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Ron Brown's Body: How One Man’s Death Saved the Clinton Presidency and Hillary’s Future

National Review Book Service ^ | unknown | Jack Cashill

Posted on 6/27/2004, 6:53:13 AM by GVnana

Ron Brown's Body: How One Man’s Death Saved the Clinton Presidency and Hillary’s Future

Cashill, Jack

The mysterious death of Bill Clinton's Commerce Secretary Ron Brown has long aroused suspicion among those who are aware of the unscrupulousness of Slick Willie, Hillary, and their cohorts. In this stunning new book, investigative reporter Jack Cashill fearlessly answers the questions about Brown's death that have been consistently stonewalled and ignored by the Clintons: Why did his plane crash? Why did the White House suppress an investigation of his death? What was the purpose of Brown's trade missions? And what were the larger forces that caused the Clintons to seek international cash through avenues that led Brown to Bosnia in the first place?

For the two most desperate years of the Clinton presidency (1994-6), Ron Brown was at the nexus of all of Slick Willie's unseemly, unsavory machinations – making him the classic "man who knew too much." In Ron Brown's Body, Cashill (the co-author of the acclaimed investigative blockbuster First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America) follows the Clintons' corrupt trail from Hawaii to Arkansas to Oklahoma to Washington to China, unraveling a maze of deceit, greed, and raw political power and shedding new light on Brown's shadowy role as Clinton fund-raiser.

Consequently, the strange and shocking story of his untimely death exposes the seedy depths of the most corrupt administration in American history.

Hillary's presidential aspirations make Ron Brown's Body much more than just a book of history. This book is a harrowing glimpse into the inner workings of one of the most powerful political machines still operating today – and irrefutable proof that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for the United States of America. Jack Cashill reveals:

•How Ron Brown penetrated the Arkansas wall around the Clintons and found a safe spot within their inner circle

•Why Brown boarded that doomed plane to the Balkans in the first place

•The forces that shaped Ron Brown's character and ambition – and how he came to play such a major role in what may have been the most serious scandal in American history

•Why even Brown's autopsy was left undone

•Enron executives: what they were doing in Croatia at the time of Brown's death – and why they took their own plane

•The three people most directly responsible for Brown's demise (plus surprising details of what Brown was doing with them)

•Why Brown grew fretful and anxious about the way Clinton was treating him in the months before his death

•The Reno Factor: the strange role that Attorney General Janet Reno played in the Ron Brown saga

•Slick Willie: why he and Hillary were, in his own words, "getting sick and crazy" in mid-1995

•How Brown began to change in late 1995, stepping back from his hitherto no-holds-barred pursuit of filthy lucre

•The tempestuous one-on-one meeting Brown had with Bill Clinton in the winter of 1996

•Jesse Jackson: how he was persuaded to drop his calls for an investigation into Ron Brown's death

•Documents Brown uncovered in early 1996 that threatened to destroy his career – and take the Clinton Administration down with him

•The courageous woman who, despite enormous odds, has continued to try to uncover the whole truth about Brown's death

pt1

>>13377679

pt2

•Four key circumstances of Brown's death that any explanation of it has to account for – and how the official explanation utterly fails to do so

•Why Hillary Clinton visited Bosnia just a week before Brown's death there

•The last, tense moments of the military plane that carried Ron Brown across Bosnia – including details of its sudden, inexplicable lurch off course

•The strange suicide of the maintenance chief responsible for the navigation system of the airport where Brown's plane was supposed to land

•Inexcusable journalistic complacency that left innumerable nagging questions unanswered about Brown's death

•Was Brown murdered? The truth about his bullet-shaped head wound, including twenty-seven reasons why it appears suspicious

•Three military pathologists and one forensic photographer whose careers were ruined for telling the truth about Brown's wounds

"A straightforward, no-nonsense account of Ron Brown's life and death from someone who understands that politics is a matter of interest, not conspiracy." – Kenneth R. Timmerman, author of The French Betrayal of America and Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson

"Cashill . . . finds himself in the middle of a genuine murder mystery . . . Smart, insightful, and finally shocking, the great untold story of our time and perhaps the best book yet written on the Clintons." – Joseph Farah, editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily.com

>>13377856

http://buchal.com/library/coverups/ronbrown.htm

The Botched Ron Brown Investigation

An Interview with AFIP Forensic Photographer Kathleen Janoski

by Wesley Phelan

Former Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown died on April 3, 1996, in a plane crash near Dubrovnik, Croatia. Thirty- four persons accompanying Brown on the trade mission also died in the crash. Due to the efforts of Judicial Watch we now know beyond a reasonable doubt that seats on Brown's Commerce Department trade missions were sold to raise funds for the Democratic National Committee and the 1996 Clinton/Gore Campaign. There is overwhelming evidence that Bill and Hillary Clinton knew of and approved this improper and illegal fundraising scheme [1].

Even more serious than the sale of public property for campaign contributions is the likelihood that transfers of American technology, approved and overseen by Ron Brown's Commerce Department, breached national security. Bernard Schwartz, head of Loral Corporation and a major donor to the DNC, accompanied Brown on a 1994 trade mission to China. During this trade mission Brown set up a meeting between Schwartz and a Chinese government official. This meeting led to a transfer of American missile technology to the Chinese that is now the subject of a congressional investigation [2].

At the time of his death Ron Brown was under subpoena to produce documents relating to the sale of seats on trade missions to Judicial Watch for its suit against the Commerce Department. Nolanda Hill, a friend and business partner of Brown, testified under oath that Brown had shown her a collection of such documents in an ostrich skin portfolio. These documents were withheld from Judicial Watch in violation of the subpoena and a FOIA request. Just before his death Brown reportedly said of his mounting legal troubles, "I am too old to go to jail. If I go down, I'll take everyone else down with me" [3].

The suspicious circumstances surrounding the crash of Brown's plane have given rise to much speculation of foul play [4]. Making Brown's death even more suspicious is the fact that a perfectly round .45 inch inwardly beveling hole was discovered in the top of his head as his body was being processed by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP). The story of the hole in Brown's head broke on November 24, with a report by Christopher Ruddy in the Pittsburgh Tribune- Review. Ruddy reported that Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell, a deputy medical examiner with AFIP, questioned the official finding that Brown died of multiple blunt- force trauma as a result of the airplane crash. Cogswell, who did not personally examine Brown's body, based his suspicions on x-rays and photographs of the top of Brown's head. Also suspicious, according to Cogswell, was the fact that the original x-rays of Brown's head showed possible metal fragments in the brain, consistent with a high-velocity gunshot wound. The two head x-rays are missing from Brown's file and Cogswell suspects they were never placed in the file [5].

On December 5, 1997, AFIP imposed a gag order on Cogswell, forcing him to refer all press inquiries on the Brown case to AFIP's public affairs office. Cogswell was told he could leave his office only with the permission of Dr. Jerry Spencer, Armed Forces Medical Examiner. He was escorted to his house by military police, who seized all of his case materials on the Brown crash. If matters had remained there we could dismiss Cogswell as a rather eccentric fellow willing to jeopardize his military career by making wild accusations. But on December 9, 1997, Lt. Col. David Hause, another AFIP pathologist, came forward to corroborate Cogswell's story.

Hause, one of AFIP's leading experts on gunshot wounds, was present in the room when Brown's body was being examined. A commotion erupted when Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Janoski said "Wow, look at the hole in Ron Brown's head." Hause walked over and verified that the wound penetrated the skull, exposing brain matter. According to Hause, the wound "looked like a punched- out .45-caliber entrance hole." After Hause spoke to Ruddy, the AFIP gag order was broadened to include all AFIP personnel.

On January 8, the Justice Department announced it had found no reason to launch an investigation into the case. The next day a story by Michael Fletcher appeared in the Washington Post. Fletcher reported that AFIP had convened a review panel of all its pathologists, including Cogswell and Hause. Fletcher said the panel came to the unanimous conclusion that Brown died of blunt-force trauma and that the hole in the top of Brown's head was not a gunshot wound.

cont-

Anonymous ID: 874db6 April 7, 2021, 8:27 a.m. No.13377897 🗄️.is 🔗kun >>7901

>>13377893

Unfortunately for Fletcher, his story misrepresented what happened in the review panel. What actually happened, according to Cogswell, is that he refused to participate in the review because he thought it would not be fair and unbiased. His lawyer concurred with his decision. In fact, most of those participating in the review were not board-certified in forensic pathology. Of those who were certified, none had significant interest or experience in gunshot wounds. All of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's forensic pathologists with any expertise in gunshot wounds (Cogswell, Hause, and Parsons) dissented from the "official" opinion [6].

On January 13, yet another member of AFIP joined the ranks of the dissenters. Kathleen Janoski, a 22-year Navy veteran, was the head of AFIP's forensic photography unit. Janoski says she was told that missing evidence from the Brown file was purposely destroyed. Janoski originally declined to speak to the press about the matter, but finally came forward out of concern for the careers of Cogswell, Hause, and Parsons. She was stunned that the AFIP inquiry focused on the actions of the whistleblowers instead of on the botched examination of Brown's body. Janoski says a naval criminal investigator told her the original x- rays of Brown's head "showed a lead snowstorm." Janoski then located photographs she had taken of the original x-rays and gave them to Cogswell to review. That is how the story began.

In the following interview by The Laissez Faire City Times, Janoski gives a detailed account of the events surrounding the botched investigation into Ron Brown's death and the subsequent efforts by AFIP to punish the whistleblowers.

QUESTION: According to published reports, Lt. Col. Cogswell said the original x-rays of Brown's head showed possible metal fragments in the head consistent with a gunshot wound. Is that true?

JANOSKI: The original x-rays, which I thought were the only set of x-rays, showed what appeared to be metal fragments inside the skull, similar to a bullet breaking up. I photographed those x-rays when they were up in the light box.

QUESTION: AFIP's explanation for that was that the x- ray cassette was defective. One of my relatives is a radiologist. I asked him about that some months ago. He said he thought it was possible that could be the explanation. What is your response?

JANOSKI: That cannot really be the explanation because it only surfaced after Chris Ruddy broke the story. Lt. Colonel David Hause was one of the forensic pathologists who were examining the bodies and doing whatever autopsies were going to be done. At no time did anyone come up to him and say, "We have this problem with the x-ray cassette and you need to be on the lookout for it."

QUESTION: Would that have been standard procedure - - if you were having a problem with an x-ray cassette someone would have given the pathologists a heads-up to discount any recurring pattern or problem like that?

JANOSKI: Well, I would expect a little more attention to detail than that. If it was indeed a defective x- ray cassette they should have just thrown it in the trash. Since not all the bodies were getting autopsies, and since the examination results were going to be based on x-rays, if they truly did discover this problem with the x-ray cassette Dr. Hause would have been apprised of that, and he was not. Cogswell, Hause and I all talked about this. But this phony explanation about a defective x-ray cassette did not surface until Ruddy broke the story.

QUESTION: So you don't believe the story of the defective x-ray cassette?

JANOSKI: No. About 6 months after the crash I had a conversation with Jeanmarie Sentell, a naval criminal investigative agent. She told me the first set of head x-rays on Ron Brown were deliberately destroyed because they showed a lead snowstorm. I said, "What are you talking about?" She explained to me what a lead snowstorm is: metal fragments breaking up from a bullet. And she proceeded to tell me that the first set of x-rays was deliberately destroyed and a second set was taken. The exposure was changed in an attempt to eradicate or diminish the metal fragments.

When I went on the record with Ruddy, he put that in the story in an article on January 13. He called Sentell and told her what I was saying. I believe she had no comment, or said she could not comment. So she was aware of what I had told Ruddy.

QUESTION: Have you spoken to her since?

JANOSKI: No, because once that story broke I was ostracized. I was the last one to go on the record. They weren't treating me that well, but not as bad as Cogswell, Hause and Parsons.

QUESTION: Who is "they"?

JANOSKI: The Armed Forces Medical Examiner, Dr. Jerry Spencer. Also, a lot of people in the office were avoiding me. There were two factions in the office, and you knew who was on which side in this issue.

>>13377897

Anyway, it was at that point, after the NCIS agent told me this that I went back to my office and pulled out the 35 millimeter slides I had taken when the x-rays were up on the light box. I had photographed them when they were in the light box. I had done that because I was testing out the exposure system on my Nikon F4. It has three exposure systems. I had just gotten out of the FBI Academy for a 2-week school for police photography. It was drilled into our heads to shoot the hell out of everything. If you ever have a doubt about the value of a particular photo, take it anyway. You might see something you think is innocuous at a crime scene, but it may be important later. Film is cheap. All these concepts were drilled into our heads. So I was taking a lot of pictures of this particular crash, or rather, the events at Dover.

I also told Larry Klayman at one time that something had bothered me about this crash. It was a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. One of the things that bothered me was we had a dead cabinet member, but some people seemed to think it was not a big deal. But you don't get a dead cabinet member every day.

QUESTION: Did Ms. Sentell tell you who destroyed the first x-rays?

JANOSKI: No. She didn't tell me.

QUESTION: Did she tell you if she saw them being destroyed?

JANOSKI: No, she didn't tell me that.

QUESTION: So she might have seen it or she might have only heard about it? Or she could have even been the one who destroyed them?

JANOSKI: All of those are possible, yes. She is a sworn law enforcement officer. She was telling me that a piece of evidence was destroyed. I was so stunned by it. I was also stunned when she said there was another set of x-rays. The only set I saw was the one up in the light box in the morgue. If there truthfully was a second set taken, I don't know when that happened. It would have to have been after Ron Brown's body left the morgue. When his body was in the morgue, and his x- rays were up in the light box, they didn't take his body out of the room. And nobody said to me, "We are going to take this body because we need a second set of x-rays."

QUESTION: Where did Ron Brown's body go after it left the morgue?

JANOSKI: When I saw it leave the morgue it went over to the next room, where the bodies are embalmed. I didn't see it actually get embalmed. But I saw the gurney being rolled over there.

QUESTION: Could it have been taken from that room to be x-rayed again?

JANOSKI: This is only my opinion. I would think that if another set of head x-rays were taken, it was probably then, when it left the morgue.

QUESTION: When it left the morgue to go into the other room?

JANOSKI: Yes.

QUESTION: What is the other room called?

JANOSKI: That was the embalming station. At Dover there are stations. The first station is intake; the second was FBI fingerprinting; the third was dental; the fourth was full body x-ray. There was no number five. Six was the morgue area; seven was anthropology, which was in the morgue. Eight was embalming; then dressing and wrapping; then casketing.

QUESTION: What was anthropology?

JANOSKI: We have a forensic anthropologist. If we have a crash with total body fragmentation, he will try to match up what's there.

QUESTION: That was not necessary in Ron Brown's case, was it?

JANOSKI: Oh no, Ron Brown's body was intact.

QUESTION: Was Ron brown's body found in a crawling position?

JANOSKI: From what I understand he was found outside the plane on the rocks and the underbrush. He was in a "dead cockroach" position.

QUESTION: Was he lying on his back?

JANOSKI: He was on his back in the photograph I saw. His arms and legs were up in the air. Perhaps he landed outside of the plane on his stomach. Maybe someone came by and turned him over on his back. It was as if rigor mortis had set in, with the arms and legs slightly up.

QUESTION: Does that sound like a natural death pose for a person, lying on your back with your arms and legs up, because that's the way you fell out of the plane?

JANOSKI: Well, you'd have to ask Cogswell that question, because he's the plane crash expert. But to me this isn't a natural death at all. They found he died of blunt force injury, but even that is not accurate. You need an autopsy to get the precise cause of death.

QUESTION: How many x-rays are in Ron Brown's file currently?

JANOSKI: There are 15 x-rays in Ron Brown's file - - arms, legs, pelvis, stuff like that. He had a broken pelvis, but when you look at the x-rays actually in his file, none of the injuries were serious enough to kill him. That's especially why Ron Brown needed an autopsy. He might have an internal decapitation, a ripped aorta, or bleeding into the chest cavity. That's why you do autopsies - - to find out the exact cause and manner of death.

>>13377901

QUESTION: Would it have been ordinary, even without the head wound, for a person of his stature coming in with those apparent injuries in the x-rays to have an autopsy?

JANOSKI: I would say good forensic pathology would have caused an autopsy to occur, regardless of who he was. He needed an autopsy plain and simple. It is a gross miscarriage of good forensic investigation that he did not get one. You could have a homeless guy dead on the streets of D.C., and he's going to get an autopsy. Yet we have a dead cabinet member without one?

QUESTION: Some might say too many bodies came through that day, that it was not possible to do autopsies.

JANOSKI: That's baloney. I was told there was a lot of pressure from the White House to get the bodies out.

QUESTION: Can you say who told you that?

JANOSKI: Yes. It was an investigator by the name of Bob Veasey. He told me there was a lot of pressure from the White House to get the bodies out.

QUESTION: Did that mean to get them buried?

JANOSKI: Get them in, get them out. Get them into the embalming and casketing area. Get them out of the morgue.

QUESTION: Was he more specific than just the White House? Might he have mentioned a name?

JANOSKI: No. I was also told I was taking too long to take photographs. There was a real hurry to move this guy out. I was the senior photographer, and I had 4 guys working for me. Being in the navy so long, I had the feeling the senior person has the responsibility, but they also have the accountability. I decided I was going to photograph Ron Brown's body. If something happened like somebody's film didn't turn out, I didn't want them to have to bear that burden. So I took it upon myself. Since I didn't want to be the photographer whose film didn't turn out, with a dead cabinet member, and I'd have to look for another day job, I was very careful in what I did. I took a lot of photographs. I figured, if this role of film gets destroyed in processing, I'm going to have another roll of film to back it up. I was determined we wouldn't have something similar to Vince Foster's crime scene, where everything comes out underexposed.

QUESTION: How long had you worked for these people who you characterize as being in a different faction on this?

JANOSKI: I had been in the Medical Examiner's office a little less than a year.

QUESTION: Had there ever been another occasion where the staff had split like this over a procedure? Had there been an occasion where Hause, Cogswell and Parsons had taken one position and everyone else had taken another one?

JANOSKI: No. Let me go back a bit. I had been there 2 1/2 years when the story actually broke. So I had worked in this office 2 1/2 years when the office split into two factions. There would sometimes be disagreements on cases, but nothing of this magnitude.

QUESTION: Had there ever been any indication that the White House was exerting pressure in any case before this?

JANOSKI: Not that I know of. The actual team leader of this mission was a Navy commander by the name of Edward Kilbane. He had actually gone to the West Wing of the White House before the bodies came to Dover. I saw him in his dress blue uniform, and I asked him why he was all dressed up. And he said he had to go to the West Wing of the White House.

QUESTION: What was his role, exactly?

JANOSKI: He was the team leader. When we went out on a plane crash or terrorist bombing, we called it a mission. We would have one person in charge. He was the one making sure the motel reservations were made and he would coordinate with federal agencies. He was your point of contact.

QUESTION: Did he go to the site in Croatia?

JANOSKI: No, Cogswell was the one who went to Croatia.

QUESTION: Did anyone else go to Croatia?

JANOSKI: One of my photographers also went - - Ron Kikel. Cogswell had seen the body briefly at station 2 [7]. The head wound was not noticed at that time. It was noticed at the morgue, when I opened up my big mouth.

QUESTION: What did you say?

JANOSKI: I said, "Wow, look at the hole in Ron Brown's head."

QUESTION: Why did Edward Kilbane have that visit to the White House?

JANOSKI: I would say it was probably some kind of meeting to coordinate bringing the bodies back. That's my opinion. Larry Klayman got some FOIA documents from Commerce. Some of the documents concern this crash and points of contact and so forth. There was a meeting, I believe it was before the bodies came back, to plan everything.

QUESTION: Was that in the White House?

JANOSKI: I believe the FOIA document said West Wing, but I'm sure it said White House. I don't have it handy right now.