vanish;
Blood doesn’t run uphill, or disappear;
Dead bodies don’t move themselves;
And good parents don’t blow their brains out
on their lunch hour.

“Hubbell said if you really want to understand Foster, to take a look at his recent speech at the University of Arkansas.”
460
“The class of 1971 had many distinguished members who also went on to achieve high public office. But it also had several who forfeited their license to practice law. Blinded by greed, some served time in prison.”
“Sometimes doing the right thing will be very unpopular ... When the heat of controversy swarms around you, the conviction that you did the right thing will be the best salve and the best sleeping medicine ... The reputation you develop for intellectual and ethical integrity will be your great asset, or your worst enemy ... I cannot make this point to you too strongly. There is
no
victory—
no
advantage—
no
fee—
no
favor— which is worth even a blemish on your reputation for intellect and integrity.”
461
“Don’t believe a word you hear. It was not suicide. It couldn’t have been.”
462

When the personal attorney and lifelong friend of the
President of the United States
turns up dead on his lunch hour on a work day afternoon, you can say it’s a security breach of the highest level. In fact, you don’t even need to
wonder
if that’s a national security issue—it’s the very definition of one. That’s why,
right
from the start, and even
before
they officially acknowledged being aware of Foster’s death—the Clinton Administration controlled the
would-be
investigation by exerting considerable influence upon both the FBI and the U.S. Park Police, and ensuring that the death would quickly be officially labeled “suicide”—and if that was in direct violation of long-established protocol, then
so be it.
It’s what Presidents call stonewalling and they’re very good at it.

Vincent Foster was quite obviously a man of extremely high integrity, as evidenced in the words of the above address which was personally written by him and given only days prior to Fosters death. His “conviction to do the right thing” may very well be what got him killed.

The laws of our nation and of each state clearly proscribe that any violent death is to be treated as a potential homicide and investigated as such, even in cases that appear to be suicide (suicide is a legal determination made later). In the case of Vince Foster, less investigation was made than would have been mandated in any typically occurring violent death—the violent death of the highest ranking government official killed since President Kennedy was actually given less investigation than a common death.

Vince was a long and trusted friend of President Bill Clinton—they went all the way back to boyhood, growing up as close friends in Arkansas. He became a partner in the same firm as Hilary Clinton and worked closely with the Clintons for decades. When Clinton was elected President, Vince went with him, becoming personal attorney to the President and First Lady with an office right in the White House, a trusted member of the innermost circle of power in Washington. So he certainly “knew where all the bodies were buried” as the old expression goes.

Foster’s very suspicious death also occurred at a very auspicious moment. The Whitewater investigation was official, on the front page every single day and dramatically threatening the very Presidency with which Foster was charged to protect.

Kindergarten class photo in Hope, Arkansas, 1950. Bill Clinton is at the far left. Vince Foster is the taller boy to Clinton’s left.

The official version of the United States government, published in the 1994 Fiske Report, is that on July 20, 1993, White House Counsel Vince Foster, depressed about his work, drove to Fort Marcy Park in suburban Virginia after having lunch in his White House office on a Tuesday afternoon, parked his family’s Honda automobile in the park’s parking lot, walked 700 feet through the park to a very remote area, and then pressed a 1913 Colt .38 caliber revolver deep against the back of his mouth and pulled the trigger.

However, a
proper
police investigation would have revealed that story was
not possible
because a plethora of forensic evidence clearly indicates otherwise.

Vince left the White House one afternoon after eating lunch in his office on what everyone described as a normal work day for him. Prior to leaving, he offered some candy to a co-worker and then told his secretary “I’ll be right back” on his way out. Everything was normal—a typical work day—he wasn’t suicidal. A few hours later—before you could say “Presidential privilege,” Foster was dead, his body discovered that afternoon in a park in Virginia. They said he stuck a .38 in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Courtesy of
Reuters/ABC/Archive Photos

The gun pictured in the crime scene photo above is obviously very dark. The gun that the FBI showed Foster’s wife and got her to identify as his, was silver. The gun in the photo is a .38 with high-velocity ammo. The forensic evidence is dramatically inconsistent with this weapon. Note the absence of blood on hand, shirt and gun. A .38 with a high-velocity load splatters “blowback” all over everything. The wounds are only consistent with a low-velocity weapon such as a .22 caliber. The gun above is pieced together with parts from different guns to make it impossible to trace; it’s the type used by professional killers—known as a “drop-gun” for hits.

If a person places a .38 caliber revolver in their mouth and pulls the trigger, the blowback is incredible. It splatters blood and tissue all over, drenching the hand in it, as well as the wrist, the gun itself, the clothing nearest by, and obviously the wound in the mouth and nasal cavity which literally pour out huge amounts of blood from the residual blood pressure in the body and because the heart keeps pumping and sending more and more blood which escapes through the wound and the nasal cavity. The heart itself is fine. That’s why donor hearts for transplants often come from head-trauma deaths. The heart keeps pumping blood for up to two full minutes after a gunshot wound to the head. So you can imagine how much blood keeps pouring out of those gaping wounds.
463

But that didn’t happen to Vince Foster. His hand was clean; the gun was free of blood; the white cuff of his shirt was still white; witnesses stated that they saw almost no blood at all on the white dress shirt; there wasn’t oozing blood from his mouth and nasal wound; or a large pool of blood beneath him. It wasn’t until his body was moved to take it to the morgue that the blood poured out of his wounds and bloodied his white shirt—the way that forensics tells us that it should have been bloodied to begin with, right at the crime scene.

And the incongruities go on and on. The gun that belonged to Vincent Foster was silver. The gun that was photographed underneath Foster’s hand at the crime scene was black.
464

It gets worse. There are, in point of fact, so many inconsistencies that it becomes difficult to prioritize them. And we’re not talking here about things such as differing witness opinions that can be argued about like “He said—She said”; these are straight forensic facts, folks. So let’s tackle a few, right here:

DEFENSIVE POWDER BURNS:

The powder burn patterns of a gunshot, known as GSR—for gunshot residue, paint a vivid picture about the violence that occurred. The powder burn patterns on Foster’s hands were on the
inside
of
both index fingers,
i.e., towards his thumbs. The long GSR burns indicate he had his hands in
front
of a gun barrel, in a
defensive
manner, and further indicate that his hands were not actually touching the gun when it was fired—because the length of the GSR burn is determined by the distance from the gun (details follow in this chapter).

GUNPOWDER EVIDENCE:

GSR staining from a
different
gun was found on Foster’s clothing and on his eyeglasses—not the gun found in the victim’s hand. That has a dramatic evidentiary indication—that the victim was exposed to gunfire from a gun that was
not present
at the official crime scene. The powder burns clearly indicate that Foster’s hands were
not
on the gun grip when the gun was fired. Simple translation: Foul play clearly involved. Furthermore, even though he supposedly stuck the gun
inside
his mouth and fired it, there was
no gunpowder on his tongue
. If a .38 is fired directly into the mouth, it leaves certain gunpowder markings.
465

FINGERPRINT EVIDENCE:

Foster’s prints were
nowhere
on the gun, even though we would expect a person seriously contemplating suicide to be perspiring, which would facilitate the adherence of fingerprints to a gun; and it was a hot and humid July day, which would
further facilitate
it. That’s a clear forensic indication that the gun was placed in his hand in the hours
after
his death, at which time his fingerprints would no longer adhere to the gun.
Someone
else’s
prints
were
on the gun
(but we do not know whose).
466

BLOOD POOLING EVIDENCE:

A .38 caliber at point-blank range with high—velocity ammo obviously leaves a
lot
of blood. However, the first doctor on the scene, as well as the EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians), were very surprised by the dramatically insufficient amount of blood and tissue evidence on or around the body. Based on substantial experience with gunshot wounds, for a wound of that type they would have expected to find a bloodbath, but did not.
467

BLOOD SPATTER EVIDENCE:

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