Kenneth Starr's Attempt
To Snooker Lisa Foster
In a violent and supposedly
unattended death by gunshot, it is crucial to establish that the decedent
owned or had possession of the gun found with the body so as to rule out
foul play and prove the death was not a homicide. Lack of any
evidence to show that the decedent owned or had possession of the gun found
at the scene would be a strong indicator that a suicide by gunshot
may have been staged to cover up a homicide.
During the course of
the four year long investigation into the death of White House Counsel
Vince Foster, investigators have unsuccessfully attempted to show that
Foster owned or had possession of the gun found with him.
Exhibit
3 of Knowlton Portion of the official report on the Foster death
(click
for larger view)
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One of the more bizarre
attempts to link the gun to Foster is documented in the Knowlton portion
of the official report (the portion of the report that Kenneth Starr unsuccessfully
attempted to suppress). These documents show that the FBI asked Mrs.
Foster to identify a different gun than the one found at the death scene
while telling her that the gun was the one found with Foster.
Not only did Starr
fail to explain or even mention this, his investigators repeated
the stunt. Starr's investigators asked Mrs. Foster to identify a
different gun than the one found at the death scene.
Details follow.
Early Evening,
July 20, 1993
Foster Is Found
Dead In Fort Marcy Park
Photograph
of black gun in Foster's hand, leaked to ABC News March 11, 1994
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In the early evening of
July 20th, 1993, White House Counsel Vince Foster was found dead deep in
Fort Marcy Park Va.
Foster was found with
a black gun in his hand. The gun was made from two other guns, which
is a typical configuration of "drop guns" left at staged suicides.
The fact that the gun had no fingerprints, nor blood on it made it all
the more imperative to establish a link between Mr. Foster and the gun
found with him so as to rule out foul play.
Foster's
Silver Gun Is Discovered Missing ...
On the night of the death,
Mrs. Foster discovered that a silver colored gun was missing from the Foster
home. Starr describes this, in rather tortured language [page 80-81]:
Mrs. Lisa Foster similarly recalls
that her husband took possession of several handguns from his parents'
house near the time of his father's death.[233] She recalled that,
after they moved to Washington in 1993, some guns were kept in a bedroom
closet.[234] She recalled what she described as a silver-colored
gun[235] (she also referred to it as a "cowboy gun"[236]), which had been
packed in Little Rock and unpacked in Washington. She also recalled
a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. She said she found one gun in
its usual location on July 20, 1993,[237] the .45 caliber semi-automatic
pistol.[238] She did not find the other gun on or after July 20,
1993.[239]
What Starr is saying is
this:
Mrs. Foster
recalled that two guns were at the Foster residence in Washington D.C.:
a silver colored gun and a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol.
After Foster's death,
Mrs. Foster looked for the guns and found only the .45 caliber semi-automatic
pistol, the silver colored was missing.
The silver gun is still
missing.
The Park
Police Visit Mrs. Foster
Scan
of handwritten note of Mrs. Fosters interview with the Park Police
(click
for larger view)
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Nine days after Foster
was found in Fort Marcy Park with a black gun in his dead hand, the
Park Police visited Mrs. Foster.
The Park Police showed
Mrs. Foster a photograph of the black gun found with Foster and asked her
if she could identify it as having been owned by the family.
Mrs. Foster could not
identify the gun.
Mrs. Foster told the
Park Police that she expected that the gun would be a "Silver, six gun"
with a "large barrel".
In light of the fact
that Mrs. Foster had discovered the silver gun missing from the Foster
home on the night of the death, it is not at all surprising that she would
have expected the gun found with Foster to be silver.
The FBI Visits Mrs.
Foster
Photograph
of the black gun recovered from Foster's hand, released in response to
an FOIA by Allan Favish
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On May 9, 1994, ten months
after Mrs. Foster told the Park Police that she expected the gun to be
silver, Mrs. Foster was interviewed by the FBI.
During the interview,
the FBI showed Mrs. Foster a gun which the interviewing agents represented
as being the gun recovered from the death scene.
During the interview,
Mrs. Foster described the gun shown her as being "silver-colored".
The typed interview
report of Lisa Foster's interview says (emphasis added):
LISA
FOSTER believes that the gun found at Fort Marcy Park may be the
silver gun which she brought up with her other
belongings when she permanently moved to Washington.
Handwritten
notes of Mrs. Foster's FBI interview of 5/9/94, where Mrs. Foster said
the gun she unpacked in Washington was silver
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The handwritten report
of the interview confirms that Lisa Foster said that the gun she brought
with her other belongings from Little Rock was silver.
So ...
-
Foster is found with a
black gun in his hand.
-
The night of the death,
a silver-colored gun is discovered missing from the Foster home.
-
Nine days after the death,
the Park Police ask Mrs. Foster to identify the black gun found with Foster.
Mrs. Foster cannot identify the gun and says she expected the gun to be
silver-colored.
-
Ten months after Mrs.
Foster tells the Park Police that she expected the gun to be silver-colored,
the FBI interviews Mrs. Foster and shows her a gun; during this interview,
Mrs. Foster describes this gun as being silver.
Something is amiss here.
Let's see how Robert
Fiske dealt with this problem ...
Robert Fiske
Lies By Omission
In his report on the Foster
death, Fiske cited the FBI interview with Lisa Foster.
However, Fiske omitted
the fact that Lisa described the gun the FBI showed her as silver-colored;
Fiske omitted the fact that Lisa Foster had told the FBI that she believed
the gun that the FBI was showing her, was the silver gun she brought from
Little Rock.
Fiske simply omitted
all references to the gun color [Fiske report, page 38):
Lisa
Foster stated that the gun looked similar to one that she had seen in their
home in Arkansas and that she had brought to Washington. Foster had packed
a trunk prior to going to Washington but did not take the trunk with him.
When Lisa Foster "repacked" the trunk for her own move to Washington in
June, she saw the gun and brought it with the rest of her belongings.
There you have it -- Fiske
dealt with the problem by simply omitting the troublesome fact that Lisa
Foster described the gun that the FBI showed her as being silver, when
the official death gun is black.
Fiske's lie by omission
makes it appear as though Mrs. Foster identified the gun, when in fact
she did not do so.
Moreover, Fiske ignored
the fact that the FBI showed Mrs. Foster a silver gun.
Starr Tries Again .
.
Excerpt
of Page 81, 82 of Starr Report
(click
for larger view)
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Not only did Starr fail
to explain why Robert Fiske lied by omission, Starr appears to have repeated
the stunt.
Starr tells us that
in November of 1995 his investigators again showed Mrs. Foster a gun and
told her that it was the gun recovered from Mr. Foster's hand. Starr
then reports that Mrs. Foster again said the gun being shown to her was
the gun that she unpacked in Washington. Here
is how Kenneth Starr worded his report of Mrs. Foster's gun identification
[Starr Report on Foster death, p 81]:
She
[Mrs. Foster] stated to the OIC in November 1995, when viewing the gun
recovered from Mr. Foster's hand, that it was the gun she unpacked in Washington
but had not subsequently found,[242] although she said she seemed to remember
the front of the gun looking lighter in color when she saw it during the
move to Washington.[243]
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Handwritten
notes of Mrs. Foster's FBI interview of 5/9/94, where Mrs. Foster said
the gun she unpacked in Washington was silver
|
The problem here, of course,
is that Mrs. Foster said in May of 1994 that the gun she unpacked in Washington
was silver.
To make his report
conform to the facts, Kenneth Starr would have had to resort to gibberish:
She
[Mrs. Foster] stated to the OIC in November 1995, when viewing the [black]
gun recovered from Mr. Foster's hand, that it was the [silver]
gun she unpacked in Washington but had not subsequently found,[242] although
she said she seemed to remember the front of the [black]
gun looking lighter in color when she saw it during the move to Washington
[when the gun was silver-colored].[243]
Instead of investigating
why the FBI asked Mrs. Foster to identify the wrong gun, instead of explaining
why Fiske lied by omission in his report and instead of setting the record
straight, Starr's investigators repeated Fiske's stunt.
Starr attempted a slight
of hand and wrote his report to make it sound as though Lisa Foster recognized
the gun that Starr's investigators showed her on November 8th, 1995.
To get away with this, Starr was forced to remove any reference to the
color of the gun.
Bizarre isn't it?
jc
huntington
11/98
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