I haven't read the book, but Klein was interviewed on KSFO this week and was astonished that host Lee Rodgers had READ the book instead of the press kit the publishers send out.
Apparently the book is quite different from the promos by the publisher--which is interesting in itself.
One of the differences is that Klein never says that Hillary is/was a lesbian as all the hype implies, such false hype giving sympathy to Hillary. He does say that she was exposed to gay/lesbian politics at Wellesley and saw a useful political lever. What Klein actually wrote is that Hillary is pretty much not interested in sex, more of an ice queen.
When Lee asked him about the well supported story of an affair between Foster and her, Klein said the only way he can believe it is if she was taking advantage of Foster's unhappiness in his marriage in order to keep him close and devoted and thus continue to be the trusted enforcer.
*Remember back very early on when Linda Tripp said that when she accessed Foster's computer a password requirement demand appeared on the screen along with a title about tainted blood. I can't remember exactly how all that occurred, but I bet T'wit can.
It's got a lot of inside information never seen before.
It also makes me all the more furious at Newt for giving her credibility on the health care issue.
She needs to be gone from our public lives. The sooner, the better. She's evil and does great harm to this country.
OK, but it is indeed from memory!
Tripp took a phone call shortly after Foster's death from a caller she wouldn't name, who said that the matter Foster was distressed about was something about contaminated blood. The call came directly to the White House legal office instead of through the White House switchboard, so the caller was clearly close to Foster. Tripp was subbing for Foster's secretary Deborah Gorham during lunch hour, as was usual. When she tried to reference the matter on Gorham's computer, she ran into a locked file with password protection.
The computer was later removed and the files lost. Gorham might know what was in those files. I don't think she was ever asked.
Tripp and two of her conservative friends know who the caller was but declined to identify him. We bloodhounds were more than a little interested in his identity (and still are). Now that time has passed, I hope one of these three people will tell us who the caller was.
Foster was known to be involved in the Arkansas tainted blood story. He was thought to be a bag man for the scheme. At one point he personally visited BLOOD TRAIL author Michael Galster and offered him a deal to help squelch an inmate lawsuit. Galster refused, despite a threat from Foster that he would never work for the state again. Thus, we can conclude that Foster not acting as a private attorney but as a representative of Clinton and the state.
What it all adds up to, speculatively, is that Foster may have been ready to blow the whistle on the tainted blood scam due to then-breaking news that many people in Canada were contracting Hepatitis C and AIDS from that blood. There is reason to think the Arkansas gang in the White House tried desperately to talk him out of it just before he died. And failed. The last of these efforts was apparently a summons to the White House Monday evening, July 19th. Foster wouldn't go. The next day he ended up dead in Fort Marcy Park.
As an intriguing added mystery, I found a routine wire story reporting that on Monday, July 19th, Hillary Clinton, who was in California pitching her health care plan, abruptly cancelled all of her California events for the week without explanation. Did she know something was going to happen?? She was on a plane to Little Rock the next day when Foster's body was found, and within hours was directing her staff in the White House to ransack Foster's office and remove his files. What evidence she succeeded in destroying by this, we will never know.
THE TAINTED BLOOD MYSTERY
New York Post September 25, 1998
By Maggie Gallagher
Can I tell you a little story? I warn you, I don't know how it ends yet. Maybe I never will.
Once upon a time - in fact a day or two after Vince Foster died - a man called the White House Counsel's Office. "This was not a line that kooks typically rang us up on," my source told me. Lunatics call the main office number. This guy called one of Vince's assistants directly.
The man said he had some information that might be important. Something had upset Vince Foster greatly just days before he died. Some thing about "tainted blood" that both Vince Foster and President Clinton knew about, this man said.
"I'm only telling you this now because Vince Foster was very distressed about this only days before his death," the mysterious caller (whose name I am withholding) said. "I'm not saying this caused his suicide. I'm only saying it might have contributed to his distress and I thought someone should know."
The White House Counsel's office didn't pay much attention. "Probably a kook," they agreed around the office.
Probably.
Except that when his computer name was typed into the computer log of phone calls for Vince, something strange happened. The computer flashed "password required" or some such phrase indicating a special code was needed to open that file. "Aw, probably just a computer glitch," Bernie Nussbaum, then chief White House Counsel, said at the time. And so the matter, as far as I know, was dropped.
A strange little memory fragment, meaningless in itself, no? Until last week, when a story published in The Ottawa Citizen suddenly jogged it front and center.
"HIV BLOOD CAME FROM ARKANSAS JAIL," the head line screamed. Then, The Ottawa Citizen reports, "A U.S. firm with links to President Clinton collected HIV- tainted blood from Arkansas prison inmates in the 1980's and shipped it to Canada, newly uncovered documents reveal... It is like several hundred, perhaps thousands, were infected by the tainted products."
Seems the now defunct Health Management Associates, heade by an FOB named Leonard Dunn (who served as head of the Finance Committee in Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial election campaign, for instance) how a contract to offer medical care to and sell blood from Arkansas prisoners.
By 1985 the AIDS crisis made it impossible to sell prisoners' blood in the United States or most other places. HMA found one willing blood broker in Montreal who retailed it to another Canadian company who didn't know it came from prisoners. Bingo! A few hundred Canadians infected with an incurable deadly disease.
The Citizen says it has copies of internal Arkansas documents from police, who at this time were investigating rumors: Clinton appointees to the prison board had demanded bribes in exchange for renewing HMA's contract with the state of Arkansas in 1985.
The matter was dropped after investigators decided to accept the prison board's explanation: Bill Clinton had been very concerned about reports of inadequate medical care; a mysterious $25,000 payment was actually a legitimate fee to obtain the services of an "ombudsman" for the prisoners, though no letter of agreement or other documentation could be found. According to the state trooper's note, HMA chief Leonard Dunn went out of his way to boast to them that he was a "friend of Gov. Clinton."
Coincidence? Or a piece of the puzzle we didn't even know was there? I don't know.
One thing I do know, Mr. Name Withheld, the conscientious guy who tried to inform the authorities about Vince Foster's distress over "tainted blood", your message didn't get through. If you contact me [here she gave her e-mail address], I'll try to bring it to their attention.