Clinton’s pick for FBI boss was former FBI agent and federal judge Louis Freeh, who had “investigated and prosecuted some of the most complex crimes of our time.” According to Clinton, Freeh would be “good for the FBI and tough on criminals.” The nominee proclaimed, “I pledge a total commitment to the FBI, whose only beacon is the rule of law.”
On July 20, 1993, at approximately 1 p.m., Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster came out of his office with his suit jacket in hand. He told Linda Tripp, an aide to White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, that he left some M&Ms on a tray if she happened to want any. Foster didn’t say where he was going, but as he headed out the door, he told Tripp “I’ll be back.” He wouldn’t.
At approximately 6 p.m. that day, Foster’s body was found in Fort Marcy Park in Virginia. Foster had suffered a gunshot wound to the head, but in one account he was found on a berm near a Civil War cannon in a straight coffin-like position, with the gun still in his hand. That seldom if ever happens in a suicide, the default explanation for Foster’s fate.
Accounts also differed on where Foster’s body had been found, which raised the possibility that it had been moved. A point-blank gunshot wound to the head leaves an enormous amount of blood, bone and tissue but accounts discussing the position of the body, and photos of the scene, do not reflect that reality. The bullet was never found, and accounts also differed on the type of gun found in Foster’s hand.