Court unseals 511-page document charging obstruction of justice
Dave Hartley
http://www.Asheville-Computer.com
http://www.ioa.com/~davehart
At the same time, the panel -- headed by David B. Sentelle, with
Richard D. Cudahy and Peter T. Fay -- denied Knowlton's request that this
report be attached as an amendment to the Interim Report (the "Starr
Report") on the investigation of Foster's death, which was released Oct.
10, 1997. There has been no final report.
The just-released document is certain to fuel the ongoing controversy
surrounding the administration's scenario of Foster's death. It is a
point-by-point analysis and refutation of the 114-page, double-spaced,
Starr Report, overpowering it in both size and substance.
Knowlton's report is, in fact, an expansion of an earlier 20-page
filing, also by Knowlton -- comprised of a nine-page letter and 11 pages
of exhibits -- which had been accepted by the same panel as an attachment
to the Starr Report.
Knowlton filed that report in September 1997, a month before Starr's
Report was released. The statute authorizing creation of the Office of
Independent Counsel allows persons "named in the report" to request
permission to attach comments to reports. Over strenuous objections by the
independent counsel, the Special Division of the U.S. Court of Appeals --
the same panel of judges which authored yesterday's ruling -- granted that
permission and ordered the Office of the Independent Counsel (OIC) to
include Knowlton's 20 pages in the appendix to the Starr Report.
John Clarke, Knowlton's attorney -- who has worked tirelessly on the
case -- discussed the significance of today's ruling and the report with
WorldNetDaily, portions of which were provided by fax.
"The report has been under seal," he said. "That means it had to be
kept secret until a decision was made by the court. Even the fact that we
filed it was kept secret.
"We asked them (the court) for a couple of things," Clarke continued.
"We asked them to lift the seal as soon as they made their decision, which
they did. And we also asked them to substitute it (the report) for our
20-page filing. They didn't do that; they did not order it attached to Ken
Starr's report."
But not because they rejected the evidence, Clarke is quick to note.
"What they said was they didn't have jurisdiction to grant relief," he
explained. "They didn't rule against us on the merits of what we were
asking; they just said that they didn't have jurisdiction under the law to
give this relief."
Knowlton charges Starr's investigation simply added "another layer to
the 6-year-old ongoing Justice Department cover-up" -- a cover-up that
began the night of the death and continued through subsequent
investigations including an initial 16-day examination by the FBI and two
probes by the two independent counsels -- a reference not only to Starr's
work, but to that of Special Counsel Robert Fiske, whose report was issued
June 30, 1994.
Knowlton's two reports are built on charges developed in a civil suit
he filed Oct. 25, 1996, charging FBI agents, U.S. Park Police employees
and others with obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, and personal
harassment. An amended complaint was filed last October adding defendants
and additional information.
The civil rights suit was dismissed Sept. 9. Today Knowlton was
expected to file a motion to reconsider that ruling while he prepares to
appeal the ruling of John Garrett Penn to the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia.
"We're attempting -- in both these actions -- to prove that there was a
cover-up surrounding events in the death of Vince Foster, and, I think,
we've pretty clearly done that," Knowlton's attorney John Clarke told
WorldNetDaily. "It's a cover-up from one end to another."
"The current report is more complete than the earlier one," said
Clarke.
"The other had five points demonstrating a cover-up, but this really
nails it down. The Starr Report makes about 80 points, and not a single
one stands up to scrutiny. Not one.
"In this report we've proved there was a crime -- though we're nowhere
near the point where we can say who did it or why," he said.
In Clarke's opinion: "I think the evidence is consistent with a
professional hit."
Foster's body was found July 20, 1993, at 5:50 p.m. near the northwest
corner of Fort Marcy Park, Va., 700 feet from the parking lot. He was
lying on his back on one of the three earthwork berms that comprise the
fort. There was no evidence of a struggle. The official cause of death --
touted from the outset as a suicide -- was declared due to a gunshot fired
into the mouth, the weapon, said to be a black 1913 Army Colt .38 Special
six-shot revolver, was said to have been found in Foster's hand. This,
despite insistence by the civilian witness who discovered the body that
Foster's arms were at his side, palms up -- and not a gun in sight. The
bullet allegedly went through the soft palate and exited near the top of
the back of his head. Depression was the reason cited for the supposed
suicide, though most of his friends said Foster gave no indication of
being depressed and were shocked when they heard the news.
The White House account from the outset was met with a barrage of
criticism from some very vocal, outspoken critics -- among them Western
Journalism Center, the parent organization of WorldNetDaily.
Another is witness Patrick Knowlton, 44, who had stopped briefly at
Fort Marcy an hour and a half before the body was discovered. He insists
Foster's silver-gray 1989 Honda was not in the parking lot at 4:30 p.m.
when he arrived, though Foster had presumably driven it there, parked,
then walked 700 feet to the earthworks of the fort where he took his own
life. Knowlton did, however, see a mid-1980s model, rust-brown Honda with
Arkansas plates and a blue late-model sedan.
Knowlton later reported that no one was in the Honda, but the driver of
the sedan stood by that car watching him "menacingly" as he walked into
the woods seeking a secluded place where he could relieve himself, and he
was still there when Knowlton returned a few minutes later.
Knowlton notified the U.S. Park Service as to what he had seen in the
parking lot as soon as word of Foster's death was made public on July 21,
but was not contacted for a statement until the following spring. FBI
agents interviewed him in April and May 1994 prior to the release of the
Fiske Report, but falsified his account of what he saw. Despite Knowlton's
insistence that the car he saw was a 1983-84 rust-brown Honda, the agents
in their report wrote that he had seen Foster's 1989 Honda.
It was clearly important to establish that Foster's car was in the
parking lot at 4:30 p.m. since the medical examiner and others later set
the approximate time of death between 2:00 and 4:20 p.m. The question is
-- if Foster's car was not at the park at 4:30 p.m., as Knowlton insists,
where was it? And if Foster did not drive to the park, how did he or his
body get there?
Those are just two of the glaring inconsistencies in the official
account, which are examined by the authors of the report: Knowlton
himself, a master-carpenter who has since become a certified private
investigator; attorney John Clarke, who wrote the report; and Washington
entertainer Hugh Turley. Turley -- a magician, skilled in the art of
sleight-of-hand -- was intrigued by the behind-the-scenes machinations of
those engaged in the cover-up, the "smoke-and-mirrors, now you see it, now
you don't" aspects of the case.
"He could recognize diversionary tactics and would point out where they
(the OIC investigators and FBI) were playing hide-the-ball in their
operations and reports," Clarke said.
In addition to the 511 pages of the analysis itself, the Knowlton
Report has an additional 600 pages of 184 exhibits, all but five of which
were generated by the government itself.
"We have worked strictly from what is in the public record," said
Clarke, referring to the materials the Knowlton team had at its disposal.
These include testimony, depositions, reports of various kinds, FBI
interview reports, photos, laboratory reports, investigators' memos and
handwritten notes. The team also drew on accounts by witnesses contacted
in 1994 in preparation of the Fiske Report but who were never subpoenaed
to appear before the Starr grand jury.
"We set this out as a trial, showing people the evidence, asking them
to look at it," said Clarke. "We know people have theories about what
happened, but we aren't trying to prove any of that -- only that there was
a cover-up. We show where the FBI and others falsified reports, we show
how and where there were omissions, but we've stayed away from exploring
any of our own theories as to who the killer was or who might have ordered
the hit."
"Unless we had hard evidence -- either a deposition, testimony or a
report -- we didn't use it," said Clarke.
Acquiring that evidence wasn't easy, in part because much of it is off
limits. The OIC built its case to an astonishing degree on documents not
yet released to the public, thereby hamstringing verification of its
findings by independent investigators.
"In its footnotes the Starr Report refers readers to documents that
purport to prove the conclusions it makes," Knowlton's Report declares.
"Of these 353 footnotes, 265, or 75 percent of them, refer the reader to
documents that are unavailable."
In their evaluation of the Starr Report, the three researchers focused
on its inconsistencies and contradictions.
"People say, 'Well, even if this-or-that point (in the Report) is wrong
the greater weight of evidence shows he (Vince Foster) committed suicide
at Fort Marcy Park,'" said Clarke. "They're looking at the evidence the
right way, but they're not looking at all of the evidence. They're taking
on faith what Starr has to say, and they figure you have to expect one or
two anomalies. They're right. You could expect a few -- but not every
point should be an anomaly.
"Yet every point the Starr Report makes is, in fact, an anomaly, with
inadequate explanations and downright lies. From one end to another
there's nothing in there that's true," he said.
"We don't know where Foster was killed or when," he continued. "It
could have been at the White House compound and his body was brought to
the park along the back road; or he could have been driven to the park
while he was still alive. We simply don't know. However, we do know that
there is no record of his driving his car from the White House -- only
that his body shows up five hours after he was seen alive by a Secret
Service man at 1 o'clock."
To Clarke it's "obvious" what happened -- even though he doesn't know
where or when. Foster died from a gunshot wound to the right side of the
neck, near the jawline, between the ear and the chin -- with the
trajectory of the bullet going upwards through the tongue and into the
brain. It struck the skull about three inches below the top of the skull,
fracturing it, but not exiting. Blood drained from the entrance wound onto
his neck and right shoulder and also accumulated in his mouth. The gun
used was a .22 or other low-caliber "which would account for the small
amount of blood reported by the paramedics and Park Police officers who
were among the first at the scene," Clarke explained.
Since Fort Marcy is a national park, law enforcement within its
boundaries is the responsibility of the U.S. Park Police, a federal
agency.
"Over 20 people (Park Police and paramedics) saw the body at the park
and nobody reported a large exit wound at the back of the head," Clarke
said emphatically. "Plus, the bullet was never found."
Continuing on this theme, Clarke observed there is some testimony
indicating the bullet may have exited the back of Foster's neck and did
not remain in the skull, even though it was not found at the park. "But
that's not the point," he said. "The point is there was a bullet entry
neck wound and everyone from the Park Police to Kenneth Starr has tried to
cover that up."
Asked what he considered the most significant findings in the report,
Clarke drew attention to the section about the gunshot residue on Foster's
hands, which the OIC maintains is proof that he fired the gun. The
Knowlton Report offers an interpretation its authors believe is more in
keeping with the facts.
"Foster couldn't have fired the weapon with the gunshot residue the way
it was left on his hands," Clarke said. "The residue was caused by Foster
holding his hands consistent with a defensive posture." That is, "His
hands were spread open; he wasn't touching the gun, though he seems to
have been pushing the barrel away when the gunman pulled the trigger."
Clarke also characterized as "significant" the fact that the
manufacturer (Remington) of the bullets that were found in the official
death weapon has never used what is called ball smokeless powder.
"Ball smokeless powder is what was found on Vince Foster's body and
clothing,' said Clarke. "We think that's significant because it's used for
reloads. But professional hit men also use it to get particular firing
characteristics out of a gun. That would be consistent with there being no
exit wound. They'd put a light powder charge in the gun so that it
wouldn't blow the back of his head off as it would, had it been stock
ammunition. That's why I think it was a professional hit."
A third major finding, in Clarke's opinion, was the role played at the
Fort Marcy Park crime scene by Sgt. Robert Edwards -- a role the FBI and
later the OIC tried to conceal. By carefully going over the statements of
the "firefighters" (emergency medical technicians), paramedics and Park
Police officers, the Knowlton team was able to compile a minute-by-minute
timetable of who arrived when, where they went, what they did, who and
what they saw, and so on.
Comparing the timetable with the witness accounts of the state of the
body, "We found out that the body had been tampered with at Fort Marcy
Park and by whom," said Clarke. "It was Sgt. Edwards. We have flat-out
proved that."
Edwards has long been recognized by Foster-death skeptics as a mystery
man. He was with the Glen Echo Station of the U.S. Park Police, but was
not the shift commander that evening nor was he one of the detectives on
the case.
"I still don't know who he is," said Clarke. "(Investigator John) Rolla
testified he had never seen him before and nobody knew who he was -- but I
don't know if he (Rolla) was right on this because there was never any
follow-up on the depositions.
"But he (Edwards) was definitely assigned to the Glen Echo station,
because I called there and learned he had been transferred to Georgia."
Specifically, Edwards was transferred to the Federal Law Enforcement
Training Center at Glynco, Ga., to serve as an instructor, according to a
statement obtained by WorldNetDaily though a Freedom of Information Act
request in 1997.
Despite his somewhat ambiguous position at the Glen Echo station, at
6:28 p.m. Edwards arrived and took charge of the investigation -- only to
disappear 20 minutes later as quietly as he had arrived. For over 15
minutes he was alone with Foster's body.
It was not his earliest involvement in the case. According to Clarke,
it was Edwards who granted Park Police Officer Kevin Fornshill permission
to respond to the scene, even though Fornshill was on duty guarding the
CIA headquarters which is not far away. Fornshill reportedly had heard the
report on the police radio at 6:05 p.m. of a dead body at the park and
asked leave to attend.
With permission from Edwards, Fornshill left his assigned post and
arrived at Fort Marcy either by unmarked car or scooter (accounts vary),
possibly before the Fairfax County emergency response team four minutes
later. Fornshill told firefighter Todd Hall and paramedic George Gonzalez,
who were among the first arrivals, to go in one direction to look for the
body, while he went in another and discovered it before anyone else.
Here is a synopsis of the following 45 minutes:
Upon finding the body, Fornshill called Hall and Gonzalez over to its
location and radioed word that it was an apparent suicide. Hall noticed a
gun in Foster's hand -- something the civilian who discovered the body, in
later interviews by the FBI, adamantly denied was there.
Clarke recreated the scene for WorldNetDaily: "Fornshill all of a
sudden appears with these two firefighters, he just appears out of
somewhere in the park proper -- not in the parking lot as some people
reported -- he appears in the park, directs the two paramedics to go one
way, he goes the other way and finds the body.
"Then he calls the two paramedics over; they come over; through the
trees Hall sees people running away from the body site; and Fornshill who
was at the body for over 10 minutes, sometimes alone, claims never to have
seen the weapon -- and he radioed it (the death) an apparent suicide."
At 6:17 Officer Franz Ferstl -- the patrol officer on the beat --
arrived and at 6:24 began taping off the scene. Fornshill's supervisor,
Sgt. Edwards, radioed he had arrived, and Fornshill began walking to the
parking lot.
Between 6:24 and 6:29 Ferstl taped off the scene and took seven
Polaroid pictures. Several paramedics and firefighters arrived; they saw
dry blood on the right side of Foster's shirt. Paramedic Richard Arthur
saw a small caliber bullet wound in the right side of the neck, just under
the jaw line. He also noticed a large caliber semi-automatic pistol in
Foster's hand and concluded it didn't match the smaller caliber bullet
hole in the neck.
At 6:25 Richard Arthur and his team returned to the parking lot.
Fornshill, too, had left the body site and met Sgt. Edwards as he was
approaching it. Edwards told Fornshill to return to his post at the CIA.
At 6:26 Edwards arrived at the site while Ferstl was taking pictures.
He asked Ferstl to hand over the seven Polaroids and ordered him to return
to the parking lot. The photos were not inventoried and Edwards never
turned them in as evidence.
From 6:27 until 6:43, Edwards was alone with the body. How did he spend
that time?
According to the Report, "Sometime during the over 15 minutes Sergeant
Edwards was alone with the body, an untraceable .38 caliber black revolver
replaced the automatic pistol in Mr. Foster's hand. Edwards also moved Mr.
Foster's head to the right side, causing blood to flow out of the mouth
onto his right side (and leaving a stain on the right cheek from its
contact with the bloody right shoulder). This made it appear that the
blood already on the right side, which had in fact drained from the right
side neck wound, had come from the mouth. He thus concealed the existence
of the neck wound (inconsistent with suicide), and made it appear as if
Mr. Foster may have been shot in the mouth (consistent with suicide). The
official explanation for the contact blood stain on the right cheek is
that it had appeared when an unknown fire-and-rescue worker checked the
pulse."
Of those witnesses who saw Foster's body before 6:27 p.m.,
investigator Christine Hodakievic was the only one who saw it after
Edwards had been alone with it. Her report addressed the activities in the
parking lot, however, not the appearance of the body at the site. When she
saw photographs of the body later, she said the appearance of the body had
changed from when she saw it.
Park Police officers who were now arriving later reported that Foster's
shirt had fresh wet blood on it as well as the older, dark dried blood the
earlier witnesses had seen. No one recalled seeing bone fragments, brain
matter or an exit wound. Investigator Rolla examined Foster's head and
found only a "mushy spot" near the top of the skull at the back, which
would be consistent with there being a fracture.
Sgt. Edwards disappeared as mysteriously as he arrived. He was observed
taking Polaroids -- which he later reportedly denied. No one knows when he
left, but it was some time around 6:50.
For all his involvement at the scene, there is no public record of his
being interviewed by the FBI or Fiske investigators.
"There's something very strange there," Clarke observed.
Here are some other "very strange" happenings and OIC contradictions
detailed in Knowlton's report:
The cars at the park: Foster's silver-gray 1989 Honda was
allegedly found in the parking lot, though even that isn't certain.
Commented Clarke: "The Park Police describe the car that was found as
silver. Almost everyone else -- including Patrick -- describes it as red,
rust-brown, or brown. We make the point that it really doesn't matter when
Vince Foster's car arrived, if it ever arrived. One theory is it never
arrived -- that they brought it in at night and photographed it there at
night. But I don't know that for sure.
"The point is it wasn't there at 4:30 when Patrick was there and Foster
was presumably dead."
Foster's missing keys: Investigator John Rolla checked Foster's
pockets at the site and found no car keys, though Foster carried two rings
of keys. Later that evening -- following a visit to the morgue by William
Kennedy and Craig Livingstone -- Rolla checked Foster's pockets again and
discovered both key rings.
"We don't know that Livingstone or Kennedy put the keys in his pocket,"
said Clarke. "We know -- and documented -- that those two men were there
at the morgue before Rolla arrived, something the OIC tried to conceal."
The guns at the park: Only two of the witnesses who saw the gun
before Edwards was there remembered what type of gun it was. Said Clarke,
"One of them, (paramedic George) Gonzalez called it a revolver, and
(paramedic Richard) Arthur is 100 percent sure it was a semi-automatic and
even drew a picture of it while under oath. He was adamant about it.
"So it looks like what Arthur saw was a semi-automatic, which is what
the Park Police carry," Clarke observed.
Lack of fingerprints: Foster's fingerprints were on neither the
official gun nor its ammunition. The FBI lab explained that problem away,
saying latent prints could be "destroyed" by the summer heat; however, one
print was found on the pistol grip. Tests showed it did not match Foster's
or the prints of any of the investigators handling the gun. "To this day,
that print still has not been compared to those on file in the FBI
database," the Report charges.
The Autopsy: "The Starr Report hides the fact that the autopsy
began before the police arrived, in violation of the requirements of the
Medical Examiner's Office," observes the Knowlton Report; moreover, the
autopsy was begun a day ahead of schedule and without the two
investigating officers being in attendance.
Originally scheduled for Thursday, July 22, Fairfax County Medical
Examiner Dr. James Beyer, with only an assistant whose name he refused to
divulge, began the autopsy some time before 10 a.m., Wednesday. By the
time investigators did arrive, Beyer had destroyed considerable evidence
about the alleged gunshot in the mouth.
"Prior to our arrival the victim's tongue had been removed as well as
parts of the soft tissue from the pallet," Officer James Morrissette
reported. The OIC carefully omitted Morrisette's sentence from its report,
saying six people attended the autopsy, but neglecting to mention they
weren't all present when Beyer began his work.
Missing X-rays: There are "conflicting reports" explaining the
lack of x-ray evidence: x-rays were taken and readable (but lost); x-rays
were taken but unreadable; the x-ray machine was broken; and that it
worked "sometimes, but not for Mr. Foster's autopsy." Testifying before a
Senate committee in 1994, Dr. Beyer said, "the machine wasn't working --
and I saw no need to take an x-ray."
It's now "up to the American people," said Clarke.
"We've shown a crime was committed. Congress has failed in its
responsibilities and is not going to look at this until enough people know
what happened and start demanding answers. The news media have failed --
they won't look at it because they have so much to lose. And the Office of
Independent Counsel has failed. If word doesn't get out, it means that the
Office of Independent Counsel is infected with the kind of corruption it
is designed to expose and prosecute.
"Now that it's been unsealed the Report will be on the Internet and in
bookstores. But until we get our website finished Accuracy In Media will be taking orders for
it.
"So we're asking the American people to look at this (report), link to
it, print it out -- even sell it -- we don't care," said Clarke. "But it's
up to them to spread the word and get the truth out."
Clarke said he's challenging Americans not to believe him and his
friends -- not personally, that is.
"One of the reasons why this document is so long is we didn't want to
leave it for anybody to read it to believe us," he said. "We're saying
don't believe us. We don't want you to believe us -- just read the
evidence."
Clarke is confident that "No really open-minded reader can walk away
having read this document and think there is no cover-up."
Knowlton's 511-page filing, unsealed yesterday, will soon be
available on the Internet at FBIcover-up.com and can be
ordered now from Accuracy In Media by calling 800-787-4567, ext. 100, from
9 a.m. to 5 p.m., EDT.
Earlier related Stories:
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WEDNESDAY
SEPTEMBER
15
1999
Foster
death report
sees professional 'hit'
Court
unseals 511-page document
charging obstruction of justice
By Sarah
Foster
� 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
A
three-judge federal panel yesterday unsealed a 511-page report, submitted
by Kenneth Starr grand jury witness Patrick Knowlton in June, which -- in
the view of its authors -- presents incontrovertible evidence of
conspiracy and cover-up by the Justice Department and the Office of the
Independent Counsel in connection with their investigations into Vincent
Foster's death and counters the official conclusion that the top White
House official "committed suicide by gunshot in Fort Marcy Park on July
20, 1993."
To clarify this interpretation,
the Report includes an illustration showing the likely position of
Foster's hands.
From page 250 of the Knowlton Report: "Mr. Foster held his
hands with the palms facing the revolver's cylinder -- consistent
with his hands being in a defensive
posture."
� 1999
WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
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