
              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6  Num. 43
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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Thanks to "DC Dave" for sending me the following item from the 
Pittsburgh *Tribune-Review*, October 29, 1995
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
FOSTER CASE: PARK WITNESS TO APPEAR BEFORE STARR'S GRAND JURY
By Christopher Ruddy
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A man who says he was at Fort Marcy Park on 
the evening Vincent W. Foster Jr. died was served a subpoena last 
week to appear before Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's 
Whitewater grand jury at noon Wednesday.
 
Since being served the subpoena, Patrick Knowlton appears to have 
been monitored around his Pennsylvania Avenue residence in 
Georgetown under a massive surveillance operation.
 
A week ago, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of London's Sunday Telegraph 
reported details of Knowlton's account of a tie-in to the Foster 
case. Knowlton was apparently the first person to see Foster's 
automobile in the parking lot at Fort Marcy.
 
The Telegraph reported that Knowlton was "stunned" when he was 
shown a report in his interview with FBI agents working for 
former Special Counsel Robert Fiske. His statements had been 
falsified, the Telegraph reported.
 
Knowlton agrees with part of the FBI statement; that he arrived 
at the Fort Marcy parking lot on July 20, 1993, at about 4:30 
p.m. Foster's body was found more than an hour later.
 
                  -+- Details At The Park -+-
 
Knowlton said that the first car he saw in the lot, a Honda, was 
parked to his immediate left and had Arkansas plates. He said he 
parked his car a few spaces from the Honda, and observed another 
car, a blue sedan with a young man sitting in it, who gave 
Knowlton what he said was a menacing look. Knowlton described the 
man as in his 20's and possibly Mexican or Cuban.
 
As Knowlton quickly relieved himself by a nearby tree, the 
Hispanic man got out of his blue sedan and stood leaning over the 
roof of the car.
 
Frightened, Knowlton said he quickly left the park, but mentally 
noted some of the contents of the Arkansas Honda, including a 
suit jacket and a briefcase. He called the Park Police later the 
same night after he heard on the news of Foster's death.
 
The police took a brief statement from him over the phone, which 
they included in their report though they spelled his name wrong.
 
But Knowlton told the Telegraph that a key statement attributed 
to him by the FBI during the Fiske investigation was "an outright 
lie." The FBI agents who interviewed him wrote, "Knowlton could 
not further identify this individual (the Hispanic man) and 
stated that he would be unable to recognize him in the future."
 
               -+- Sharp Memory For Details -+-
 
In point of fact, Knowlton said he has a haunting memory of the 
man. With the assistance of a police artist provided by the 
Telegraph, Knowlton even produced a sketch of the man. The 
composite sketch was published in the Telegraph.
 
Knowlton, who owns a trading business, says -- and his friends 
agree -- that he has a sharp memory for details. Knowlton told 
the Telegraph that interviewing FBI agents Larry Monroe and 
William Colombell went to extraordinary lengths to convince him 
he saw a blue Honda of recent vintage with Arkansas plates. 
Knowlton insisted that he saw an older model brown Honda with 
Arkansas plates.
 
According to experts familiar with the case, Knowlton's testimony 
could be critical on several points:
 
  * If Foster did not commit suicide, Knowlton likely could 
  positively identify the person somehow involved in the 
  attorney's death. Key forensic and circumstantial evidence led 
  two New York police investigators to conclude that 
  "overwhelming" evidence indicated Foster's body was moved to 
  the park. One source close to Starr's probe has suggested that 
  the man Knowlton saw may have been there to "secure" the lot. A 
  rear entrance to the park is close to where the body was found 
  and could have, some theorize, been the actual point of the 
  body's entry.
 
  * He possibly could demonstrate that the FBI covered up key 
  elements in the case.
 
  * He possibly could indicate that another car with Arkansas 
  plates, similar to Foster's, was placed in the park to leave 
  potential witnesses with the impression Foster was in the park 
  earlier than he was. A nagging problem with the case is the 
  large amount of unaccounted-for time -- five hours from the 
  time Foster left his office until his body was found.
 
 
Last Thursday, Knowlton said an FBI agent with Starr's office 
showed up at his door to serve him with a subpoena, one of 
several the agent said he had to deliver that day.
 
                 -+- Witness Being Watched -+-
 
Since then, Knowlton has been aware that he is being watched.
 
"He called me and said that he and a female friend had been 
passed twice that evening by two men in a dark sedan who gave 
menacing looks at Patrick," reporter Pritchard said.
 
On Thursday night, this reporter visited Knowlton at his 
residence and noticed no unusual activity outside.
 
Knowlton appears to be a stable, credible professional. His 
friends in the building describe him as a rather normal person 
who seems beset in the middle of something larger.
 
He knows little of the larger issues of the Foster controversy 
and was unaware of the political overtones of the case. His foyer 
wall proudly sports a "Clinton-Gore" campaign bumper sticker.
 
Knowlton and a female friend recounted Thursday's events.
 
Knowlton said that while taking his daily walk for a newspaper, 
he encountered more than a dozen men, all wearing suits, who 
would be walking toward him or coming from behind, then would 
give him a sudden, purposed stare.
 
His female friend said he has no history of paranoia.
 
To verify Knowlton's account, he agreed the following day to take 
his daily walk with this reporter.
 
The surveillance was apparent, almost from the instant we exited 
his apartment.
 
He was approached again and again by the same men: dark suits, 
soft-soled shoes, each carrying a note pad or newspaper. And as 
they passed us, each gave a pointed, timed stare at Knowlton.
 
After crossing the first intersection, a man crossing the same 
street from the other side met us at the sidewalk. He looked at 
Knowlton and shook his head in an awkward gesture.
 
Another man, short and Middle Eastern looking, passed us and 
stared. After he passed, his walk slowed considerably and he made 
some comment to an African-American man casually dressed and 
carrying shopping bags -- an individual we already had passed who 
had also given us "the stare."
 
The short man appeared aimless after passing us -- a phenomenon 
repeated by the others.
 
Several cars appeared to trail us. In one white Honda with 
Virginia tags, two dark men with mustaches appeared to make no 
bones about their surveillance. They first caught our attention 
as we crossed the intersection, and both gave us a menacing 
stare.
 
The car entered a traffic circle, and instead of carrying on, 
circled back and came alongside, stopping in the middle of the 
road just yards in front of us. The occupants began to manipulate 
their mirrors to watch us along the sidewalk.
 
                -+- Similar Circumstances -+-
 
In all, at least two dozen and possibly three dozen people were 
encountered under similar circumstances from the time Knowlton 
left his apartment until he returned.
 
He said he recognized two of them from the day before.
 
We then took a drive around the block; no one appeared to follow 
us. But when we first entered the car, a pedestrian came 
alongside and noticeably checked the car's front and rear license 
plates.
 
Knowlton took out a camera and photographed the man, who quickly 
moved his hand toward his face.
 
After midnight that evening, Knowlton called Pritchard to say his 
apartment doorbell had been rung but no one answered when he 
asked who was there. Then there were four immediate knocks on the 
door.
 
Pritchard said that the license plate Knowlton noted from 
Thursday had checked out with a law enforcement source of 
Pritchard's as being a federal government vehicle.
 
His source suggested Knowlton was "being warned, or there was an 
attempt being made to destabilize him before he appears before 
the grand jury," Pritchard recounted.
 
Knowlton's lawyer has contacted the FBI to complain. There has 
been no return call.
 
                  -+- Starr Catching Up -+-
 
The subpoena is one indication that Starr may be playing catch- 
up; the Telegraph reported that three critical crime scene 
witnesses had never been called before his Washington grand jury 
-- though Starr says he has been actively investigating the case 
for more than a year.
 
In addition to Knowlton, Starr had never brought in two witnesses 
who said that when they entered Fort Marcy's lot they saw two men 
-- not Foster -- in and around his Honda just before the body was 
found. One man, described as having long blond hair, was said to 
have stood in front of the car with the hood up, as was reported 
in the Tribune-Review months ago.
 
The failure to aggressively examine these major discrepancies 
seemingly corroborates earlier reports that Starr's lead Foster 
prosecutor, Miquel Rodriguez, resigned after being thwarted by 
his superiors in conducting a full grand jury probe into the 
death.
 
Starr's possible passivity with the Foster case seems to have 
taken some notice on Capitol Hill.
 
A leading Republican member of the Senate's "Whitewater" Banking 
Committee said Thursday night that he was "disappointed" with 
Starr's work, which he described as embarrassing. The senator, 
previously believed to have been a supporter of Starr's, said 
Starr is motivated by a desire to be on the Supreme Court. He 
added, as it stands now, that any notion of Starr getting on the 
court "is finished."
 
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 
 
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