....Mr. Knowlton, who lives just eight blocks from the White House, alleges there was a conspiracy to obstruct justice with regard to the investigation of Foster's death and, Mr. Knowlton, we have you back on the line. You were driving home from your job at a construction site in Maryland when you got caught in traffic and had to stop at the park to urinate.
Patrick Knowlton: That's correct, as embarrassing as it sounds, that's correct. But please let me get one thing straight, I came from Maryland back to the District of Columbia and then left the District of Columbia towards Virginia so I didn't leave Maryland directly for Virginia, I came to the District first.
Bob Grant: Okay, so let's establish very clearly that you just happened to stumble on to this: you weren't looking for anything.
Patrick Knowlton: Absolutely not. I went into the park to find a tree, actually, and I ended up coming across a brown Honda with Arkansas plates that was parked right next to the footpath going into Fort Marcy Park, the park itself. About four spaces down to the right hand side was parked, back then, a bluish gray Japanese car and as I pulled up, I noticed that the brown car with the Arkansas plates, there was no one seated in it. To the right as I got up closer I noticed there was someone in the bluish gray car so I just naturally pulled closer to the brown car. As I parked the car, I looked to my right, the guy in the bluish gray car lowered his window and gave me this very uneasy kind of stare. It was a little fierce looking like I was interfering with something he had going on so that sort of made me a little nervous. But nature called so I got out of the car and walked around the brown Honda with the Arkansas plates and I heard the car door open, this guy's car door open so I sort of stopped thinking maybe he was going to mug me or ask me for money. I wasn't really sure because he seemed so suspect. I stood looking at the sign for a minute, minute and a half, and I looked back over my shoulder and I saw the man was just leaning on the roof of his car, standing outside it and just staring at me so I waited nearly 30 seconds, I just jotted up into the woods to the left in the opposite direction in which Vince Foster's body was found.
On my way back down, which was about two minutes later, I heard the car door close so I wasn't sure if this guy was in his car, out of his car, like I say he acted very suspicious so my awareness was heightened and I approached the parking lot looking to hear where this guy was, thinking maybe to cross between my car and the brown car with Arkansas plates, something like that. I walked right toward the driver's door of this brown Honda with Arkansas plates; as I did, I noticed the contents inside the vehicle. Now there was a dark suit jacket draped over a driver's seat, a briefcase on the passenger's seat, in the back there was two wine coolers. I walked back around, got into my car, I looked back over to my right to where his car was parked, the man had his window down, he was continuing to give me this stare. I just started my car and got out of there, that was pretty much it.
The following evening when I heard on the news that Vince Foster was dead, was found in the park the day before at six o'clock, I realized that I had been there and I thought "God I saw Vince Foster's car and the briefcase and all that" so I called my girlfriend and asked her if I should call the Park Police and get involved. She said "Well yeah, you should, but, you know, first take some notes." So I took some notes about what I had observed and I called the Park Police.
I talked with some woman for about ten minutes and then she told me she was the wrong person to talk to and told me she'd have someone call me back at 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning. Well the next morning, nobody called me and I had to leave about 7:30; I was going to work a little bit later that day. So at 7:30, I called back the Park Police, I talked to Sergeant Rolla and relayed the same message, the same story to him and that was it, until nine months later I was contacted by the FBI, Robert Fiske independent counsel.
Agent Larry Monroe called me and asked me if I would mind coming in to talk to him about what I had observed at Fort Marcy Park, which I did. I went in there. Most of the purpose of the conversation, which was two and half hours was about the vehicle I had seen -- a little about the man, but more about the vehicle.
Well, I told the whole story once again and what they really wanted me to do ... they had some pictures of the car and they wanted me to say "Yes, this is the car that I saw in Fort Marcy Park." But the pictures of the car they were showing me was not the car that I had seen there from Arkansas and after that I had a second interview, I went over to the [?] Laboratories at the FBI, pulled out color panels that matched the exact color of the car I had seen at Fort Marcy Park, ended up being color panels from a 1983 and a 1984 Honda Accord .
At that point one of the lab technicians that was there said to this Agent Larry Monroe. "Well geez, you know, how many Arkansas cars could there be with this color Honda? Why don't you just run all those cars through the DMV?" And Agent Monroe turned to him and said very curtly "Don't you worry. We're on top of this." And he dragged me out of the FBI office.
But before we go on to say any more, the first interview with Agent Monroe after he had made me go over this car over and over and over again. When I was getting ready to leave, he said to me, "Mr. Knowlton, I can tell you are a kind man and the Foster family has suffered, I can't tell you not to, but I'm going to ask you not to go to the press and tell them this story."
Bob Grant: WHAT ??!!
Patrick Knowlton: Well, I didn't. I believed I was doing the right thing, by first of all telling them what I saw and secondly by doing as they asked. So I didn't go to the press. And that is why nobody knows much about my story until late, until October 22nd, actually October 14, when Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from the London Sunday Telegraph contacted me and got this whole thing rolling. Do you have any questions before I go on or ...
Bob Grant: Well, you know this must be very frustrating for you because you stumbled on the scene, you saw what you saw, and there are people that want to discredit you from the very beginning. Now, I want to know about the charge of tampering, that the FBI tampered with your testimony? Tell us about that.
Patrick Knowlton: I'll let John Clarke tell you about that.
John Clarke: Yeah Bob, after his story surfaced, after Mr. Knowlton's story surfaced, this journalist from the London paper interviewed him and showed him the FBI reports that he had not previously seen and Patrick looked at them and said "That is not what I said, this thing has a number of lies, very important lies, in it."
So this journalist wrote a article in the London Sunday Telegraph which is published there on October 22, 1995, it was available in US newsstands on October 24, two days later, that's Tuesday October 24. And that same day, a subpoena was prepared with Mr. Knowlton's name on it to testify the following Wednesday, November 1.
But they didn't serve it that day, they didn't give him the subpoena. They gave him the subpoena on Thursday October 26, and beginning that same day that he received the subpoena, he was the target of a well-orchestrated, overwhelming campaign of harassment and intimidation perpetrated by not fewer than 25 men on the streets of Washington. It's just a absolutely bizarre story and we have, I have, consulted with a number of experts, former intelligence people and also people who are currently in the intelligence community, and they said "Oh yeah, sure, we know all about this tactic."
Bob Grant: All right, Mr. Clarke and Mr. Knowlton, please stay there gentlemen, want to get right back to you right here. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you are paying close attention to the information being provided by Mr. Knowlton and his attorney John Clarke. Right here on the Bob Grant Show....
Bob Grant: All right ladies and gentlemen I want you to know Patrick J. Knowlton, he's about 41, 42 years old, he's been self-employed for most of his adult life in the construction industry. He's a stable individual. He has lived in Washington, DC since he moved to that city in 1990 from his native Syracuse, NY. He is, by the way, a registered Democrat, he has no political agenda.
It was on July 20, 1993, the day Vincent Foster died, that Patrick Knowlton was in Fort Marcy Park for five minutes. We have on the line Mr. Knowlton and his attorney, John Clarke. Now Mr. Clarke, the details are absolutely fascinating but I want to get to the point of the problems that the FBI has given your client and the tampering charge. Where does this tampering charge go from here? And the reason I ask this question at this time is: The American people know so little, as a matter of fact, I think they know nothing, about Patrick J. Knowlton. What is your reaction to that?
John Clarke: Well Bob ,to briefly recap what happened, they tried to get him, the FBI tried to get him, to obtain an admission from him among other things that the car that he saw parked in the same spot where Vincent Foster's car was later found could have been Mr. Foster's and the circumstances of Patrick pulling in, he just happened to know what he saw and he refused to say that it could have been the car they were showing photographs of, it just couldn't have been, it just wasn't.
So, having failed to obtain that admission, they falsified the reports in a number of ways. One of the more significant ones is that they said that Patrick identified this as a, quote, 1988 to 1989 Honda. That is not correct, that is a lie. He didn't. In fact, we know that he picked out two car color panels, both of which, of the same color, one a 1983, the other a 1984 Honda. So that's pretty clear. And then what happened was the story surfaced in the press, then he was subpoenaed and then he was harassed on the streets of Washington and it's just a bizarre ...
Bob Grant: What do you mean he was harassed on the streets of Washington?
John Clarke: Well, the first man -- he was taking a walk, a routine walk with his girlfriend. The first man gave him a lock-eyed stare from 20, 30 feet away and continued to stare him down as they approached, as they passed, and even after they passed. Five seconds later the next man repeated the actions of the first man and then about 20 seconds later was number three and this went on and on, and on and on. It's hard to describe just how overwhelming this sort of thing is. But I will tell you when they were on one side of Connecticut Avenue in Washington, it's a six lane street at this point, they crossed the six lanes to try to escape from the sixth, seventh and eighth man who were following them and staring at them.
They got half way across the intersection and there was the ninth man waiting on the opposite street corner for them. That ninth man repeated again this following and staring. This ninth guy followed them for blocks at one point walking three feet abreast of the two of them all the while continuing to give this sort of mean stare right into Patrick's eyes, totally ignoring his girlfriend Cathy.
Now as I was saying before the break, we have consulted with a number of experts about this tactic and they each have told us independently of one another that they are familiar with the tactic and what it does is that it sends the witness a message saying "You messed up when you told that journalist that the FBI falsified reports, now change your tune and don't say it again and certainly don't say it when you are before the Grand Jury."
And all of these experts, again, independently of one another have told us that these people who are guilty of this obstruction of justice don't care whether or not the witness heeds that warning; they don't care whether or not he goes forward and continues to tell the truth. And the reason that they don't care is because nobody will believe them.
Every time Patrick Knowlton left his apartment during a three day period, there were men out standing on the street corner, repeating this same harassment technique. And what it sounds like is that he is a little bit unbalanced. I mean, who's going to believe somebody who says there are strange men on every street corner staring at him and that's exactly what happened. He was not believed. He was discredited.
And for the last year now we have been fighting for his credibility. He took a lie detector test given by the chief polygraph examiner, former, for the FBI, for nine years. We sent him to a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, we collected affidavits of the other witnesses -- sworn statements -- and we put it altogether in a big report, and including the photographs of two of these harassers.
And another thing I might add, [unclear] on the falsification of the reports. One of the things that Patrick saw in the back of this Honda was two wine coolers. Now that was not public information -- the connection of wine coolers to Vincent Foster -- until 1994. But Patrick -- it being a sort of interesting story -- he told his friends and his family; he even told the story at a few cocktail parties. He told many, many people about what he saw in the Honda. We have their affidavits and they say: "Yeah, Patrick Knowlton told me he saw wine coolers in the back of his Honda." Well, there were wine cooler traces found on Mr. Foster's body. The first witness to discover the body said there was a half-empty wine cooler at his feet, so we've got 'em. He couldn't have made this story up.
Bob Grant: Mr. Clarke, when we return, I want to ascertain where you go from here, because I know that your client did testify before the Whitewater Grand Jury, I believe on Wednesday November 1st, 1995. And I want to know what is next, because Kenneth Starr certainly has got to pay attention to what your client has to say, and if he doesn't I will become even more suspicious. We'll get back to John H. Clarke and Patrick Knowlton in just a moment....
Bob Grant: All right, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, we can't go into the detail I would like to. I do ask you Mr. Clarke what we can expect because, let me tell you, I've talked to Mr. Pritchard, I've talked to Chris Ruddy, I've talked to some other people and it's just an outrage that this information is being suppressed. How can you get this out to the people the way they should know, and how about any further appearances before Mr. Starr's committee?
Patrick Knowlton: Well, I just want to say something about yesterday's press conference. We had CNN, CBS, NBC, CBN, COX, Time Magazine, Washington Post, the New York Times, LA Times. There were over 30 reporters there. This story, this law suit, never made the national news last night. We don't know why.
Bob Grant: Well, that's why I asked you the question I did, because I know you had the press conference and I looked all over my New York Times this morning and I couldn't find one word written about it.
John Clarke: That's right, Bob. It did go over the Associated Press wire on Monday night. Of course, not the press conference, but the story and the law suit. What we did was, we filed the law suit on October 25, under seal of court, so as not to be public information until after the Presidential election. We thought that would be another strike against us, by way of fighting for our credibility, if we followed the election in public. So in any event, it was unsealed yesterday and it alleges conspiracy to obstruct justice by harassing a witness in an effort to get him to change his testimony.
Bob Grant: If it weren't for John Crudele, hardly anybody in the tri-state area, in the New York area, would know about the unsealing of the suit.
Patrick Knowlton: We thank John for that story. Absolutely.
John Clarke: In any event, you asked me what happens next. Well this case, that is the civil rights violation --
Bob Grant: Oh, we've just been grabbed by the clock. Thank you, gentlemen.