77. The London Telegraph filed a Freedom of Information request for copies of the White House phone logs for that evening. This request was denied without explanation. The relevant phone logs at the governor's mansion in Little Rock have vanished.


78. That evening, at 8.30 p.m., Bill Clinton was waiting to be interviewed by Larry King. As Clinton was being prepared in the White House by a makeup artist, he chatted with Mack McLarty. According to the makeup artist, a male aide entered the room and told Clinton, "They found a note in Foster's office." This seems to contradict Clinton's claim he was not told about Foster's death until after his 9 p.m. interview with Larry King. Robert Fiske deposed the makeup artist, but her sworn statement was not included in the Fiske Report, one of many peculiar gaps in his porous report.


79. Patrick Knowlton drove into the parking lot at Ft. Marcy Park on July 20, 1993, the day of Foster's death. He was looking for a place to relieve himself. As he was about to leave his car, he saw a dark-skinned "Hispanic-looking" man who glared at him. Knowlton says the man stared at him with such ferocity he felt intimidated and hid his wallet under his seat. He says he had an odd feeling the man was warning him to stay away. After Foster's death was announced, Knowlton reported this to the Park Police. In the spring of 1994, an FBI agent finally interviewed Knowlton, nearly one year after Foster's death. The agent later wrote a report quoting Knowlton as saying he would be unable to identify the man he had seen. Knowlton says this report was false. On the contrary, he had told the agent he remembered the man's face extremely well and was confident he could identify him. Why did the FBI lie about Knowlton's statement? Why wasn't Knowlton invited to look at police photos?


80. Knowlton would later describe the man to a sketch artist for the London Telegraph. This sketch was published in England, but the FBI unaccountably ignored this key evidence. Instead, the FBI launched a campaign of harassment and intimidation of Knowlton. Teams of agents harassed him 24 hours a day. He was followed constantly. Agents on the street used threatening gestures. Cars filled with four agents followed him. His phone rang in the middle of the night. Agents knocked on his door at 3 a.m. A journalist, a private investigator, and many of Knowlton's friends have witnessed this harassment. Knowlton is currently suing the FBI. Why has the FBI gone to such great lengths to intimidate Knowlton?


81. The Fiske Report makes no mention of Patrick Knowlton. Kenneth Starr refused to interview him until the artist's sketch appeared in the London Telegraph. When Knowlton was brought before the grand jury, Starr's prosecutor grilled him with great hostility, treating him as though he were a liar and a charlatan. (Note: The Fiske Report is riddled with lies and omissions. The following ten items (82-91) are examples of this malfeasance.)


82. The Fiske Report says, "Experienced FBI Laboratory Technicians in Washington performed extensive analyses of the physical evidence identified during the investigation." Not true. The FBI never did any analysis of the hair and fiber evidence.


83. The Fiske Report says, "In addition to conducting interviews, this Office examined documentary and photographic evidence including... documents removed from Foster's office at the White House and turned over to either the Clinton's private attorney or the Foster family attorney." This is ingenuous. For all we know, he may have seen only a handful of innocuous documents. Furthermore, he makes no reference to the documents that were placed in the private living quarters of Hillary Clinton.


84. The Fiske Report says, "The only vehicular entrance [to Ft. Marcy Park] is from the Parkway." Not true. Fiske unaccountably tries to gloss over the existence of a back road. This road comes 300 feet closer to the body site than the lot where Foster's Honda was parked. If Foster's body had been transported to the park, the killers would probably have used this back road because of its privacy and proximity.


85. Besides ignoring this back road, Fiske pays little heed to the condition of the ground leading to Foster's body. The relatively steep slope (about 45 degrees) drops down to a ditch. As described by a witness, the underbrush from the body down to the ditch and up the other side of the ditch had been trampled down. Foster could not have flattened this amount of underbrush without climbing up and down the slope several times. In other words, the swath looked like it had been created by several people climbing the slope. This trampled path led toward the old road that Fiske has not acknowledged. Once again, the operative suicide verdict precluded a reasonable theory: namely that Foster's body had been brought in via the old road and carried over this trampled path by several men.


86. Fiske interviewed a couple that had been in the parking lot. His report states, "Neither individual heard a gunshot while in the Park or observed anything unusual." This contradicts what the woman told the Park Police. She told officers she had noticed two men hovering around a Honda with its hood up. Was this Foster's car? How can this be dismissed as not being "unusual"?


87. The Fiske Report only briefly refers to Foster's car keys, saying, "The keys to the car were located in Foster's pants pocket." This is clearly misleading.


88. The Fiske Report tried to make a case for Foster being deeply depressed before his suicide. Fiske says, "Although no one noticed a loss of appetite, it was obvious to many that he had lost weight." There is no basis for this claim. Based on Foster's medical records, Foster actually gained six pounds during the time frame in question. Fiske saw these medical records. Why did he invent a weight loss?


89. In order to promote the suicide conclusion, Fiske and others have argued Foster was deeply depressed. This runs contrary to statements by all of Foster's friends and professional associates. None detected any signs of depression, and they were all stunned by his suicide. Fiske brazenly altered or twisted the statements of all those witnesses who said they saw no signs of depression in Foster.


90. Many depositions are conspicuous by their absence. For example: Fiske did not depose Maggie Williams, who was seen carrying boxes of documents from Foster's office. He did not depose Helen Dickey, who made a 6.15 p.m. call to Little Rock to report that Foster had been found dead in the White House parking lot. Fiske did not depose Craig Livingstone to determine why it was necessary for him to drive to the morgue to join Kennedy for an alleged "identification." And so forth.


91. The Fiske Report gives the impression that thorough forensic work was done in the original investigation. Some idea of how thorough this work was comes through in Dr. Beyer's deposition. Consider the following questions and Beyer's answers: Q: I would assume that most autopsies would be pretty standard but wonder if there is a way to determine if the autopsy on VF was SOP. You used the expression concerning the gunpowder on both hands, that it was interpreted "grossly" as gunpowder.A: "Grossly" noted the appearance of gunpowder. Q: But you didn't make any more specific identification than that? A: No, sir. Q: Doctor, is it your testimony that your office would not make a determination as to, or make an analysis as to time of death absent a specific request from law enforcement personnel? A: If they wanted assistance, we would furnish it to them. In this particular case, I have no record that it was asked. Q: Did you have the fingernails scraped for debris? A: They didn't ask for that examination to be done.


92. Beyer's testimony that the autopsy was "standard" is simply false. When autopsies are done at the request of the police, it is standard procedure for the police department to have investigators present to serve as witnesses and to answer any questions the medical examiner may have. Under White House pressure, Beyer circumvented this by suddenly moving the autopsy up 24 hours. This enabled him to work on the body for an undetermined amount of time with no witnesses present. By the time police investigators arrived, Beyer had removed Foster's soft palate and tongue and had driven a metal rod throughFoster's skull to "illustrate" the official "exit wound." A mysterious "assistant" had been working with Beyer. Beyer refused to identify this assistant to the police. As a final thought, consider that all those who originally handled the body never saw an exit wound in the back of Foster's skull.


93. Sundry contradictions are found in the medical reports. Dr. Anh Hyunh, who did the blood toxicology, stated in the official repor tthat no Trazodone (an antidepressant) or Valium-derivatives were found in Foster's blood. Subsequently, the FBI did a report for the Senate Whitewater Committee in which it was stated that Trazodone and Valium-derivatives had been found in Foster's blood. This would help confirm Fiske's claims that Foster was depressed, but it directly contradicts the report of Dr. Hyunh, the official toxicologist. Did the FBI falsify evidence to support the depression thesis? We now know from testimony by Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, formerly of the FBI labs, that the labs have a history of tampering with evidence.


94. The FBI reports that have been made available have been drastically censored. Large sections are entirely blacked out. In many cases, one asks why. For example, when Foster's body was rolled, Officer John Rolla made an observation that was noted in the original report. His remark has been blacked out. Why did the FBI feel it was necessary to delete this? Better yet, why censor any forensic details from a report on a simple suicide?


95. According to Foster's secretary, approximately six hours before his death, Foster mailed a letter to his mother. He has often been described as a "southern gentleman" with extremely genteel manners. He was especially courtly toward women. He seemingly had a healthy relationship with his mother. Despite this, his letter to his mother, sent only hours before he allegedly killed himself, does not contain a single expression of feeling. There is no hint whatsoever this would be his last communication with his mother.


96. There is much in Foster's behavior during the days preceding his death that indicates he had no intention of killing himself. Only days before his death, he called James Lyons, a friend and trusted advisor in Denver. He told Lyons he needed him in Washington. They made plans for Lyons to fly to Washington on Wednesday, July 21 (the day after Foster allegedly killed himself). Foster called Lyons again on Sunday to confirm their Wednesday appointment. It seems clear Foster was planning on meeting Lyons. It also seems highly unlikely he intended to kill himself the day before the arrival of his friend.


97. All indications are that Foster deeply cared for his sister Sharon Bowman. Sharon still lived in Arkansas. She traveled 1,000 miles to Washington to visit her brother, only to arrive the day of her brother's death. Consider that Vince had talked to Sharon and promised her an exciting personal tour of and lunch at the White House. It seems apparent he was looking forward to seeing his sister. Yet he supposedly killed himself on the day of her arrival. Such an incredibly cruel way to miss his date with Sharon is not consistent with the affection Foster felt for her.


98. For four years, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph relentlessly pursued the countless discrepancies of the Foster case. During his investigations, his Washington apartment was broken into, and his four computers were taken. Was this primarily to steal his hard drives? His car was later broken into and his briefcase was taken.


99. The late Jerry Parks owned a detective agency in Little Rock. According to Jane Parks, his widow, he had often done mysterious jobs for Vince Foster. She says that shortly before he died, Foster telephoned Jerry. She overheard Jerry's half of the conversation. She says her husband became highly agitated. He begged Foster not to do something Foster was intent on doing. After Foster died, Jerry became extremely fearful and started carrying a gun. He was gunned down gangland style within a month of Foster's death. According to Jane, shortly thereafter, teams of FBI agents ransacked the Parks' house. They removed all office files, film negatives, tape recordings, and loppy disks. Jane says these searches happened repeatedly. Apparently, none of the searches or confiscations was legal.


100. According to Secret Service logs, at 7 p.m. the day of Foster's death, an entry alarm went off in Foster's office. To my knowledge, this has never been explained or even referred to in official reports on Foster's death. According to Secret Service logs, at 7.10 p.m. that evening, a group listed as "MIG" logged into the White House. Aide Patsy Thomasson arrived at the same time. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard believes MIG stands for Maintenance and Installation Group, a group of experts who handle such things as safes and surveillance equipment. MIG and Patsy Thomasson left together. No official explanation has ever been given to account for these comings and goings. Patsy Thomasson was one of the White House aides who reportedly searched Foster's office. Did MIG assist her by opening Foster's safe? Did MIG disable the entry alarm?


101. To my knowledge the following story has never been investigated. Debra von Trapp was a member of George Bush's staff during his presidency. She served as a computer surveillance expert. She worked with a team that has been described as Bush's "plumbers unit." In this capacity, she often worked with Robert Goetzman, an FBI agent. According to von Trapp, Goetzman sounded drunk and extremely excited when he called her California home from Washington, D.C., at 11 p.m., July 20, 1993 (the day of Foster's death). She says she records all phone conversations. This is a partial transcript of her alleged exchange with Goetzman.


RG: "We did him! We did him!"
DT: "Did who?"
RG: "Vince Foster."
DT "What do you mean?"
RG "We did him!"
DT: "Well, where did you do him?"
RG: "Well, we did him somewhere else, but we dumped him in a queer park to send Clinton and his queer wife a message!"


Although von Trapp wrote a long letter to Kenneth Starr detailing his and other allegations, to my knowledge, he never deposed her or Robert Goetzman. Nor did he request the tape recordings of the alleged phone conversation. Nor did he check the phone company records to verify the phone call. Why not? Some Fostergate researchers suspect Ms. von Trapp is a disinformation agent trying to cloud the debate. I spent several hours interviewing Ms. von Trapp and did not hear anything that would support those suspicions. My strongest impression was that she was genuinely frightened. In any case, whatever one concludes about her credibility, it remains rather odd that she has never been deposed before a grand jury.


This list is tentative and remains open to corrections and debate. I can be contacted at: [email protected] Please put my name in the subject slot of all email responses.


Richard L. Franklin




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