July 18, 1995 - Part 2
July 18, 1995 - Part 2
(11:40:19) The reason we need to do that, Mr. Chairman, is because overlaying the tragedy of Vince Foster's suicide is the unique position that he held in the White House. We've heard of his close personal relationship with the Clintons. He not only handled a series of complicated and sensitive matters for the First Family, personal and public, but lie also held the highest level of security clearance with access to the most confidential and privileged communications in the White House. Given Foster's unique position within the White House, I'm not comfortable with the assertion that the appropriate amount of sensitivity was shown in dealing with materials contained in his office, particularly when one considers that some of the senior members of the White House staff at the time had the suspicion that he might have been the subject of an extortion attempt. We now know that is not true, but that existed at the time. Let's go beyond the night of his death. I can be sympathetic to the reaction of people at the time of his death. Here is what happened several days later. On July 22, 1993, Mr. Nussbaum engaged in two important sorting exercises. The first document quick shuffle took place in the presence, but not with the blessing, of independent law enforce 35 ment agencies. The second, more private performance took place later that day with Ms. Maggie Williams in Mr. Foster's office after the Department of Justice and Park Police personnel had left the White House. The personal documents of the Clintons which Mr. Nussbaum sorted later in that day were taken to the Clintons' private residence in the White House where, it's been asserted, they were never reviewed by the Clintons. Now, having an accurate accounting of the documents contained in the Foster office is central to the resolution of many of the questions we are charged with answering. Three different witnesses have given statements regarding the deposition of a portion of the documents which were divided after the investigators from the Department of Justice and the Park Police left the White House on July 22, 1993. This second sorting took place tinder the control of Ms. Maggie Williams, the First Lady's Chief of Staff, and Bernard Nussbaum, the General Counsel of the White House. This Committee's interest in preserving the chain of custody of the documents which came from Mr. Foster's office is to ensure that no documents were either destroyed or tampered with. It's important to establish who had access to them and when and where. In her deposition to the Committee staff, Ms. Williams asserts that she was called by Bernie Nussbaum to pick up a box of the Clintons' personal documents and send them to Mr. Bob Barnett at the law firm of Williams & Connolly. She states that when she found Mr. Nussbaum, he had virtually finished most of the sorting. Ms. Williams then called Hillary Rodham Clinton and told her she, Ms. Williams, would take some personal files that were to go to Williams & Connolly to the Clintons' private residence in the White House although, Ms, Williams maintains, Mrs. Clinton never asked and Ms. Williams never told Mrs. Clinton to which personal files she was referring, Then Ms. Williams took the files, with the help of Tom Castleton, an intern, to the private residence. She has no memory of telling him about the contents of the boxes, other than that they were private papers. Five days later, Ms. Williams arranged to transfer the information to Mr. Barnett without, she says, any prior instructions from either the First Lady or the President. So her version is she took them to the residence without the First Lady asking for them and removed them from the residence without the First Lady or the President having made any comment about them. Now, Mr. Nussbaum has a different recollection of these events. He maintains that he called Ms. Williams and that she helped him for less than half an hour to identify the Clintons' personal files still contained in Vince Foster's office. The documents were to be taken to the private residence of the Clintons so that they could decide to which lawyer these files should be sent. This implies to me, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Nussbaum anticipated a serious Clinton review of the contents of the box. The third version, this portion of our investigation revolves around the statement of the intern, a young man named Thomas Castleton. Mr. Castleton recalls being asked to help Ms. Williams transport a box of documents from Mr. Foster's office to the Clinton's private residence and on the way Ms. Williams tells him that 36 the Clintons will have to review the contents of the box to ascertain what's in it.