Posted on 12/03/2003 7:20:43 PM PST by Happy2BMe
From Bill Mears
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) --Supreme Court justices sharply grilled a lawyer Wednesday who wants access to 10 police photos taken when the body of Clinton White House lawyer Vince Foster was discovered in 1993.
Several government investigations concluded Foster killed himself, but conspiracy theories persist that he was murdered as a part of a government conspiracy.
In a case with legal, political and personal implications, the court will decide whether the public's right to access graphic evidence related to a closed government investigation outweighs a family's right to privacy.
The Justice Department is fighting a lower-court order to release four of the photos under the Freedom of Information Act.
The law allows the media and individuals to receive unclassified records the government would not normally release. Its "personal privacy" exemption does not specifically cover surviving family members.
"I can think of no higher public interest than what's being argued here," attorney Allan Favish, who wants access to the photos, told the justices. "I think the government can no longer be trusted to filter the raw evidence to the public in this case."
Favish said the government made numerous mistakes in its handling of Foster's death, and he believes the withheld photos will help prove his conspiracy theory.
Several justices challenged Favish questioning why his request trumps the Foster family's desire for privacy.
"There is a long-standing tradition of respect for the dead, for the survivors," said Justice Stephen Breyer. "It is something so deep in human nature."
Justice David Souter said there is a fundamental "right to be left alone." He indicated the Foster family's interest falls under the concept of privacy, and that they should not have to be "assaulted by having these photographs published."
Favish said it is up to Congress, not the courts, to give surviving family members specific privacy rights.
The Bush administration supports the Foster family. Government lawyer Patricia Millett told the court the photos represent "highly sensitive, highly personal information, with limited investigative use."
Millett argued FOIA and other public records laws require "not maximum disclosure, but responsible disclosure."
She said Favish had not demonstrated "clear evidence" of misconduct in the Foster investigation that would show a "compelling public interest" for releasing the photos.
Doing so would not "directly advance the public knowledge of the government's activities and operations," she said.
Attorney James Hamilton, representing Foster's widow and sister, said releasing the photos would be "an unconscionable invasion of the family's privacy."
"It's been 10 years. It's time to give this family some peace," he said.
Foster was a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and had served barely six months as the president's deputy White House counsel when he was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in a Washington area park in July 1993.
An extensive investigation by independent counsel Kenneth Starr's office concluded Foster, 48, shot himself because he was suffering from depression and had felt frustrated by the pressures of his job.
Several other investigations concluded the same thing, as did Foster's widow, Lisa.
But some people still believe Foster, a former law partner of Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, was killed in a White House cover-up.
He had been handling several private legal matters for the Clintons at the time of his suicide. A file on the Clintons' controversial Whitewater real estate investment was later found in Foster's White House office.
A lower court ordered the release of a handful of photographs of the area where Foster died, but the order is on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court appeal. The court deemed the other pictures too graphic for release.
Favish, of Santa Clarita, California, claims 10 of the unreleased photos could offer clues about Foster's death, and contends the pictures are not gruesome since they do not show Foster's face or wounds.
His legal claim is supported by a number of media ethics organizations, who worry the government may use privacy concerns to block public access to a wealth of relevant declassified information.
Favish once worked for the conservative Judicial Watch, which filed a number of lawsuits against the Clinton administration. He denies a political motive.
The federal government wants the court to offer legal clarification on exactly when the press and private individuals can make use of the Freedom of Information Act.
Among those filing a brief supporting the government is the widow of race car legend Dale Earnhardt.
Teresa Earnhardt has been fighting attempts by some media organizations to allow public release of autopsy photos taken after the racer's horrific death at the Daytona 500 in February 2001.
The Supreme Court has never dealt with the issue of whether surviving family members can exercise privacy rights in such cases. (More background)
But other federal courts blocked release of files on Martin Luther King Jr.'s private life, and of audiotapes of the space shuttle Challenger crew moments before it exploded in 1986.
Lower courts have split on the Favish case. A ruling is expected by June.
The case is Office of Independent Counsel v. Favish (02-0954).
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories, Regnery, 1997, specifically: Part Two: Vince Foster and "The Most Ethical Administration in the History of the Republic", Chapters 8-16, pages 111-251.
Christopher Ruddy, The Strange Death of Vincent Foster: An Investigation, Free Press Div. of Simon & Schuster, 1997.
It is of note that Chris Wallace devoted considerable effort on his CBS 60 Minutes program to discredit Christopher Ruddy.
Wallace used 300-400 edits to reduce hours of interviews with Ruddy into a twenty-minute hatchet job in which Ruddy is not seen to utter a complete sentence.
Of further note is Wallace's use of Gerald Posner to attack Ruddy without opportunity for Ruddy to respond.
Marsha Scott had a closed-door meeting with Foster shortly before his death. Scott had had a sexual affair with Bill Clinton, and had assisted Hillary Clinton with the White House Database (WHO) and It Takes a Village. Suzi Hubbell told husband Webb on prison phone tape how scared she was of Marsha, that Marsha spoke for Hillary.
Foster was only depressed after his death, just as he only had his Honda keys after Craig Livingstone and Bernie Nussbaum took them to him at the morgue. Just as he only had his car after it was driven to the park. Just as he only had the gun after it was placed in his hand.
Lisa Foster's lawyer wasn't a "Foster family lawyer"--James Hamilton was the attorney for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. An internal White House memo describes him more accurately as a lawyer performing a "surrogate role" for the White House. He was in fact hired by Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell to handle the fallout from the death.
Hamilton had befriended Hillary Clinton and Bernie Nussbaum while serving as Assistant Chief Counsel on the Senate Watergate committee from 1973 to 1974.
The coroner cut out the soft palate, suppressing forensic evidence of a gunshot wound in the area.
Crime scene witness Patrick Knowlton was subject to orchestrated harrassment by two dozen men.
Starr investigator Miquel Rodriguez pursued the enhancement of the crime scene polaroids through the Smithsonian's photo service. His efforts resulted in compelling evidence of a small-caliber point-blank wound under Foster's right jaw.
Jerry Parks, who provided security for the 1992 Clinton campaign, was publicly executed in Little Rock shortly after Foster's death. Parks' widow and son relate he was on a case with Foster on behalf of Hillary to explore Bill's vulnerability to sexual blackmail.
Parks' house was searched by FBI and IRS officers, and his computers and photographic evidence taken.
Miquel Rodriguez was subject to a classic D.C. "death by a thousand cuts", resulting in his resignation under protest.
James Moody received an appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1995 to the federal bench in the Eastern District of Arkansas.
James Moody and Lisa Foster were married January 1, 1996.
Moody's son Neil was killed August 26, 1996. One account says he'd found something odd in his step-mother's belongings, was promising a blockbuster to a columnist, was last seen arguing in the front seat of a car when it suddenly accelerated into a wall, killing Neil.
Can there be Freedom of Information for a free people in a free society if the powerful wish to conceal the machinations reinforcing their power?
The actions of the powerful to conceal photos casting light on a suspicious death can only be viewed as. . .suspicious.
"The actions of the powerful to conceal photos casting light on a suspicious death can only be viewed as. . .suspicious."
Thanks very much for those "jewels" on Vince.
It is mind boggling to me why Ashcroft won't release the photos (or does he not have the authority?).
I saw a list several years ago of the total number of the Clinton's close associates who died under mysterious circumstances during their 8-year reign of terror.
The best I remember, there were over 100 names on it. One was a colonel in the Arkansas State police.
Thanks again for the jewels.
Are you sure it wasn't an SUV? They have a mind of their own and tend to turn on their drivers.
Probably, by thinking that she has protected her children from a similar fate.
ML/NJ
http://www.ardemgaz.com/ShowStoryTemplate.asp?Path=ArDemocrat/2003/12/04&ID=Ar00104
One of the things that plays through my mind regarding Foster is Debra Von Trapp's account which has Robert Goetzman (sp?) calling after the hit and claiming that "Foster went entrepreneurial." (Perhaps selling Promis to the Arabs whose embassy was across the street from where his body was found.)
See...I feel bad for Foster. I think his romantic sappiness for Hillary blinded him as to whom he was dealing with.
She sure as hell did,that is an undeniable fact. Christopher Ruddy's 2 books on this Murder are phenomenal reading.The stupidity of the incompetent Park Police, who were beyond "incapable" of handling a Murder investigation, is astounding and the dumping of Vince Fosters body in Ft. Marcy Park was an act of sheer genious by people who knew they would be "ineffective" at best.
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