Advertisement

Vincent Foster’s sister: Trump’s comments are ‘beyond contempt’

Donald Trump speaks at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference, in Bismarck, N.D. (Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)
Donald Trump speaks at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference, in Bismarck, N.D. (Photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)

Sheila Foster Anthony, sister of former Clinton White House aide Vincent Foster, took to the Washington Post opinion page Thursday to admonish Donald Trump for his recent comments about her brother’s death.

Earlier this week, the same paper published an interview with Trump in which the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was quoted drudging up a decades-old conspiracy theory about Foster’s 1993 suicide.

“There are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder,” Trump told the Post, noting that Foster “knew everything that was going on, and then all of a sudden he committed suicide.”

The details of Foster’s death, Trump offered, were “very fishy.”

“It is beyond contempt that a politician would use a family tragedy to further his candidacy,” wrote Anthony, who previously served on the Federal Trade Commission.

Of Trump’s suggestion that her brother may have been murdered and that the Clintons could have in some way been involved, Anthony wrote, “How wrong. How irresponsible. How cruel.”

Anthony and her family have weathered these kinds of “outrageous suggestions” for more than two decades, but Thursday’s op-ed was the first time she’s addressed the issue publicly. She said the decision to speak out was prompted by the Post’s request for response and insisted that, while she has donated to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, her decision was not influenced by anyone inside the Clinton camp.

“For Trump to raise these theories again for political advantage is wrong,” she wrote. “I cannot let such craven behavior pass without a response.”

The truth is, Anthony wrote, Vincent suffered from depression and, a few days before his death, he’d called his older sister seeking help.

“He was worried that such an admission would adversely affect his top-level security clearance and prevent him from doing his job,” Anthony wrote, so she set out to find her brother a psychiatrist who could be discrete and provided him with a list of three names that was later discovered in his wallet after his death.

“I did not see a suicide coming, yet when I was told that Vince was dead I knew that he had killed himself,” she wrote. “Never for a minute have I doubted that was what happened.”

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Trump backed off the conspiracy theory, telling reporters, “I really know nothing about the Vince Foster situation. I haven’t known anything about it.”

“Somebody asked me the question the other day and I said that a lot of people are skeptical as to what happened and how he died,” he said, adding, “I don’t think it’s something that should really be part of the campaign.”