Final Days II

The Washington Times says the National Security Agency has uncovered a large number of documents relating to Vincent Foster, although less than the 700 claimed by the newsletter Strategic Investment. SI previously reported that the NSA had turned down a freedom of information request for the documents on national security grounds. This, the newsletter indicated, suggested that Foster's death was linked to "highly sensitive national security." The NSA says many of the documents are just news clippings about Foster that it has collected. In either case, however, the news suggests that the agency is maintaining intelligence files on American citizens -- something it has no business doing. SI incidentally included among its editorial resources the late William Colby.

Thanks to the AP, the mysteries of the Foster case have received rare straight-forward corporatist media attention. A story by Pete Yost lists numerous anomalies concerning Foster's death and bluntly states in its lead that "Foster's whereabouts in the hours before he died remain a mystery. The time of death is unknown." Among the remaining questions and problems:

• The police scene photos were underexposed and mostly useless.
• Two county rescue workers recalled seeing bullet wounds on Foster's neck and face but the official report cites only a wound in the back of the head.
• There is no evidence the gun allegedly used was ever in Foster's possession.
• The so-called suicide note was declared a forgery by several handwriting experts -- although others have challenged this conclusion.

In any event, it appears certain that the White House knew about Foster's death considerably earlier than it has admitted.

A rose by any other name: A Little Rock loan officer has told the Senate Whitewater committee that he provided an unsecured $20,000 loan to Bill Clinton in 1978 because he was an "up and coming" politician. "Emissaries" from the bank's owner asked him to grant the loan. Don Denton admitted that the loan was not "an acceptable banking practice." Further the loan was not paid off in a timely fashion but that nothing was done about it because it was a "policy" loan. The loan was finally paid off in the mid-eighties.

We have previously noted the lack of attention given to the Senate testimony of Clinton friend and convicted cocaine distributor Dan Lasater. Now Insight magazine points out that the New York Times failed even to cover the hearing and that Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post accused the Republicans of "pursuing one of the remotest tangents of the Whitewater inquiry." This about a man who not only paid off Roger Clinton's drug debt but whose firm earned about $1.6 million in fees from the state's notorious development agency.