CNN's Jake Tapper Blasts Trump For Reviving “Bizarre” Conspiracy Theory That Clintons Killed Vince Foster

Tapper: “The Notion That This Was A Murder Is A Fiction Borne Of Delusion And Untethered To Reality And Contradicted By Evidence”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

CNN host Jake Tapper criticized presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s willingness to engage in “bizarre and unfounded conspiracy” theories, calling Trump’s actions “ridiculous and, frankly, shameful.” In an interview with The Washington Post Trump called the circumstances surrounding the death of former Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton “very fishy.” But, as Tapper notes, numerous investigations into Foster’s death have concluded that Foster committed suicide. From the May 24 edition of CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper:

JAKE TAPPER (HOST): Once again, journalists are in the unhappy predicament of trying to decide whether and how to cover false allegations raised by a candidate for the president of the United States. This time, in the midst of Donald Trump's attacks against the Clintons using various scandals and accusations from 1990s, Mr. Trump has repeated an outrageous and long-ago debunked falsehood about former Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster a friend, of Bill and Hillary Clinton's until his tragic suicide. In July 1993, Foster, who suffered from depression, drove to Fort Marcy Park in Virginia, walked into the park with an old revolver, and shot himself in the mouth. The park service police concluded that year that Foster committed suicide. But that did not stop conspiracy theorists at time from concocting unfounded allegations.

Now that first investigation was followed by an investigation by CNN in 1994 concluding, Foster's death was due to suicide and that alternative scenarios had no credibility. Other investigations reached the same conclusion, one by independent counsel in Robert Fiske in 1994, two by Congressional reviews in 1994 and 1995, another by independent counsel Ken Starr in 1997.

So, one would think case closed, right? Wrong. Donald Trump, in an interview appearing in today's Washington Post called the circumstances surrounding Vince Foster's death “very fishy,” and said, “I don't bring foster's death up because I don't know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don't do that because I don't think it's fair.” Right, except, of course, you just did that, Mr. Trump. You lent credence to a bizarre and unfounded conspiracy theory. Though, you're right, it's not fair that you did that, certainly not to Mr. Foster's widow or their three children. To be clear, the notion that this was a murder is a fiction borne of delusion and untethered to reality and contradicted by evidence reviewed in at least six investigations, one of them by Ken Starr, hardly a Bill Clinton defender. To say otherwise is ridiculous and, frankly, shameful. Again, this is not a pro-Clinton position or an anti-Trump position. It is a pro-truth position.