Vince Foster case: The start of FBI politicization?

FPI / August 21, 2022

Former President Donald Trump’s attorney, Christina Bobb, has confirmed what Trump had said last week on Truth Social, that FBI agents had rummaged through Melania Trump’s closet during its raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Bobb told Newsmax that she “wasn’t allowed to observe what they were doing or see really any part of the raid” when the agents went into the former first lady's closet.

“I don’t think anybody just takes the word of the FBI anymore,” Bobb said. “But they seem to be OK with that risk.”

As Americans process "this unprecedented home invasion," they "might wonder what a search of FBI closets could possibly turn up," Lloyd Billingsley wrote in an Aug. 17 report for American Greatness.

"The administration of Bill Clinton is a good place to start looking."

On July 19, 1993, Bill Clinton fired FBI Director William Sessions, who had been appointed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.

"Clinton charged that Sessions used his position to leverage perks," Billingsley noted. "The more likely cause was Sessions’ effort to prevent the politicization of the FBI, then gearing up under the new administration."

Clinton choice to replace Sessions was former FBI agent and federal judge Louis Freeh. According to Clinton, Freeh would be “good for the FBI and tough on criminals.” The nominee proclaimed, “I pledge a total commitment to the FBI, whose only beacon is the rule of law.”

The events of July 20, 1993 marked a turning point in the politicization of America's principal federal law enforcement agency.

As Billingsley notes: ...At approximately 1 p.m., Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster came out of his office with his suit jacket in hand. He told Linda Tripp, an aide to White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, that he left some M&Ms on a tray if she happened to want any. Foster didn’t say where he was going, but as he headed out the door, he told Tripp “I’ll be back.” He wouldn’t.

At approximately 6 p.m. that day, Foster’s body was found in Fort Marcy Park in Virginia. Foster had suffered a gunshot wound to the head, but in one account he was found on a berm near a Civil War cannon in a straight coffin-like position, with the gun still in his hand. That seldom if ever happens in a suicide, the default explanation for Foster’s fate.

Related: Report: Vince Foster files have disappeared from National Archives, August 23, 2016

Accounts differed on where and the position in which Foster’s body had been found, raising the possibility that he had been moved after his death.

"A point-blank gunshot wound to the head leaves an enormous amount of blood, bone and tissue but accounts discussing the position of the body, and photos of the scene, do not reflect that reality," Billingsley wrote. "The bullet was never found, and accounts also differed on the type of gun found in Foster’s hand."

Billingsley continued: "The discharge of a .38, 9mm, .45 or even a .22 pistol would make a loud noise, but a report of a firearm discharge had not prompted a police report or search of the park. The body had been accidentally found by a visitor to the park, who had not heard a gunshot. Accounts also differed on the identity of people in the park that day, and what, exactly, they were doing. These were far from casual matters."

In his book "The Strange Death of Vincent Foster", author Chris Ruddy writes that if Foster had perished by the hand of another he would have been the highest-ranking White House official to be killed since President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Since Foster was a government employee, his death was a public matter.

No suicide note was found at the scene. But as Ruddy notes, the Park Police, the FBI, and the Clinton White House concluded that Foster’s death was a suicide before all the facts were in. As Ruddy showed, the FBI also downplayed any evidence that contradicted official claims.

“The American public has not been told the complete facts of this case,” wrote William Sessions in his cover endorsement of Ruddy's book. According to Sessions, Ruddy raised “serious concerns about the handling of the Foster case,” and “it is legitimate to question the process employed by authorities to make their conclusions.”

The last person to see Foster alive was Tripp, who died in April 2020 at the age of 70.

"Tripp feared retribution from the Clintons, and her book on what she saw at the White House never appeared," Billingsley noted. "In June 2020, William Sessions passed away at the age of 90. During his emeritus years, Sessions issued no further revelations about Vincent Foster."

For Freeh, "it was hardly the only untimely death he was to encounter," Billingsley added.

On Freeh’s watch, Billingsley noted, "the FBI deployed massive military force against the family of U.S. Army veteran Randy Weaver, who had been entrapped by the ATF and branded a 'white separatist.' There must have been something nefarious about Weaver’s skin shade that he did not choose. Living in rural Idaho, a place he thought safe for his family, made Weaver an evil 'separatist,' a choice target for militant action."

Billingsley continued: "On August 22, 1992, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi gunned down Vicki Weaver as she held her infant daughter. Snipers are trained carefully to acquire their targets, but Freeh claimed it was an accident. If so, it is strange that the accident-prone sniper was not discharged, disciplined, or put on leave. In 1993, Freeh’s FBI deployed Horiuchi at Waco, where 77 perished, including 26 children."

Agent Larry Potts was censured for his performance at Ruby Ridge, but Freeh still recommended Potts for deputy director of the FBI, claiming he was “superbly qualified” for the post.

That, Billingsley notes, "casts doubt on Freeh’s claim that the FBI’s only beacon is the rule of law. Current FBI boss Christopher Wray, never an FBI agent, also calls that into question."

Billingsley continued:

"The FBI now conducts surprise heavily armed raids at dawn, with friendly media in tow, such as the action against Roger Stone. In similar style, an FBI squad slapped handcuffs and leg irons on Trump advisor Peter Navarro, 72 at the time, for the crime of defying a congressional subpoena.

"Last November, the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid on investigative journalist James O’Keefe of Project Veritas, all over a diary that had belonged to Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley. O’Keefe told reporters the FBI made him stand handcuffed, in his underwear, as a squad of FBI agents, one carrying a battering ram, searched for his phones."

And, on Aug. 8, the FBI deployed some 30 agents to Mar-a-Lago to search Trump's residence, including Melania Trump's closet.

"In light of such abuses, the FBI claim of upholding the Constitution seems something of a stretch," Billingsley noted.

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