News Desk
Independent counsel Ken Starr concluded Hillary Clinton did trigger White House Counsel Vince Foster’s suicide, but he omitted it from his report to avoid inflicting “pain” on her, according to investigative reporter and author Ron Kessler.
A Writing in Britain’s Daily Mail, he said Starr “purposefully left out the finding that Hillary Clinton had ‘triggered’ the suicide of President Clinton’s Deputy White House Counsel in his final FBI report to spare her feelings.”
“FBI agents investigating the death of Vince Foster learned he was set off after Hillary attacked and humiliated him in front of other White House aides a week before he took his own life on July 20, 1993,” Kessler wrote.
He said Starr “elected to conceal the FBI’s finding that Hillary’s tirade triggered Foster’s suicide when he wrote his final report on the matter.”
At a reception for authors participating in the 2019 Annapolis Book Festival last weekend, I asked Starr why he omitted the damaging FBI finding,” Kessler wrote. “At first, he beat around the bush, citing well-established facts indicating that Foster was already depressed before Hillary lashed into him at the White House meeting. But when pressed, Starr admitted he ‘did not want to inflict further pain’ on Hillary by revealing that her humiliation of Foster a week before he took his own life pushed him over the edge.”
The Foster death investigation was done for Starr’s overall review of the Clinton’s Whitewater investment scandal.
Kessler wrote: “In interviewing Clinton White House aides and Foster’s friends and family, the FBI agents found that a week before Foster’s death, Hillary as First Lady held a meeting at the White House with Foster and other top aides to discuss her proposed health care legislation. She told him he didn’t get the picture, and he would always be a little hick town lawyer who was obviously not ready for the big time.”
Further, she “ridiculed him in front of his peers,” Kessler said.
“During the White House meeting, Hillary continued to humiliate Foster mercilessly, [two] former FBI agents said.”
Former FBI agent Jim Clemente, according to Kessler, said, “Foster was profoundly depressed, but Hillary lambasting him was the final straw because she publicly embarrassed him in front of others.”
Kessler claimed Foster’s behavior changed “dramatically” after the meeting.
Foster left the White House parking lot at 1.10 p.m. on that day. Secret Service was notified about 8:30 p.m. after park police found his body.
“No one can explain a suicide in rational terms. But the FBI investigation concluded that it was Hillary’s vilification of Foster in front of other White House aides — coming on top of his ongoing depression — that triggered the White House official’s suicide about a week later, Copeland and Clemente both say,” Kessler reported.
However, that fact was not mentioned in Starr’s 38,000-word report.
