Posted on 06/24/2002 11:39:33 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
A federal appeals court has ruled that six of 10 Polaroid photographs taken of White House counsel Vince Foster's body as he lay dead from an apparent gunshot wound in Fort Marcy Park nearly a decade ago remain secret.
The ruling, handed down June 4 by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, partially affirmed an earlier U.S. district court ruling Jan. 11, 2001. The lower court ordered five of the photos to be released to attorney Allan J. Favish, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request more than two years ago with the Office of Independent Counsel in Washington, D.C., to get all 10 photos released to the public.
However, citing survivors' privacy rights, both courts refused to allow the other photos which more clearly show Foster's face to be released to the public. The appeals court ordered that the fifth photo described as "VF's body looking down from top of berm" also be withheld.
The photos remain in the government's custody.
Barring government appeals, the four photos to be released are described as: "VF's body focusing on rt. side shoulder/arm"; "right hand showing gun and thumb in guard"; "VF's body focusing on right side and arm"; and "VF's body focus on top of head through heavy foliage."
Photos six through 10 that the courts have ordered withheld are described as: "VF's body focusing on face"; "VF's body taken from below feet"; "VF's body focus on head and upper torso"; "VF's face looking directly down into face"; "VF's face taken from right side focusing on face and blood on shoulder."
Favish says that last photo is particularly at issue, because an earlier published report claimed the existence of a neck wound on Foster's body that contradicts an FBI memo written two days after the deputy counsel's death.
Following an autopsy of Foster's body by the Fairfax County (Va.) Medical Examiner's office, "preliminary results include the finding that a .38-caliber revolver, constructed from two different weapons, was fired [into] the victim's mouth with no exit wound," the FBI report said.
The California attorney filed his original request for the photographs in a bid to learn whether Foster, who was found dead July 20, 1993 just six months after President Bill Clinton took office was truly a victim of suicide, as the government contends, or whether he was murdered and dumped in the park, as some witnesses and independent researchers believe.
"As you know, there is a controversy over whether one of these photos shows that neck wound which, officially, does not exist," said Favish.
On July 12, 2000, the Ninth Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling regarding the release of the Polaroids, said that "Favish, in fact, tenders evidence and argument which, if believed, would justify his doubts" about the official government conclusion that Foster committed suicide in the park.
It was unclear whether Favish was planning another appeal.
His legacy to America is Free Republic. Many of us came here to discuss this very significant event in American History.
He did not suicide. He was murdered. Why?? we don't know.
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
WASHINGTON - Who did Vincent Foster and Webster Hubbell meet the weekend before Foster's death in July 1993? Nathan Landow.
Landow, a real estate mogul, has been a Democratic party power broker for decades. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter nominated him for an ambassadorship to the Netherlands, but Landow withdrew in the wake of press reports linking him to organized crime figures.
Landow has been thrust front and center in the current Zippergate scandal involving President Bill Clinton. Press reports say Kathleen Willey, who dramatically told "60 Minutes" her story of an improper sexual advance by the president, alleges Landow pressured her to keep quiet about the matter. Willey alleges Landow last fall had her flown on a chartered jet to his coastal estate in Easton, Md., where he requested that she simply deny anything improper had taken place.
Landow, while acknowledging he met Willey at his estate, has denied he tried to persuade her not to tell the truth.
This is not the first time Landow's close ties to the Clinton White House have come under press scrutiny.
A year ago, the Washington Post reported that Landow and Peter Knight, another confidant of Vice President Al Gore, had pressured two Indian tribes to pay lobbying fees to them in the tribes' efforts to regain lands from the federal government.
The Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt also reported that Landow had sought to involve Webster Hubbell, then under investigation in the Whitewater case, in a money-making real estate deal.
Starr's office has been investigating whether Clinton administration supporters swayed contracts and fees to Hubbell in order to buy his silence during Starr's Whitewater probe.
In a letter to the Journal dated March 20, 1997, Landow denied Hunt's report. "I barely know Mr. Hubbell and have never had a discussion with him concerning business of any kind, nor have I participated in any group that has done so," Landow declared.
Landow's letter didn't mention at least one contact with Hubbell. Hubbell, Foster and their wives spent part of the weekend before Foster's death at Landow's Maryland estate, along with Landow's daughter and son-in-law, Harolyn and Michael Cardozo.
Foster's widow, Lisa, told FBI investigators probing his death that the weekend trip was nothing more than a rare opportunity for the couple to take a break. In fact, it was their first weekend together since Foster moved to Washington, and going into it the pair had no set agenda and no plans to see the Hubbells.
The Fosters received a call from Hubbell's wife that Saturday inviting them to join the Cardozos at Landow's house.
The Fosters did so, and Hubbell initially described the weekend to the FBI as not having anything to do with Foster's concerns about White House matters. "Foster spent his time reading the paper, boating, hitting some golf balls and being introduced to eating fresh crab," Hubbell's 1994 statement to the FBI reads.
The Fosters' invitation seems to have been hastily arranged.
On Saturday morning, Hubbell was at the Justice Department for a meeting with Attorney General Janet Reno, White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum and FBI Director William Sessions. Reno, Hubbell and Nussbaum demanded that Sessions resign as FBI director; he refused to do so.
After the meeting, Hubbell and his wife left for the Maryland shore and arrived there during the mid-afternoon. Apparently, one of the Hubbells' first orders of business upon beginning their belated weekend was to call Foster.
Their invitation probably didn't spring from loneliness. The Hubbells already had the company of the Cardozos and Landow himself.
Cardozo, a Washington lawyer and power broker in his own right, later went on to head up Clinton's first legal defense fund.
Hubbell later told a Senate committee and wrote in his book, "Friends in High Places," that the weekend getaway occurred while administration colleagues were concerned about Foster, the deputy White House counsel.
Hubbell testified at the Senate hearing that Foster feared his phones were tapped. In Maryland, Foster indicated to Hubbell that "we really need to talk" but suggested they do so in a "park somewhere" when they returned to Washington.
Hubbell also acknowledged that upon arriving at the White House the Monday after the weekend he first reported to Chief of Staff Mac McLarty. According to Hubbell, McLarty's first queries were about Foster. "A lot of us are worried about Vince," Hubbell quoted McLarty as saying.
Hubbell and the official reports of Foster's death remain fuzzy as to why White House officials including McLarty were so concerned about Foster, especially after he told Hubbell he had an enjoyable weekend.
Independent Counsel Robert Fiske and Starr, his successor, developed detailed reports on Foster's state of mind and the factors they concluded led to his death in Fort Marcy Park.
There is no public record that they interviewed the Cardozos or Landow about Foster's last weekend to ascertain whether the get-together had any hidden purpose. - -
FBI agents seized a file containing and memoranda spelling out a proposed $85 million deal involving Bagley and Landow... [It] was not the only gambling venture in which Nesline had been involved with Landow... Involved in the St. Marten venture were Landow and Edward Cellini, a brother of Dino Cellini, a former associate of organized crime figure Meyer Lansky...
In November... [t]he party at [the] Landow home was observed by Montgomery County plainclothesmen, who took down license plate numbers of guests' cars. Officers of the county's organized crime section have had Landow under surveillance for nearly a year. They learned from Florida police that Landow had an interest in a now defunct corporation whose concealed owners allegedly included an identified member of the Carlo Gambino Mafia "family."
Secret Service agents who were at the party to protect the president's son, questioned the Montgomery County plainclothesmen who explained their interest in Landow.
Vincent Foster Death Investigation, 1993-? -- The day after Sessions is fired, Clinton friend and White House aide Vincent Foster is killed.
Landow says he considers Willey a friend of the family, and did fly Willey to his estate on the eastern shore of Maryland for a two-day stay.
But Landow told CNN it was Willey, not anyone at the White House, who asked him to do that, and he denies trying to influence her testimony.
does anybody remember the fibbers admitting the was no exit wound before?
Interesting catch, that's the first time I have read that there was no exit wound.
D. Search for Bullet
During the Park Police, Fiske, and OIC investigations, searches were conducted of Fort Marcy Park for the bullet that caused Mr. Foster's death.
On July 22, 1993, four Park Police personnel (Hill, Johnson, Rule, and Morrissette) searched with a metal detector the immediate area where the body was found. Their search for the bullet was unsuccessful.
Investigators in Mr. Fiske's Office conducted a search in the area where Mr. Foster's body was found. Their search for the bullet fired from Mr. Foster's gun was unsuccessful.
With the assistance of Dr. Lee, the National Park Service, and a large number of investigators, the OIC organized a broader search of Fort Marcy Park for the fatal bullet. The search was led by Richard K. Graham, an expert in crime scene metal detection. The search plan was devised utilizing information obtained through ballistics tests performed by the Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland.
Neither could I. And why was Congress silent on the violation of the law they passed esatblishing the term for the Director of the FBI?
I would simply say that if some day, new evidence arose that re-opened the Vince Foster case (like maybe Fuhrman's upcoming book) and it turns out that Foster WAS indeed murdered, then every court and judge that ruled these polaroids be kept secret will be seen, and mentioned in the history books, as being part of the government-orchestrated coverup.
Just a thought.
If there was no exit wound from the head, then maybe there was a search for the bullet related to the possible neck wound.
The neck wound would explain why the photos are not being released.
Branson was Big on that for a while. Strangely enough, the records in the Sec. State system became "invisible". But Hard Copies exist elsewhere :-)
...Which is probably why that photo wasn't released. I hope Favish appeals.
Guess we'll never know because they are both conveniently dead. Like sooooo many others who turned coat on the Clintons.
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