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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 conspiracy theorists object to this conclusion.

Official findings

Foster's death was concluded to have been a suicide by inquiries/investigations 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."

With respect to the Fiske report, it is interesting to note the following. In August 1994, after a change in the law about how investigations were to be handled, a special arm of the Circuit Court of Appeals took jurisdiction from the attorney general and replaced Fiske with Kenneth W. Starr. Fiske then turned in -- apparently -- his final report, filing it with the Circuit Court. In October, The Wall Street Journal heard that Fiske had indeed filed his report and that it had been sealed by the court. The Journal then went to court and asked for a copy of the report -- if such a report exists. In November, the court ruled on the Journal's request for a copy of the Fiske report. Presumably, the court said the Journal couldn't have it. But, by way of an extraordinary prior restraint the court sealed its own response, and it told the WSJ it could not print a story saying what that response was. David Sentelle, John Butzner, and Peter P. Fay were the judges on the court (U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit). Prior restraints are extremely rare, and the US Supreme Court has held prior restraints to be unconstitutional, except in extremely limited circumstances such as national security issues.

With respect to the Starr report, there is another curious postscript. The very same three judges that issued the prior restraint to the WSJ, ordered that the comments of Patrick Knowlton be added as an appendix to Starr's report, over the strenous objections of Starr (who filed a motion to reconsider that was denied). Patrick Knowlton was a civilian present in the Fort Marcy Park parking lot on the evening that Vince Foster's body was found in the park, and had provided testimony to several investigating authorities about what he had seen. In the court-ordered appendix, Knowlton claims that the FBI falsified his testimony (provided in an FBI interview), and that he was also subsequently harassed prior to providing testimony to the Starr investigation in 1995.

Conspiracy theories

Background

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."

Another group is Accuracy in Media (AIM), a conservative media "watchdog". 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."

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 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, claiming that she had killed Foster herself or had him killed. Apart from the Travelgate allegations, no credible evidence or charges were ever brought forward in connection with any of these allegations.

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 that the supposed affair was related to Foster's death.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

See also

• Arkansas Project
• Clinton Chronicles
• Mena, Arkansas
• Prior restraint
• Whitewater (controversy)

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

Books

• John Clarke, Patrick Knowlton, and Hugh Turley. "Failure of the Public Trust" (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: Bill Clinton." 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 Inc., 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
• CNN Report

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