Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 4, 1994 TAG: 9402040190
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The report shows that Nussbaum directed other White House lawyers to sit in on interviews of witnesses, and denied the Park Police access to documents in the office of Vincent Foster as they looked into his death.
Documents the Washington Post obtained, meanwhile, show the Park Police waited until two days after they had ruled Foster's death a suicide to ask federal firearms experts to conduct forensic tests to confirm their conclusion.
The papers show the Park Police waited nearly a month after the July 20 incident to turn over the firearm, a bullet that remained in it and Foster's clothing for examination by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
ATF officials, who marked their findings "sensitive," quickly conducted the tests and concurred with the Park Police conclusion that Foster shot himself with a single .38 caliber bullet to the head.
The documents offer the first glimpse into Park Police procedures followed to investigate the shooting, an inquiry that has come under continuing criticism and whose final results have been kept secret.
Nussbaum, in a series of interviews in recent days, insisted that he acted properly throughout the inquiry, saying that at the time the Park Police never objected to any of his actions.
"I did the proper thing," he said Thursday. "I did the ethical thing." He added that it would have been wrong for him to have let investigators examine Foster's files.
"This was a time of great personal tragedy at the White House, particularly for people who worked closely with Vince Foster," Nussbaum said of the man who was his chief deputy. "Under difficult circumstances, we cooperated fully with all law-enforcement officials, including the Park Police. These criticisms were not raised with us at the time and for very good reason - they are totally unjustified."
The investigators distrusted Nussbaum's account of how Foster's note was found in a briefcase six days after his death. The note, a bitter lament on Washington politics, was discovered by Stephen R. Neuwirth, another Nussbaum aide.
One investigator said he had watched Nussbaum inspect the briefcase earlier without finding the note.
The Park Police report, which has not been made public, does not directly accuse Nussbaum of wrongdoing. Rather, the officials said, it draws a harsh picture of the top White House lawyer trying to restrict the inquiry.
Investigators said Nussbaum's actions hampered them. For example, they believed that having White House lawyers sit in on interviews with other staff members interfered with the effort to obtain candid statements. Nussbaum also defended that decision as proper.
When he screened Foster's office files two days after his death, Nussbaum decided that all of the papers were not relevant to the suicide inquiry. He refused to permit investigators to read a newspaper clipping found in the office. Files about President Clinton's real estate investments in Arkansas were not shown to investigators, but were transferred to Clinton's personal lawyer without being disclosed.
The files about the real estate investment, the Whitewater Land Development Co., have since become the focus of a separate criminal investigation conducted by Robert Fiske, who was named as special counsel. The Whitewater file found in Foster's office was subpoenaed by the Justice Department in December and has been turned over to the authorities.
Overall, the Park Police report adds little to what has previously been known about the suicide itself, finding no evidence of foul play. Foster's body was found in a federal park just across the Potomac River in Virginia, which gave the Park Police jurisdiction over the inquiry into the cause of Foster's death.
Although the report is replete with indications of the investigators' frustration over Nussbaum's efforts, there is no evidence in it that they sought to challenge him and were rebuffed. Instead, the report indicates that they appeared to have acceded to the restrictions placed on them, acting in deference to the authority of the White House and because the case seemed to be a straightforward suicide.
Nussbaum said Thursday that he was baffled at the complaint about White House lawyers sitting in on staff interviews because no one from the Park Police had objected at the time.
Thursday, the Justice Department issued new rules designed to speed up processing of requests for documents like the Foster report. But the rules will not affect timing of the release of the Foster report, officials said.
by CNB