July 20, 1995 - Part 4
July 20, 1995 - Part 4
(12:35:21) Mr. ROLLA. Well Senator GRAMS. That the office was not important and the integrity of the office was not important? Mr. ROLLA. Let me say this: Whether that was a homicide or a suicide, that wasn't a crime scene. That's a secondary scene, not a crime scene. We have no legal authority to tell anyone to seal an office. If we wanted to get in to look for evidence, we would need a search warrant, and we'd have to come up with enough probable cause to get a search warrant. The request to seal the office, which he told me-in my mind is why it's not written in the report, is an informal request for cooperation to go to the workplace. Because Mr. Foster, being who he is in the White House, we knew we were not going to be able to go in there that night. Our limited scope--again, what we want to look for, the higher-ups are going to have to be there, there's going to have to be protocol done to figure out how to go about this. No, we don't want to read every legal document, but we would like to look through obvious areas and maybe look through some 194 drawers and the briefcase for, not just a suicide note, was there anything there, other reasons, a diary, a letter, something that could have caused embarrassment, something--not looking to embarrass the man, but trying to find mental-his state of mind at the time. Senator GRAMS. I did infer that you were ordering, but I was asking if it was still important and if it was important enough to try to secure that area so it wouldn't have been "contaminated" as you stated earlier? Mr. ROLLA. No, it was important to try to maintain it. Again, if somebody went in there because they had to do things related to his job, we have no authority to keep them out. If somebody went in there and removed things, that's beyond us. Senator GRAMS. Mr. Hines, would you agree with that? Mr. HINES. Senator, I'd agree with that. The reason the examination of the room-and I'll use "examination" as opposed to "search" because we're looking for limited information that might lead us to believe that his suicide-to prove that he had intent. The reason it's important is the person's office is a work space; it tells a lot about him. So if we could normalize him and find out how he conducted his business, was he neat? If he was neat and it was messy, that would be a piece of information we'd want to know. The office itself is a piece of information, and that's why we wanted it secure. If you noticed, our guideline manual was published after this suicide, and we do say we would be very unobtrusive in searching his office, and we would have been. We're looking for a note of suicide, we're looking for any information of any difficulty he may be having that would make him so discouraged that he would take his own life. Our only factor in this investigation is that we feel that we had a complete investigation. The only problems we've had is the conduct of the examination of that office. I would like to use the term "examination" and not the term "search" because when I say "search," I'm thinking of Fourth Amendment searches and, definitely, that was not our intent in this case. Senator GRAMS. One quick question, Sergeant Braun Ms. BRAUN. Could I also answer that first question? Senator GRAMS. Sure. Ms. BRAUN. Since I am the one who spoke to Mr. Watkins' it was a request. It wasn't an order, and maybe the terms are getting all blown out of proportion. Secured-I've said it meant secured, closed, et cetera. I wanted to try to preserve that office in the state that it was. This isn't a perfect world. It didn't happen. It isn't the end of the world that it didn't happen, but, yes, that would have given us some insight, if people had not gone in and gone through the office, as to what kind of state it was in when Mr. Foster left and some indication as to his state of mind when he left. That's what I was looking for, Senator GRAMS. Do you think the White House or those that were requested did an appropriate job in making sure that was done? Evidently not. Ms. BRAUN. Like I said, it's not a perfect world. Senator GRAMS. I wanted to ask one other thing in regards to what Minority counsel had mentioned about the manual on suicide 195 printed afterwards, and the office or work space was not as important, I think, was the line of questioning he was trying to infer. Does that suicide manual refer to an office of a high-level member of the White House staff inside the White House? This is a completely unique situation, and that manual did not refer to the office of Vince Foster as not being important. Ms. BRAUN. That's correct. Senator GRAMS. Thank you. Senator DODD. Mr, Chairman, this is unclear. I thought earlier the issue of whether or not the office I think our colleague from Minnesota mentioned that the office was part of the crime scene, and there's no-you don't agree with that, that office was not in any way, whatsoever, part of a crime scene? The CHAIRMAN. I think the record is pretty clear. Senator GRAMS. We had established that before. The CHAIRMAN. The importance of the office related to, at that point in time, what appeared to be a suicide. There's no doubt. It's not a crime scene, but I think the record amply attests to that. Senator, have you concluded?