Foster Case Resignation Letter Surfaces

                                            Top Investigator for Starr Not Allowed to Pursue Clues in July 20, 1993, Death

In his January 17, 1995, letter of resignation to the head of the Office of the Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr, lead investigator, Miguel Rodriguez,* expressed his frustration at not being permitted to pursue tantalizing leads in his investigation of the gunshot death of Bill Clinton's Deputy White House Counsel, Vincent W. Foster, Jr.  

...I told [Mark] Tuohey and [Sam] Dash that grand jury testimony had been fruitful and that I was fully prepared to continue grand jury inquiry into the many remaining questions surrounding Foster's death.  Nevertheless, on January 14, 1995, I was informed that all planned grand jury investigation would be cancelled, my conduct was under review and I was to be more closely monitored by Tuohey and an FBI agent.  In effect, for raising the above questions, I was forced out of this job.

Those questions, 12 in number, had been offered in meetings and memoranda in which Rodriguez "...specifically indicated my disagreement that there existed 'overwhelming' evidence that Foster committed suicide where he was found in Ft. Marcy Park." 

Here and here are the two pages of  Rodriguez's letter (htm version here).  Of particular interest are his assertions in #10, "the existing FBI interview reports and USPP (United States Park Police ed.) interview reports do not accurately reflect witness statements" and #11, "four emergency medical personnel identified, having refreshed their recollection with new photographic evidence, trauma each had observed on Foster's right neck area."

Point 10 is greatly understated. As we have most recently noted, FBI written reports in the Foster case sometimes say the precise opposite of what witnesses told the FBI agent.  The outstanding example is that witness Patrick Knowlton saw Foster's car in the parking lot at Ft. Marcy Park, when, in fact, Knowlton was quite adamant that the picture that he was shown of Foster's late model silver-gray Honda was not the older reddish brown Honda that he saw.  Knowlton also said that he could identify the driver of the car he saw in the one other car he saw parked at the park, while the FBI reported that he said that he could not identify the man. (See addendum to OIC report)

In other important instances, the FBI reports are intentionally misleading.  The British reporter, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, whom I defend in the previously cited article, revealed in his book, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton, that the FBI report left the false impression that morgue doctor Julian Orenstein had observed an exit wound in the back of Foster's head when, in fact, he had not.  The written report also said that Detective John Rolla saw an exit wound.  However, the handwritten report, released through use of the Freedom of Information Act, curiously blacks out the part about what Rolla might have seen at the back of Foster's head..

Point #11 leaves little doubt that Rodriguez was the "confidential informant" inside the Office of the Independent Counsel who told Evans-Pritchard, as he reported in his book, that four emergency workers saw a wound on the side of Foster's neck.  

The Miguel Rodriguez who wrote this resignation letter was also clearly the same person who was desperate to get the truth out when he talked on the telephone to the late Reed Irvine at Accuracy in Media.  A transcript of those recordings, with Irvine's voice removed, can be found here.

*That's right.  The proper spelling of the man's first name is the conventional "Miguel," not "Miquel," as everyone who has written about him with regard to the Foster case has spelled it.  How can they all be wrong?  Most likely it is because they were told by the same person who told me that it is spelled that way.  The man who first brought Rodriquez to public attention is the reporter Christopher Ruddy, now editor of Newsmax.com.  I distinctly recall that when he first told me about Rodriguez, he stressed that his first name is spelled with a "q."  You can see that he spells it that way in his book, The Strange Death of Vincent Foster.  Could this have been simply an honest mistake on his part, or did he want to make it difficult for people to track down Rodriguez?  That's for Ruddy to answer.

David Martin, December 17, 2009