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Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., on July 20, 1993. His death was ruled a suicide by all official investigations. However, some still object to this conclusion.

Official findings

Foster's death was concluded to have been a suicide by inquiries/investigations (in varying degrees of rigor) conducted by:

• the United States Park Police
• the Department of Justice
• the FBI
• the United States Congress
• Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske
• Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr..

After a three-year investigation, Starr concluded that Foster's death was a suicide. CNN stated on February 28, 1997, "The report refutes claims by conservative political organizations that Foster was the victim of a murder plot and coverup," but "despite those findings, right-wing political groups have continued to allege that there was more to the death and that the president and first lady tried to cover it up."

• Appendix to Report on the Death of Vincent W. Foster Jr. is a short addendum attached to the Starr Report as ordered by three federal judges showing alternative evidence than that of the official findings.

Conspiracy theories

Background

Some observers have questioned the reports of suicide, including independent researchers/investigators Hugh Sprunt and David Martin. One group is Accuracy in Media (AIM). AIM quotes Assistant U.S. Attorney Miguel Rodriguez, who resigned from the investigation, as saying "I knew what the result was going to be, because I was told what the result was going to be from the get-go."

Some propose that Foster was murdered to prevent his revealing information derogatory to Clinton, about Whitewater, Travelgate, or other matters, or that Hillary Clinton was somehow involved by covering up activities together with Foster before his death. Others allege a romantic relationship between Foster and Hillary Clinton. Other critics of the Clintons have made even more lurid allegations, clamining that she had killed Foster herself or had him killed. No credible evidence or charges were ever brought forward in connection with any of these allegations.

The Washington Post noted David Brock was "summoned" to a meeting with Rex Armistead in Miami, Florida at an airport hotel. Armistead laid out an elaborate "Vince Foster murder scenario," Brock said – a scenario that he found implausible." Both Brock and Armistead were reporters who were funded by Richard Scaife to investigate issues ranging from drug smuggling to Foster to discredit Clinton with the Arkansas Project.

Scaife funded Christopher W. Ruddy (later founder of NewsMax), who previously was a writer for the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, to research Clinton for the Arkansas Project. Ruddy has argued that while he posits no conspiracy theory about Foster's death, he believes a cover-up took place and that Foster's body had likely been moved.

Ruddy was backed by Joseph Farah and Farah's organization the Western Journalism Center. This group supplied Ruddy with "additional expense money, funding for Freedom of Information Act requests, legal support and publicity during his book research of a conspiracy surrounding the suicide of Foster. Ruddy eventually released The Strange Death of Vincent Foster which was published by Simon & Schuster.

Nonetheless, in 1999 Farah's Western Journalism Center "placed some 50 ads reprinting Ruddy's Tribune-Review stories in the Washington Times, then repackaged the articles as a packet titled The Ruddy Investigation, which sold for $12." Shortly thereafter, the Western Journalism Center "circulated a video featuring Ruddy's claims, 'Unanswered-The Death of Vincent Foster,' that was produced by James Davidson, chairman of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and co-editor of the Strategic Investment newsletter." (NTU's research arm receives funds from Scaife.) Eventually, Scaife became an investor and the third-largest stockholder of Ruddy's NewsMax and both NewsMax and the WorldNetDaily continue to publish materials that show the Clintons in a negative light."

Besides the official investigations, including Kenneth Starr's report that ruled Foster's death a suicide, Dan Moldea wrote a book, with encouragement from Al Regnery of Regnery Publishing house stating that Foster's death was a suicide and he found the scenarios were first promulgated by Robert Hines who shared ideas with Reed Irvine at Accuracy in Media, and Christopher W. Ruddy, who was then at the New York Post. Hines had falsely told "them that there is no exit wound in Foster's head," but Moldea explained, "I don't think there was anything nefarious here," rather Hines "was being approached by reporters and he wanted something to say."

The main proponents of this telling of events were Christopher W. Ruddy of the New York Post, and later with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (owned by Richard Mellon Scaife), and Joseph Farah of the Western Journalism Center.

As to what prompted this line of investigation, reporter Dan Moldea claimed in an interview for Salon.com that "Foster had some blond hair and carpet fibers on his suit jacket, and he had semen in his underwear. So, the Jerry Falwells and the right-wing crowd get a hold of this information, and…they start making movies alleging that the Clintons were involved in this murder." Falwell produced the Clinton Chronicles, which Ruddy was involved with claiming the gun was placed in Fosters hand. These videos and claims have been "widely discredited" the videos "sophisticated production" served as a reliable resource.

Funding for the film was Citizens for Honest Government, which Jerry Falwell paid $200,000 to in 1994 and 1995. In 1995 Citizens for Honest Government paid two Arkansas state troopers to make allegations supporting the conspiracy about Vincent Foster. These two troopers were Roger Perry and Larry Patteson who also were paid for their testimony in the Paula Jones (See: Troopergate) claims. Citizens for Honest Government also covertly paid individuals who provided information to media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the American Spectator magazine, which named them as sources."

Patrick Matrisciana, president of Citizens for Honest Government, and producer of the Clinton Chronicles video appeared in its commercials as the "silhouetted individual whom he identifies only as an 'investigative reporter'." When asked about the scene Matrisciana admitted he was not a reporter and replied "I doubt our lives were actually ever in any real danger. That was Jerry's idea to do that ... He thought that would be dramatic."

Different theories

Some conspiracy theorists allege no bullet fragments were ever found and very little blood was present at the body's final location. Thus, the theorists assert suspicions that the body had been moved from another location to the park site. Some reject the official reports and believe that while Foster was located on an incline, the trickle of blood ran contrary to gravity. No explanation was offered to explain this. The U.S. Park Police were assigned to investigate the case, but no more information was ever disclosed.

With respect to this case, conspiracy theorists are largely divided into two groups. Some suspect that Foster committed suicide in a location that was embarrassing to figures connected to the Clinton administration and that government agents dumped his body in the park to avoid any embarrassment. Others suspect that Foster died from a shot from a small-caliber pistol to the neck and his body was dumped in the park. A book by Christopher Andersen entitled Bill and Hillary: The Marriage claims that Foster and Hillary Clinton were involved in an affair, and some claim that this supposed affair has some relation to Foster's death.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated the Clintons on several other issues, including Whitewater, concluded after a three-year investigation that Foster shot himself. Miguel Rodriguez, an Assistant United States Attorney, after resigning from the Starr investigation, provided an interview regarding his participation in the investigation. He stated plainly that he resigned from the investigation after it became clear to him that suicide was the only acceptable determination despite the preponderance of evidence indicating homicide. According to Charles Carman, from the Center for Transparent Governance, it has been theorized that Foster was conflicted about forming a Presidential trust, in the face of growing scandal surrounding Bill and Hillary Clinton and their alleged role in a fraudulent Arkansas real estate deal known as the Whitewater Scandal. Urban-legend-debunking website Snopes.com cites the finding of the Starr investigation as evidence that Foster was not murdered: "If Foster had been murdered or if unanswered questions about his death remained, Starr would have been the last person to want to conclude the investigation prematurely."

FOIA request

In an extremely unusual move, in November 1994 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, in response to a request by the Wall Street Journal for the final Fiske Report (under the Freedom of Information Act), issued a prior restraint that prevented the Journal from publishing a story about its response to the request. Presumably, the court denied the request itself (as no one has ever seen the final Fiske Report), but it also sealed its own response to the WSJ (originally covered by Michael Gartner in USA Today, Dec. 6th, 1994).

See also

• Arkansas Project
• Clinton Chronicles
• Whitewater (controversy)
• Health Management Associates Scandal
• prior restraint

References

Footnotes

1. Full text of the report on the 1993 death of White House counsel Vincent W. Foster, Jr., compiled by Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
2. Report: Starr Rules Out Foul Play In Foster Death CNN February 23, 1997
3. http://www.fbicover-up.com/starr/AddendumtoStarr.pdf
4. Arkansas Project Led to Turmoil and Rifts Washington Post May 2, 1999
5. Death of Vince Foster (Part 1) Miguel Rodriguez October 16, 2004 Accuracy in Media
6. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20741
7. Book reveals Hillary's 'passionate affair' BBC News August 4, 1999
8. http://archive.salon.com/news/1998/05/28news.html
9. http://web.archive.org/web/20060526161938/http://www.drudgereport.com/matth.htm
10. http://mediamatters.org/items/200509210002
11. "'Arkansas Project' Led to Turmoil and Rifts". Washington Post: A24. 1999. Retrieved 2006-05-03. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
12. Murray Waas, Behind the Clinton cocaine smear. Salon.com, 2000.
13. Christopher Ruddy.
14. ^ Christopher Ruddy interview, Ann Online.
15. The ConWebWatch Primer
16. Christopher Ruddy."Strange Death of Vincent Foster"
17. ^ Western Journalism Center- Joseph Farah PublicEye.Org
18. NEWSMAX MEDIA, INC. SB-2/A#1 REG. NO. 333-83408 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
19. Gold Star Mothers Myth Snopes.com
20. ^ Why Vincent Foster can't rest in peace Lori Leibovich Salon.com
21. ^ The Falwell connection by Murray Waas Salon.com
22. http://www.fbicover-up.com/Miquel/Miquel.htm
23. The Clinton Body Count Snopes.com January 2001 Barbara Mikkelson

Books

• John Clarke, Patrick Knowlton, and Hugh Turley. "Failure of the Public Trust" Proof of the cover-up by the media and Office of Independent Counsel (McCabe Publishing, 1999, ISBN 0-9673521-0-X)
• Brock, David. "Blinded by the Right : The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative." (Three Rivers Press, 2003)
• Clinton, Bill (2005). "My Life." Vintage Publishing. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
• Conason, Joe. and Lyons, Gene. "The Hunting of the President : The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton." (St. Martin's Griffin, 2001)
• Dan Moldea. "A Washington Tragedy : How the Death of Vincent Foster Ignited a Political Firestorm" (Regnery Publishing, Inc, 1998)
• Evans-Pritchard, Ambrose. "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton", Regenery Publishing, 1999. ISBN-13:978-0895264084.

External links

• The Official Foster Report (This version only the full report except the appendix.)
• Rotten.com biography
• Frontline: Once Upon a Time in Arkansas: Vince Foster's journal
• Vincent W. Foster, Jr./Missing Gun File FBI FOIA
• Interview with crime reporter Dan Moldea
• Foster Report posted by the Washington Post
• The Death of Vince Foster on Google Video
• CNN Report
• America’s Dreyfus Affair:  The Case of the Death of Vince Foster
• Hugh Sprunt's Citizen's Investigative Report (on the death of Vince Foster)

• 1993 in the United States
• Clinton administration controversies
• Suicides by firearm in the United States
• Cause of death disputed
• Conspiracy theories
• Deaths by person