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RUSH: Yeah, I did play up -- not the fact that Foster was murdered -- I played up what was being said by others and what was going around and I played up the climate because it all fit in. This was '93. This was Clinton's first year. Vince Foster died in July. As I say, I won't forget it because I was in Israel at the time when we got the news. So, couldn't let that stand from last week, with all this attention to the Clinton book.
Limbo then:
- SHOW: RUSH LIMBAUGH (9:00 PM ET)
February 3, 1994, Thursday 11:15 AM
LENGTH: 3803 words
HEADLINE: CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, NEW YORK POST, INVESTIGATES VINCE FOSTER DEATH, FINDS EVIDENCE SUPPORTS MURDER RATHER THAN SUICIDE
ANCHORS: Rush Limbaugh
BODY:
HOST: Rush Limbaugh
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Roger Ailes
(Footage of mock President Clinton writing on a chalkboard)
President BILL CLINTON': I will ask Hillary first.' Darn, I hate it when she makes me do something like this.
(Laughter)
Pres. CLINTON': Come on, Hillary. Can I stop now?
Ms. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON': Fifty more to go, Bill.
(Laughter)
(Graphic shown)
America Held Hostage
380-Middle Class 399-Rich and Dead 1,080-Days Remaining I Will Ask Hillary First
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Rush Limbaugh.
(Applause)
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you ever so much. Thank you. Thank you. I'm--thank you, thank you very much for coming, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to another exciting installment of RUSH LIMBAUGH, the television show.
Here we are called the epitome of positive. I am full of love for America. It is a tough love. We tell the hard truth here, and sometimes you're going to have to have the courage to face and believe the truth, especially tonight. The--or today, whenever you see the program. As we tape, it's dark, which is why I say--not in here, of course, because you can see me. But it's dark outside and so...
(Laughter)
LIMBAUGH: ...we're going to--we're going to get into the death of Vince Foster tonight. And note that I did not say the suicide of Vince Foster.
LIMBAUGH: I never did believe that Vince Foster's suicide was as clean, as simple as it was reported last July. Just as I never believed that Ross Perot spontaneously decided one night in February to run for president without telling anybody or even thinking of it himself first. Christopher Ruddy of the New York Post, a courageous investigative reporter, has single-handedly been looking into the death of Vince Foster and has uncovered some of the most amazing information that's being ignored by everybody else in the mainstream media.
But we're going to talk to him after this break, and find out exactly what he's discovered. And when you hear this, you're going to be as curious as anybody else should be about Vince Foster and his death and what really may be behind it.
So don't go away because Chris Ruddy coming up on the phone right after this.
(Theme music and applause)
(Announcements)
(Theme music and applause)
LIMBAUGH: There we go. Welcome back. OK, let's--let's just get straight into this, ladies and gentlemen. Vince Foster was a reputed--not reputed, was thought to have committed suicide on the 20th of July last year. What we were told at the moment and in the days that immediately followed the--the death; the president said, This is a mystery. Nobody knows what possibly could have been wrong here. He was the--full of vitality, full of life.' Then a couple days later, people said, No, he wasn't. He was all screwed up. He was seeing a psychiatrist, he was going out and getting medication.'
We may never know more than what we do now. The president said he didn't talk to him. He didn't have any idea what was going on. Then it was learned that the president did talk to him. Somebody remembered that, yeah, the president talked to him. They remem--you will remember next that the--the blame began to go around, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page was what most people blamed for Foster's suicide. They were so mean there at that paper. How dare they criticize this great man from Little Rock.
And then the press in Washington said, You know, maybe we are getting too mean. Maybe we are being a little bit too hard-hitting on these people. Maybe we should back off a little bit.' We were also told that there was no note. We were told that the park police were given access to his office. No mention that documents referring to the Whitewater Development Corporation were removed and we were not told the role of Bernard Nussbaum in all of this.
As time went on, we later learned that Nussbarm--Nussbaum did go into Foster's office, and within two hours after the discovery of his body, had cleared out some files that nobody knew existed until five months later. During the period of time from July to December, basically it was assumed that Foster committed suicide and nobody could figure out why and, oh, wasn't it a terrible thing?
Last week Christopher Ruddy, on the 27th of January, began what has become a series of reports on the Vince Foster suicide.
(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Doubts Raised Over Foster's Suicide'")
LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) There you see that first story. Doubts raised over Foster's suicide.'
And a number of discoveries were unearthed by Mr. Ruddy that nobody had reported previous to his story. For example, the--the position of his body. It was--it was as though he was laid out perfectly in a coffin with his hands at his side. The gun--and this is an exact replica of the gun--was found in his hand just like this at this side, laying down just like this. This after he shot himself in the mouth.
(Visual; New York Post sketch describes position of Foster's body)
LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) And there was barely a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. There were no forensics tests done on the gun, the bullet wasn't found. None of this.
All of it unearthed by Chris Ruddy who we have on the phone. Chris, welcome to the program. What got you started with all this? How--how did it come to be that you decided to investigate this?
(Photo of Christopher Ruddy)
Mr. CHRISTOPHER RUDDY (Investigative Reporter, The New York Post): Well, about a month ago a friend of mine down in Washington said, You know, you should take a look at the--at the Vince Foster case, because he--this person in Washington was concerned that he was still holding the gun.' And there were some small press reports that mentioned he still had the gun in hand--in his hand which is unusual. It's rare that a suicide victim would have the gun.
LIMBAUGH: Unusual. Isn't it impossible? I mean, I've got the gun--I mean, I--I don't want to actually act out what happened here but if I were to take this gun and put it in my mouth and pull the trigger, I doubt that it would stay in my hand and that I would still be conscious enough to lay down perfectly and put the gun at my side and then lay down and die so that I could be discovered having committed suicide. That's--that seems impossible.
Mr. RUDDY: Well, no, there is rare instances where it would occur. But it's highly unusual and would lead one to believe that foul play did take place. The--the way the park police described it happening, it would be--it would have been impossible. So you're correct in--in stating that, if you were to put it in that way--that--the way the park police said the suicide took place.
(Footage of the road leading to Fort Marcy; site of Foster death)
Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And the way they claim is that Vince Foster was standing on a hillside--a steep incline. So he's standing on it and he took a revolver and he put it in his mouth--a .38-caliber revolver--and he put his thumb in the trigger, they claimed, and he fired the gun; that he fell back in a perfectly repose. The gun then came out of his mouth, with no blood on it, by the way. Usually the barrel of the gun is loaded with blood and you would have seen evidence of it across the shirt. Everyone noted--noticed how clean his shirt was.
That he then was able to turn the gun around in his hands so that it fit correctly so that his fingers went around the hand grip because remember they claim that he shot himself with his thumb and that he then put it at his side in a natural repose as one would be ready to fire a gun. And that could not be--could not happen. Pathologist I spoke to--the leading pathologist in the country...
(Limbaugh mimics events as described by Ruddy)
(Laughter)
Mr. RUDDY: ...said it is impossible to have taken place.
LIMBAUGH: Now what about the investigation, Chris. The park police-- everybody--a lot of people have been making fun of them and a lot of people have been suggesting that the park police are basically just a bunch of rangers and--and--and guides that--that are really not equipped to conduct a--or trained to conduct a murder investigation. Is that true?
Mr. RUDDY: Oh, absolutely. They're known as being the lowest of--or how they say, the lowest on the food chain in Washington in terms of law enforcement.
(Laughter)
Mr. RUDDY: And they were put in, I believe, for political reasons because they could be controlled. Today I had a report on how they fumbled and bungled the whole investigation.
(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Cops: Foster Gun Was Never Tested")
Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) You know, when you approach a suicide, police practice is you treat it as a homicide because you're not going to know until autopsy and forensic reports, which could take weeks to come through, will prove either way; so you have to collect as much evidence as possible, gather all the witnesses.
(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "More Questions About Foster's Suicide'")
Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And let's face it, this is not the first time somebody's stuck a gun in someone's hand and said it was a suicide when in fact the person had been murdered.
LIMBAUGH: What about the gun? There--there are conflicting reports. The White House says that the gun was tested. You had--had a story, which we just put on the screen during your last comments, the gun was not. Was the gun ever tested and checked for ballistics? Did they ever find the bullet?
Mr. RUDDY: Since Foster's death, the park police, have claimed that the gun underwent ballistics tests by the DC metropolitan police, who usually handle ballistics. So I called up the ballistics unit at the DC police and the head of it said, I know the gun you're talking about. We never conducted a test on it. We never conducted ballistics.' So I called back park police. They admitted that they lied and they said, We don't--we--we probably didn't conduct ballistics.'
LIMBAUGH: Why--now, are you--tough question. Are they lying to protect their incompetence or are they lying because they're afraid of something?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, I think they're afraid. I think they're afraid, at the very least, that they totally bungled this case and it's going to be evident when the reports come out that the ballistics test is just one of many things. I mean, any cop would have told you that when you have a scene like this, and you can't find the pullets--the bullet, which they claim they couldn't find, it should have been within feet of Foster.
Because they claimed it went out of the back of his head; and the bullet usually slows and falls. They should have used metal detectors. Didn't bother doing that. They should have fingerprinted Foster's car. That's part of the crime scene. They didn't bother doing that. They didn't secure Foster's office. He left in the middle of the work day. There may have been important evidence there. They didn't secure it until 10:00 AM the next morning. We know that at least three White House aides were in there before the park police showed up. And they never found his appointment book for that day.
LIMBAUGH: What about suicide note?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, they claim that a note found a couple of days afterwards torn into 27 pieces was a suicide note. But it makes no mention of suicide.
LIMBAUGH: Was it--was it--was it--in his--ye--no mention--it was in his own handwriting?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, this is what they claim. But they haven't released it publicly.
LIMBAUGH: There's 28 pages--pieces, right? They've only found 27?
Mr. RUDDY: Yes, and they claim...
LIMBAUGH: And the 28th page--or the 28th piece is his signature. Is that right?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, there--they were trying to claim it was his signature but I think it's obvious--you know, his wife had told him to write down things that were bothering him about 10 days before the suicide--or the alleged suicide.
LIMBAUGH: Yeah. Chris, hold your thought right there. We have to take a quick break. When we come back, the latest is that the former FBI director, William Sessions, has sent Chris a written statement which explains some of the trouble the FBI had in gaining access to the investigation.
We'll have that and more when we come back. Don't go away.
(Applause)
(Announcements)
(Theme music and applause)
LIMBAUGH: And we're back. Thank you all very much. Chris Ruddy of the New York Post, the only investigative journalist in America to look into the death of Vince Foster, is on the phone with us.
The park police inept, unqualified. Why wasn't the FBI brought in to investigate this?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, everybody agrees that--top law enforcement officials agree that they should have been, they have the best forensics unit. They have experience in homicide; the park police does not. I asked the former director of the FBI, William Sessions, and he responded with a two-page handwritten statement to me.
(Photo of William Sessions)
LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) Yeah. Let's keep in mind, he was fired the day before Foster was killed.
Mr. RUDDY: Well, that's very significant you say that, Rush, because he makes great significance of that in his two-page memo. He even reminds me of that in the question, that he was fired the day before.
(Visual; letter from William Sessions to Chris Ruddy)
Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And on the day that Foster committed suicide, there was no real director. There was an acting director who had been Sessions' deputy, and who had worked with the White House and the Justice Department to undermine Sessions and to fire him.
(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Ex-Chief: Politics Kept FBI Off Foster Case")
Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) And so Sessions concludes by saying, quote, "The decision about the investigative role of the FBI in the Foster death was, therefore, compromised from the beginning."
LIMBAUGH: Mmm. All right. We have to take another quick break. I wish we had more time to explore that, but I think it speaks for itself. I have some questions that are going to call for your opinion, Chris, when we come back.
Don't go away, folks. There's one more segment of this. We'll be right back.
(Applause)
(Announcements)
LIMBAUGH: Welcome back. Christopher Ruddy, New York Post, do you think this was suicide?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, when I started this, I didn't believe that it was murder...
(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Doubts Raised Over Foster's Suicide'")
Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) ...I was leaning toward suicide. After investigating it, speaking to so many experts, there's so many inconsistencies with this suicide, it would lead one to believe it was not suicide; but indeed foul play was involved and a homicide likely took place.
That's my opinion.
LIMBAUGH: OK.
Mr. RUDDY: But we should know when the reports come out--the autopsy reports.
LIMBAUGH: Will we be treated to that information?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, the Justice Department came out today and said they're going to try to expedite this now that it has raised interest in the public arena.
LIMBAUGH: That's it. How come you're the only guy--where is the mainstream, inside-the-beltway, Washington press corps on this story?
Mr. RUDDY: At--asleep at the switch, probably.
(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "More Questions About Foster's Suicide'")
LIMBAUGH: (Voiceover) Why are they asleep at the switch? Do they just--I mean, if this were a Republican president and this had happened, can you imagine, Chris, the re--feeding frenzy that would be going on here?
Mr. RUDDY: I couldn't believe that no one had asked very simple questions. What did the crime scene look like? Ask the people that arrived first on the scene. No one had ever done that until I came along seven months--seven months after the death of Vince Foster. I think that's the shocking story. I think you have criticized the establishment media and I think this may be an example of them at work on...
LIMBAUGH: What about--it seems to me, as I read your stuff, that this is unraveling real fast. Am I correct in assuming that?
Mr. RUDDY: Well, I think that they know they're going to have to come up with the documents...
(Visual; New York Post headline reads, "Cops: Foster Gun Was Never Tested")
Mr. RUDDY: (Voiceover) ...the police report and the autopsy. And that's going to either feed more interest, because it will show that what they claimed was not true or didn't happen...
documents out. So if they want this to stop, they have to get it out as soon as possible. There's every indication that they're going to move to--to fulfill that promise.
LIMBAUGH: Christopher Ruddy of the New York Post, thank you very much for taking time to join us. I've always said, folks, that if you want to get to the bottom of whatever went on in Fornigate, Whitewatergate, you've got to find out what happened to Vince Foster. And thanks to Christopher Ruddy, we're a lot closer to knowing than we would have been otherwise.
We'll see you on our next show. Hope you've enjoyed this one. Adios.