FEW
ARE STILL SEEKING THE TRUTH IN THE
MYSTERIOUS `SUICIDE' OF VINCE FOSTER
Editorial - The Union Leader Online
July 24, 1998 Richard Lessner
The fifth anniversary of Vince
Foster's
mysterious death passed this week with little notice.
When I was last in Washington, I
drove
out one afternoon to Fort Marcy Park on the Virginia side of the
Potomac
and parked in the space where Foster's locked car was found on the
evening
of July 20, 1993. Deeper in the park, near an old cannon, Foster's body
was found, an antique pistol gripped awkwardly in his hand, his thumb
on
the trigger.
I do not intend here to rehash the
many
inconsistencies surrounding Foster's alleged suicide -- the mysterious
"suicide note" found sans fingerprints during a second search of an
empty
briefcase, the inability of anyone to establish where the antique gun
came
from or where Foster got the bullets, the botched crime scene
investigation,
the mishandled autopsy, the conflicting chronologies.
No one in any official capacity is
still
investigating Vince Foster's death. The Park Service Police, the FBI
and
two independent counsels -- Robert Fiske and Ken Starr -- all have
signed
off on the official suicide finding. Only a handful of dogged
researchers
and conservative activists keep the Foster case alive, though on life
support,
mostly via the Internet and talk radio.
Yet Vince Foster is the one thread
that
runs through the scandals involving Bill and Hillary Clinton --
Whitewater,
Travelgate, FBI Filegate and,
yes, even the Monica Lewinsky affair. The
truth about Foster's death doubtless could blow the lid off this
cauldron
of corruption.
Clinterngate appears to be unrelated
to
the previous Clinton scandals. This looks like a straightforward sex
scandal
involving a libidinous President, already known to be a notorious
Lothario,
and a star-struck and possibly conniving young woman. Yet even
Monicagate
reaches back to involve Foster.
It now is known that Linda Tripp's
confidential
file was among the more than 900 FBI files that the White House
illegally
obtained in 1994. Today, Linda Tripp is famous as Monica Lewinsky's
friend
who taped their conversations about steamy sex in the Oval Office and
Bill
Clinton's possible perjury, witness tampering and subornation of
perjury.
But why was Linda Tripp's FBI file
invaded
way back in 1994 when she was an anonymous mid-level White House
staffer?
Because she was the last person in the White House to see Vince Foster
alive the day he allegedly drove to Fort Marcy Park and shot himself.
At the time the White House grabbed
the
Tripp FBI file, the Clintonoids were scrambling desperately to get
their
ducks in a row -- that is, coordinate their stories -- on the events
surrounding
Foster's death in response to the first independent counsel
investigation.
The man who pulled Linda Tripp's FBI
file
was the shady Craig Livingstone, the former White House security
director.
The reasonable conclusion is that Livingstone was looking for something
to use against her, some leverage to make certain she would back the
White
House version of the Foster suicide. It was shortly after this that Ms.
Tripp was transferred against her will to the Pentagon.
It also was Craig Livingstone who,
the
night Foster died, showed up at the hospital demanding to see the body.
It was only after Livingstone and fellow White House aide Bruce Lindsey
were allowed to view the body that Foster's car keys turned up in his
trouser
pocket. The Park Police had searched Foster's pockets at the scene in
Fort
Marcy Park, but failed to find his car keys. This puzzled the police
and
caused some to question the suicide scenario. How did Foster get to the
park -- his Honda was parked in the lot -- without his car keys, unless
someone was with him and took the keys, or he died elsewhere and his
body
was planted to make it appear a suicide?
Craig Livingstone also was observed
removing
boxes of files from Foster's White House office in the hours after
Foster's
death. Foster was the Clintons' lawyer on the Whitewater scandal and he
was Hillary's hit man on the bogus Travel Office purge. It was Foster's
copy of Hillary's subpoenaed Whitewater billing records that
disappeared,
only to turn up mysteriously two years later in the First Lady's office.
Charles Colson, the hapless Nixon
aide
in the Watergate affair, was sent to prison for searching one FBI file.
Yet Craig Livingstone never has been indicted, let alone convicted, for
illegally obtaining more than 900 FBI files. Today, Livingstone lives
in
sunny California and works for one of Bill Clinton's big campaign
contributors.
What gives? Why has Ken Starr's
investigation
of Filegate fizzled? Because Craig Livingstone cannot be squeezed. He
holds
the trump card: The truth about Vince Foster's death. If Ken Starr were
to indict, then Livingstone could threaten to reveal what he knows
about
Foster's death, and no one wants that.
Not Mr. Starr, who already has signed
off
on the suicide theory and who would look the fool were Livingstone to
tell
all.
Not Congress, which recoils from
investigating
the Foster affair. (Rep. Dan Burton was willing to probe Foster's
death,
and for his trouble he was roundly jeered in the Washington press.) And
certainly not the Justice
Department,
which has been thoroughly corrupted by the hideous Clintons.
No one, it seems, is anxious to think
the
unthinkable about the death of Vince Foster. So Craig Livingstone
remains
a free man, despite his egregious violation of federal laws and Linda
Tripp's
privacy.
Five years
after Vince Foster's body was
discovered in Fort Marcy Park we are no closer to the truth about his
mysterious
death, though his ghost continues to haunt the Clinton scandals large
and
small.
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