Clinton Military Tribunal: Day 3
On Tuesday Vice Adm. John G. Hannink, who is prosecuting the military’s case against Hillary Clinton at Guantanamo Bay, brought up the decades-old death of Vince Foster, a former colleague of Clinton’s at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, who came to D.C. as part of a cabal of Arkansas loyalists who joined the Clinton administration.
Then-President Bill Clinton had appointed Foster Deputy White House Counsel, tasking him with vetting administration officials. But Foster had a string of failures. Clinton’s first two picks for attorney general had to withdraw because they had hired illegal immigrants, and Foster got mired in a scandal involving the firing of several of the Clinton’s friends in the White House Travel Office.
On July 20, 1993, Foster was found dead at Fort Mercy Park in Virginia, with three gunshot wounds to the back of his head. An official investigation ruled his death a suicide, suggesting Foster took his life because he had disappointed Bill and Hillary.
“What she did to Seth Rich, she did to Vince Foster. There is no statute of limitations on murder,” Vice Adm. Hannink told the panel of three officers.
From a manila envelope Hannink emptied a piece of paper that had been shredded and reassembled with scotch tape.
“This was Vince Foster’s alleged resignation letter, which an official inquiry into his death called a suicide note. There’s a problem, though. The handwriting is not Vince Foster’s. It’s a clever forgery. The military had four handwriting analysis experts compare it to known samples of Foster’s penmanship. All four found subtle nuances proving Foster had not written it,” Vice Adm. Hannink said.
Then he slid another sheet of paper from the envelope, saying he couldn’t reveal its original source but that forensic experts had authenticated the handwriting as belonging to Vince Foster. The letter, he said, was discovered shortly after Foster’s murder and kept hidden in a bank safety deposit box until President Donald J. Trump mysteriously obtained it in August 2017.
Part of the letter read: “If anything happens to me, I hope this letter will be found. To be perfectly clear, I am not suicidal, and should I turn up missing or dead, look no further than Hillary and President Bill Clinton. They know I know. In June last year (1992) Hillary, who is really in charge of what’s going on, embezzled $23,000,000 from the Department of Veteran Affairs and deposited it, spread across their many undisclosed bank accounts, many offshore. I made the mistake of asking my “friends” for a thin slice of that cake. I ought to have known better. They are as greedy as they are evil. I’m not sure my promise of keeping silent will be good enough. I hope I’m wrong.”
Donald J. Trump, Vice Adm. Hannink told the tribunal, sat on the letter because he wanted to give the military time to build an ironclad case against Clinton, even though Trump had hinted at Foster’s murder during his presidency.
Clinton Military Tribunal: Day 3
Indeed, Trump had voiced an opinion. In 2017, Trump said Foster may have been murdered because he had “intimate knowledge of what was going on” and that Hillary Clinton may have played a role in Foster’s death. Trump also noted that Vince “knew everything that was going on, and then all of a sudden he committed suicide.” The circumstances surrounding Foster’s Death, Trump observed, were “very fishy” and the theories about foul play “very possible.”
“President Trump wanted to nab Clinton right away but was wise enough to hold off until we completed our investigation. Guess what? We obtained the Department of Veteran Affairs records of that year and, after much scrutinizing, found a $23,000,000 discrepancy, just as Foster claimed. We cannot prove where that money went. OMB records say it was repurposed for ‘miscellaneous procurement expenses.’ Whatever that gibberish means,” Vice Adm. Hannink said.
He asked Clinton if she had anything to say, but, as she has throughout the tribunal, she smirked and refused to speak.
“Well, someone has something to say,” Vice Adm. Hannink said, casting a menacing glare in Clinton’s direction.
Bernard William Nussbaum, an American attorney best known for having served as White House Counsel under President Bill Clinton, joined the proceedings via videoconference.
“Mr. Nussbaum, will you tell this tribunal exactly what you told me when you were deposed,” Vice Adm. Hannink said.
“I’m an old man, an old man with too many secrets and too many regrets. On June 14, 1993, I overheard Hillary Clinton tell the White House Staff Secretary, John Podesta at the time, that something needed to be done about Vince Foster because he had become a grave threat to both her and Bill. A bit over a month later, of course, he was found dead,” Nussbaum said.
“And your memory is clear on this?” Vice Adm. Hannink asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. It’s been ingrained in my memory since I heard it,” Nussbaum replied.
Vice Adm. Hannink presented his argument to the tribunal—that Clinton ordered Foster’s death because he either was blackmailing her or was simply a loose end that needed tidying up. Clinton, he contended, was likely responsible for hundreds or even thousands of deaths.
“But it’s not your job to convict her for all those, which would take a lifetime to fully investigate. You need to decide guilt on one, just one of these charges, to guarantee this detainee life, or what she has left of it, in prison or capital punishment. Conspiracy to commit murder or treason, any will do,” Vice Adm. Hannink said.
He added more would come and put the tribunal on hiatus until Wednesday afternoon.
Clinton Military Tribunal: Day 3