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Dying to Tell: The Mysterious Deaths of Clinton Colleagues
July 6, 1997 -- A quiet Georgetown neighborhood in the nation's capital is stunned by a gangland-style murder at the Starbucks' café. One of the three victims, assistant manager Mary "Caity" Mahoney, an avowed lesbian, had served as an intern at the White House. Was it robbery ... or a hit? November 1996, The U.S. Commerce Department -- The partially nude body of 14-year employee Barbara Wise is found in a fourth floor office following Thanksgiving weekend. "She worked in the same section as John Huang," says Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch. "She was found naked in an office after a long weekend at the Commerce Department. Does one die naked in a government office? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out something's being covered up." District of Columbia police say the Commerce Department death is no mystery at all: the DC medical examiner determined that 48-year-old Barbara Wise died of natural causes. DC homicide detectives refused to talk to CBN News about the Mahoney case, saying the Starbucks murders are still under investigation. But from Arkansas to Washington, DC, unanswered questions surrounding the mysterious deaths of people connected to Bill Clinton continue to cast a cloud over the White House. "I can't think of any other President that this has happened to," says conservative analyst James Dale Davidson. "It may be that we know more about people in the nether reaches of his association than we do about some other Presidents, but I don't think that Jimmy Carter had a lot of associates that died mysteriously." The most notable in the Clinton administration? The deaths of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. Foster's body was found in Ft. Marcy Park in July 1993. Investigators for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr concluded that Foster committed suicide. Davidson is unconvinced. "The fact that the photographs are disappearing, the x-rays were allegedly taken and disappeared, the fact that all the things that you would do if you were trying to cover up and disguise the evidence have been done in this case, where the testimony of the witnesses was changed in the FBI reports -- it doesn't add up," says Davidson. "The Hardy Boys would laugh at this report; it's totally ridiculous." A majority of Americans apparently also have their doubts. A recent poll conducted for the Western Journalism Center by Zogby International found that 68 percent of those polled were either not sure that Foster committed suicide or believe he was murdered. And 77 percent of those questioned would not disagree that a cover-up of Foster's death had taken place. In the death of former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, the former head of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology photography unit, Kathleen Janoski, alleges that evidence of a possible homicide was intentionally destroyed. Brown was on a trade mission to Croatia when his military plane slammed into the side of a mountain. Although military pathologists noticed a possible bullet hole in Brown's skull, no autopsy was ever performed. "Surely he should be given as much attention as any Joe Blow would get if he were on the streets of Washington found dead," says radio talk show host Alan Keyes. "An autopsy would be performed. So, we have a cabinet officer die, and we don't want to do him the courtesy of making sure what the truth is." Nolanda Hill, Brown's former business partner and confidante says that Brown met with the President just days before he was sent on the trade mission to Croatia. She alleges that Brown told the President that he was going to cut a deal with the independent counsel who was investigating him. Hill testified in court that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton decided that Commerce Department trade missions would be used to raise money for the Democratic party. She alleges that business executives were required to pay $50,000 to join the trips. The deaths of Ron Brown and Vince Foster have been the most publicized, but there are others. The internet is abuzz with a long list of the so-called "Whitewater body count." Among those on the list is Victor Raisner, the national finance co-chair for Clinton for President. He died in an airplane crash in July 1992. Then there's Paul Tulley, who was on the Democratic National Committee. He was found dead of unknown causes in his hotel room in September 1992. And then there is John Parnel Walker. An investigator for the RTC, he was looking into the Whitewater scandal. He fell from the top of the Lincoln Towers building. Also on the list:
* Jim Wilhite, former vice chairman of Arkla, Inc., the Arkansas/Louisiana gas company, a friend of President Clinton and a former chief of staff Mac McClarty. He was killed in a 1992 skiing accident.
Coincidence or deliberate? No one really knows for sure, but unanswered questions and incomplete investigations only seem to help perpetuate conspiracy theories. When the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke last January, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton lashed out against the so-called right wing conspiracy. But some of those who fear the capabilities of the Clinton administration are not right-wingers. Take Monica Lewinsky, for example -- she's hardly considered a conservative. Lewinsky reportedly told Linda Tripp that Tripp and her children were in danger if Tripp did not give testimony favorable to the President concerning the Kathleen Willey episode. And Nolanda Hill was a liberal Democratic insider. "She told me and a colleague at Judicial Watch that in her view, based on statements that were made by Brown, Ron believed that this administration was capable of killing people," says Klayman. From sexual misconduct to unexplained deaths, Alan Keyes says all these allegations erode the confidence Americans need in their leaders and institutions. "Liberty cannot survive on lies," he says. "It cannot survive on deceit, and if we tolerate it, then we will lose our liberty for sure." At least in the case of Ron Brown, why aren't Americans aggressively pushing Congress and the Justice Department to get at the truth? James Dale Davidson has a theory: "We're in the point of a hillbilly song, and the line was, 'We really don't want to know.' I really don't want to know. People sometimes shy away from unhappy truths." |