Posted on 04/12/2014 3:36:36 PM PDT by Timber Rattler
The chairman of the Senate committee investigating the Whitewater affair today ruled out calling Hillary Rodham Clinton as a witness unless strong evidence emerged of her involvement in the mishandling of papers from the office of a White House aide who committed suicide two years ago.
(snip)
The committee today began what will be weeks of intensive questioning of White House aides about whether Mrs. Clinton, in advance of investigators, had told officials to remove papers from the office of Vincent W. Foster Jr., her close friend and former law partner who was the deputy White House counsel at the time he killed himself on July 20, 1993.
(snip)
The committee also focused today on Mr. Foster's office trash. Members questioned Sylvia Mathews, a former White House aide, in laborious detail about what she had found in Mr. Foster's garbage on the night he died. Other than a few routine documents, the garbage contained nothing that shed light on Mr. Foster's thinking, said Ms. Mathews, who is now chief of staff at the Treasury Department.
Republicans on the committee found it significant, however, that Ms. Mathews had also managed to retrieve a special bag of garbage containing classified and sensitive papers that was usually destroyed by the Secret Service. The contents of that bag were never examined by anyone to see if Mr. Foster had left anything in it that might shed light on his state of mind.
Ms. Mathews said that she got the bag from the Secret Service and began looking briefly through it, when she discovered that it contained all of the classified garbage from the West Wing.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Under questioning, Sylvia Mathews and her colleagues denied impeding a police investigation into Fosters death after his body was found in a northern Virginia park. According to the New York Times, Mathews testified in laborious detail about what she had found in Mr. Fosters garbage on the night he died.
Finding 3.
Senior White House officials ignored repeated requests by law enforcement officials to seal Mr. Foster’s office on the night of his death.
Nine different persons recalled four separate requests to White House officials to seal Vincent Foster’s office on the evening of July 20. Park Police investigator Sergeant Cheryl Braun testified that, as she left the Foster residence, she asked Assistant to the President David Watkins to seal Mr. Foster’s office.(973) Detective John Rolla expressly corroborated her testimony.(974) Park Police Major Robert Hines testified that he called and asked another senior White House official, Bill Burton, to seal Mr. Foster’s office.(975) Another White House official, Sylvia Mathews, testified that she overheard Mr. Burton’s conversation with the Park Police(976) and that right after the telephone call, Mr. Burton asked Counsel to the President Bernard Nussbaum to seal the office.(977)
Counselor to the President David Gergen testified that he asked Director of Communications Mark Gearan whether Mr. Foster’s office was sealed.(978) Mr. Gearan then asked Mr. Burton, who assured Mr. Gearan that the office had been sealed.(979) Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell testified that both his wife and Marsha Scott remembered him calling Chief of Staff Mack McLarty on the night of Mr. Foster’s death to ask that Mr. Foster’s office be sealed.(980) All the persons who received these requests to seal Mr. Foster’s office denied having been asked to do so.
Mr. Watkins was the critical person in the failure to seal Mr. Foster’s office on the night of his death. He received a specific request from the Park Police to seal Mr. Foster’s office. Instead of doing so, he directed his assistant, Patsy Thomasson, to search the office. Mr. Watkins was intimately involved, along with Mr. Foster, in firing the career Travel Office staff and in the apparent subsequent cover up before investigators. In a memorandum drafted in the Fall of 1993, Mr. Watkins described in detail Mr. Foster’s and Mrs. Clinton’s role in the Travelgate affair. He wrote that “Foster regularly informed me that the First Lady was concerned and desired action — the action desired was the firing of the Travel Office staff.”(981) The memorandum also revealed that, right before the firing of the Travel Office staff, White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty met with Mr. Watkins and Ms. Thomasson and explained that the issue was on Mrs. Clinton’s “radar screen” and that “immediate action must be taken.”(982) At all times, however, the White House had maintained that Mrs. Clinton was not involved in the Travel Office matter; Mrs. Clinton and numerous other White House officials had made public statements that she had “no role” in the firing of the staff. Mr. Watkins’ knowledge of Mrs. Clinton’s true involvement in Travelgate, efforts by White House officials to conceal that involvement, and Mr. Foster’s direct role in both the firing and the cover-up provides an obvious and powerful motive to violate the instructions of the Park Police to seal Mr. Foster’s office. Instead, Mr. Watkins directed his trusted assistant, Patsy Thomasson, to search Mr. Foster’s office.
https://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/WW/white6.html
* Former White House aide Sylvia Mathews said former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum had told her to go ahead and burn the contents of a White House “burn bag” after Foster’s death. She said Nussbaum, who lost his job over the Whitewater affair, had told her the documents were not Foster’s
because he did not have a “burn bag.” But it was never clearly established at the hearing whether some papers in that bag belonged to Foster.
“Burwell was the person Hillbilly had go through Vince Fosters office after he was suicided.”
Thanks. I didn’t remember she was the one who did that.
This is bizarre beyond bizarre.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
.
Ping.
.
” - - - strong evidence emerged of her involvement in the mishandling of papers from the office of a White House aide - - -”
Duh, does the 20 yr. +/- possession of secret FBI Files by Mrs Bill Clinton qualify as strong evidence?
Nice catch, Timber Rattler.
Bernie Nussbaum lawyer and Clinton stooge blocked FBI from going through Fosters office until he could sanitize it
If you keep your mouth shut and do a cover-up for the Clintons or Obamas, you WILL be rewarded with being able to LIVE and get a better GOVERNMENT JOB!!
My whole life changed when I clicked on “Whitewater” on Drudge back then!!
Nice catch there Timber... is the FBI* looking into this or are they still checking out Tea Party grandmothers?
It's good to know they tried...
Back then she was just a nameless functionary. But her service and personal loyalty has been rewarded.
Could you please add me to your ping list?
Thanks
Rockpile
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.