[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 112 (Friday, August 12, 1994)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [Congressional Record: August 12, 1994] From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] WHATEVER IT IS, BILL CLINTON PROBABLY DID IT ______ HON. ANDREW JACOBS, JR. of indiana in the house of representatives Friday, August 12, 1994 Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Speaker, I insert the following article from the U.S. News & World Report, August 8, 1994 edition. It should be noted that the politics of personal attack is, in its essence, character assassination. Character assassination like physical assassination can be effective, that is, it can destroy if someone is willing to stoop to it. One more conspiracy for the Merchants of Venom to contemplate: who slipped in that commandment on Moses, the one that says, ``Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.'' Violent and destructive words are akin to violent and destructive deeds. They will inspire violence on the part of others. Here is how Kipling said it: . . . And sure it keeps their honor clean The learned court believes They never gave a piece of plate To murderers or thieves They never told the ramping crowd To card a woman's hide They never marked a man for death What fault of theirs he died? They only said intimidate And talked and went their way By God, the boys who did the work Were better men than they. [From the U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 8, 1994] Whatever it is, Bill Clinton Likely Did It (By Greg Ferguson and David Bowermaster) Sitting in a cozy parlor and wearing a red cardigan, Larry Nichols looks into the camera like an earnest Mr. Rogers and tells of ``countless people who mysteriously died'' after having run-ins with Bill Clinton. Nichols, an Arkansas state employee fired in 1988 for making hundreds of calls to the Nicaraguan Contras from his office, says it's all part of Clinton's ``evil society.'' So goes ``Bill Clinton's Circle of Power,'' a video made earlier this year by Citizens for Honest Government, a California-based conservative group headed by television producer Pat Matrisciana. The video is filled with dark suggestions that as president and governor, Clinton was connected to the murders and beatings of several people, including political opponents. The Rev. Jerry Falwell promoted the video during a month of TV infomercials, and it has sold more than 100,000 copies, according to its makers. They hope its sequel, ``The Clinton Chronicles,'' which repeats the charges at greater length, might outsell the first, even without Falwell's help. Beyond last week's congressional Whitewater hearings and the ferment over Paula Corbin Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit, attacks against Clinton have taken a decidedly sinister turn. Televangelists, conservative talk-show hosts, political opponents and some computer bulletin-board aficionados are suggesting that Clinton could be tied to dozens of deaths, from a pneumonia case in Delaware to three of the four federal agents killed in the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. weird era Even at a time of great national anxiety and confusion, the intense, fecund and often bizarre charges leveled against Clinton are startling. He has unusually high negative ratings in many polls, but even that fails to explain fully the extreme nature of the charges leveled at him. ``These attacks have reached a level of inventive and viciousness that is unparalleled,'' complained White House counsel Lloyd Cutler during last week's Whitewater hearings. ``There are a great many people who would like to bring President Clinton down who will stop at practically nothing.'' No episode seems beyond Clinton's reach in the world of conspiracy buffs. A Wall Street Journal editorial in March chastised the ``respectable press'' for showing ``little-to- no appetite for publishing anything about sex and violence'' in Whitewater-related matters. It proceeded to report that while working on a story for the New Republic about incestuous relationships between business leaders and politicos in Arkansas, writer L.J. Davis opened the door to his Little Rock hotel room and remembered next awakening face down on the floor with a hefty bump on his head and ``significant'' pages of his notes missing. The implication was that some sinister elements had tired to quash Davis' piece. But Davis soon admitted drinking at least four martinis that night. No pages were missing from his notebook, and he had no idea how he ended up on the floor. ``I certainly wasn't about to conclude that somebody cracked me on the head,'' Davis said at the time. Even the most serious charges are characterized by serious deficiencies in corroborating evidence. In a letter to congressional leaders, former Rep. William Dannemeyer lists 24 people with some connection to Clinton who have died ``under other than natural circumstances'' and calls for hearings on the matter. On Dannemeyer's list is James Wilhite, a friend of White House adviser Thomas ``Mack'' McLarty who suffered fatal head injuries in December 1992 when he skied into a tree in Colorado. Clinton was nowhere near the scene. Dannemeyer also mentions Paul Tully, a chain- smoking, overweight Democratic strategist who, according to Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Charles Holladay and the Pulaski County coroner's report, died of a heart attack in 1992. Next is Jon Walker, an administrator in the Resolution Trust Corp. office probing Madison Guaranty; Walker died last year when he jumped from Northern Virginia apartment building. Tom Bell, a detective with the Arlington, Va., police says Walker was a ``particularly clear case of suicide because there was a witness.'' Others on the Dannemeyer list are more curious but completely lack evidence implicating Clinton. In March, a plane piloted by 72-year-old Herschel Friday, head of a prestigious Little Rock law firm, crashed on approach to a private runway near Friday's home. Friday served on Clinton's presidential campaign finance committee, and his widow, Beth, says the Clintons were ``good friends.'' However, rumors about a link between Whitewater and Friday's death began circulating soon after the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board has not issued its final report on the crash, but so far investigators have given the family no indication the plane had mechanical problems. Mrs. Friday is confident her husband's death was ``purely an accident.'' Dannemeyer admits that Clinton may have had no involvement in Friday's death and some of the others, but he insists that the ``number goes beyond coincidence.'' He says he merely wants them investigated. the clinton body count Dannemeyer's list of ``suspicious deaths'' is taken largely from one compiled by Linda Thompson. She is an Indianapolis lawyer who in 1993 quit her one-year-old general practice to run her American Justice Federation, a for-profit group that promotes pro-gun causes and various conspiracy theories through a shortwave radio program, a computer bulletin board and sales of its newsletter and videos. Her list, called ``The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence or the Kiss of Death?'' and updated biweekly, now contains 34 names of people she believes died suspiciously and who had ties to the Clinton family. Thompson admits she has ``no direct evidence'' of Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were probably caused by ``people trying to control the president'' but refuses to say who they were. Thompson says her allegations of murder ``seem groundless only because the mainstream media haven't done enough digging.'' Earlier this year, Thompson released two videotapes and a folksy music video purporting to show that the February 1993 shootout in Waco, Texas, was a conspiracy in which three agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were ``executed'' in the Branch Davidian's armory by their own men because of what they might have witnessed as Clinton's bodyguards. Though the men did help the Secret Service guard Clinton a few times, the Treasury Department's report in the Waco standoff refutes the charge: ``Contrary to some publicly disseminated accounts, none of the agents that entered the armory was killed.'' According to the report, the men were killed in different locations around the compound. ATF spokesman Les Stanford says, ``Her videos are replete with falsehood and errors.'' Of the ``suspicious deaths'' listed by Thompson and endorsed by Dannemeyer, many victims have only the most tenuous ties to Clinton--four members of Marine Helicopter Squadron One, for example. The unit is responsible for transporting the president. The four marines died in May 1993 when the Blackhawk helicopter they had taken out for a maintenance-evaluation flight crashed. According to a Marine spokesman, Chief Warrant Officer Robert Jenks, faulty installation of a spindle pin allowed the helicopter's engines to produce too much power until an overspeed protection device shut them down. There was no evidence of sabotage. Clinton had set foot in the aircraft on only one occasion, two months before, when he traveled from the White House to the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Thompson concedes, ``I don't know what Clinton's motive was.'' But she speculates that they ``could have been privy to information about Clinton's plan for Bosnia.'' foster's death The starting place for all Clinton murder theorists seems to be Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel whose death last year unleashed a torrent of speculation. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robinson, Rush Limbaugh and others have suggested that Foster was probably murdered. On the anniversary of Foster's death, July 20, Foster's family made a public appeal to end the speculation. The death has been ruled a suicide in two separate investigations. Foster's family says they fully accept that verdict. That hasn't stopped Clinton's attackers, however. Many have dismissed the report by Whitewater investigator Robert Fiske Jr., a former U.S. attorney for New York under Presidents Ford and Carter and highly respected private attorney, calling Foster's death a suicide. In rejecting more macabre theories about Foster, these critics say, Fiske--a Republican--was simply doing Clinton's bidding. ``Fiske was appointed by Janet Reno at the suggestion of Bernard Nussbaum,'' says Falwell. ``It's like putting Hillary Clinton in there.'' Testifying last week before Congress, Nussbaum said he never mentioned Fiske or anyone else to Reno as a potential special counsel. There are other suicides that the conspiracy buffs tie to Clinton. In May, Sherwood, Ark., police officer Bill Shelton found his live-in girlfriend, Kathy Ferguson, slumped on the couch in his apartment, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A month later, Shelton was found on Ferguson's grave, a bullet hole through his head, a gun by his side and a suicide note in his truck. Less than a week before Ferguson's death, her ex-husband, Danny, was named as a codefendant in Paula Jones's lawsuit against the president. Rumors began swirling that her death-- and later Shelton's--was tied to the president's alleged infidelities. But police have found no reason to think so. The relationship between Ferguson and Shelton had reportedly fallen on hard times, and Ferguson's daughter told police her mother had been upset about a note from Shelton. The only people hinting at ties to Bill Clinton are in the media, police say. ``It's like they want me to say something [about a connection],'' says Sherwood Police Department spokesman Ray Snider. ``It was suicide, period.'' Luther ``Jerry'' Parks's death last September is almost as disputed as Foster's. Indeed, Parks's case is the only murder on Dannemeyer's list that law enforcement authorities do not consider solved. Parks's security company guarded Clinton's campaign headquarters in 1992. His son, Gary, asserts in both ``Circle of Power'' and ``The Clinton Chronicles'' that his father collected a secret file of the president's alleged indiscretions. Shortly before the elder Parks was shot to death while driving his car, Gary says, the file was stolen. Lieutenant Holladay says there is no evidence of such a file, nor any evidence that Clinton had anything to do with Parks's death. Gary, he says, ``is grasping at straws. We have found his allegations to be baseless.'' Jerry Parks reportedly had many enemies after he was fired from two Arkansas police departments and after a bitter falling out with a business partner. Still, Larry Nichols says he is helping Gary Parks bring a wrongful death suit against ``someone close to Clinton who doesn't have presidential immunity.'' One recent death is that of Stanley Huggins, who died in June. In 1987, Huggins examined the loan practices of the thrift, Madison Guaranty, at the center of the Whitewater storm. His 400-gage report has never been made public. But Dr. Richard Callery, Delaware's top medical examiner, says Huggins died of viral myocarditis and bronchial pneumonia. Lt. Joel Ivory of the University of Delaware police says his ``exhaustive'' investigation of Huggins's death turned up ``no sign at all of foul play.'' The flood of accusations shows no sign of abating. And to all conspiracy buffs, official sources are suspect. Falwell asks how the Arkansas police could investigate the deaths: ``The police in Arkansas brought Clinton's girlfriends to him.'' He also says that guilty or innocent, Clinton encourages suspicion: ``He's trying to get the courts to postpone his sex harassment suit. If he gets by with that, O.J. Simpson should run for president.'' ____________________