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In Case We Forget!

A Lying Gigolo

Congress may still be wondering whether President Clinton should be impeached for his sexual improprieties, but a growing number of Internet denizens and talk-radio listeners are all but convinced he's much worse than a lying Gigolo. In recent months, a list of more than 80 deaths associated directly or indirectly with Clinton has been the buzz of the new media. In the last week alone, I estimate I have received two dozen copies of some version of the document.

While such lists have been around for a long time, the most amazing thing about them is not only how fast they are growing -- which they are -- but how incomplete every single one of them is. For instance, not one version of the "body count" lists that I have seen included the name of Eric L. Henderson. Yet, everything about his remarkable death cries out for examination.

On Feb. 25, 1997, he was shot to death while riding his bicycle in Northeast Washington, D.C. Because he didn't have identification on him, he initially was listed as a John Doe. And because the area where he died was known as an open air drug market, those who lived near it assumed that the victim was just another loser in a random dope deal gone bad. A few weeks later, a suspect in the shooting was arrested. He was 15 years old, a chubby kid who stood 5 feet 5 and weighed 200 pounds. Because he was a juvenile, his trial, which ended in a conviction, was a confidential matter.

BCCI The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a major international bank founded in Pakistan in 1972. At its peak, it operated in 78 countries, had over 400 branches, and claimed assets of $25 billion. It is the fourth largest bank in history. BCCI became the focus in 1991 of the world's worst financial scandal and what was called a $20-billion-plus heist. It was found by regulators in the United States and the United Kingdom to be involved in money laundering, bribery, support of terrorism, arms trafficking, the sale of nuclear technologies, the commission and facilitation of tax evasion, smuggling, illegal immigration, and the illicit purchases of banks and real estate. The bank was found to have at least $13 billion unaccounted for. The Abu Nidal link man for the BCCI accounts was an Arab based in Iraq named Samir Najmeddin or Najmedeen. Throughout the 80s, BCCI had set up millions of dollars worth of letters of credit for Najmeddin, largely for arms deals with Iraq. Qassem later swore in an affidavit that Najmeddin was often accompanied by an American, whom Qassem (Syrian-born branch manager of the Bank of England, Ghassan Qassem) subsequently identified as the financier Marc Rich. Rich was later indicted in the U.S. for tax evasion and racketeering in an apparently unrelated case, fled the country, and received a controversial pardon from Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001.

Eric L. Henderson was 33 when he was killed. He was a highly regarded lawyer and investment banker, a graduate of Haverford College in Pennsylvania and Columbia University School of Law in New York. His family had searched for three days before finding his body at the D.C. morgue. Then, officials say, they pleaded for privacy in the case.

Who was this guy? He was a young man of extraordinary achievements, which included serving as -- are you ready for this? -- a financial adviser not only to the South African government under Nelson Mandela but also to the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Henderson's family members have been extremely reticent to discuss his death. His closest friends were mortified by the murder -- officially dismissed as a nickel-and-dime street killing.

They remember him as a certified financial genius. He'd helped put together the debt restructuring plan that saved Parks Sausage, a black-owned company in Baltimore. He had distinguished himself as a financial adviser to the United States Agency for International Development and the notorious U.S. Commerce Department. He also had worked as an investment banking associate at Smith Barney and PaineWebber. In 1995, he started the Onyx Group, an investment banking firm in Washington. He told friends that his goal in life was to create employment opportunities for struggling young black males. "Eric was in a position to be the next Reginald Lewis," the late black billionaire, said Larry Parks, a graduate of Gonzaga High in Washington and currently senior vice president of the Federal Home Loan Bank in San Francisco. "He was a visionary, on the vanguard of the next phase of the civil rights movement, which is wealth creation in the black community. The thugs have no idea who they killed."

Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps Henderson was killed in a random drug deal on the seedy streets of Washington. Perhaps he was leading a double life, as police investigators suggest. Or maybe, just maybe, he knew too much. It should not go unnoticed that Henderson was a financial adviser to Ron Brown, the Commerce secretary who, until his still mysterious death in a plane crash in Croatia, was under investigation and about to be indicted for some of his financial creativity. It's also worth noting that a close confidante to Brown, Nolanda Hill, has reported that Brown had confronted Clinton just before his trip -- telling him, "I won't go down alone."

Well, he certainly did not go down alone. He went down with a whole planeload of others, including government officials and businessmen involved in the trade mission. But did Brown actually die in the plane crash? Military forensics investigators discovered a perfectly cylindrical hole, the size of a .45-caliber round, in the top of his head. They could find no explanation for the hole, yet his remains were never autopsied.

That little discovery should raise questions about not only Brown's death, but those of others around him -- most notably, I would think, his young and gifted financial adviser, Eric L. Henderson. Is it time to add one more name to the growing and staggering Clinton body count? I don't know, but the fact that such questions are not even raised in polite media company is not a good sign in a supposedly free society.

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is Stop The Presses: The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution. He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business. The Clinton body count. WorldNetDaily. Thursday, September 24, 1998.

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WND Investigative Reporter's Byline On Document

During Linda Tripp's two-day deposition with attorneys from Judicial Watch on Filegate issues, she mentioned a "list" that was given to her mysteriously. While she believes the list was left at her workstation in the White House counsel's office by her former friend Monica Lewinsky, the list originated with WorldNetDaily investigative reporter David Bresnahan.

Known around the Internet as "the Body Count," the list is a collection of names of people associated with Clinton administration scandals who have died mysterious and often violent deaths. Bresnahan broke the story of the list during the summer of 1997 while researching his book, Cover Up: The Art and Science of Political Deception. "I started looking into all the various deaths of people that were involved in various Clinton scandals," Bresnahan said. "I started to investigate the entire picture instead of just one focused event."

Bresnahan's list is the same list given to Tripp, as well as the head of the FBI and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to name a few. It still carries his byline. "It was common discussion on radio talk shows," Bresnahan said. "Every student of the Clinton scandals would run into the list."

The list has gotten around on the Internet, as well as continued coverage by talk radio. "Keep in mind that I am not an activist," he said. "I am a reporter. I'm not doing this to promote an agenda or tell people what to believe. I present the material and people can take their own actions."

One reason Bresnahan was able to construct such a lengthy list is because he investigated all of the scandals surrounding Clinton. "Nobody out there was putting it all together," he said. "If you look at one scandal, you'll find one dead guy. When you investigate all Clinton scandals, you find similarities, you find common tactics, you find common actions and you find dead people."

During his research, Bresnahan came up with more than one list. "Not only did I find a list of dead people, but I also found that there are over 100 people who have refused to testify," Bresnahan said. "There is also a list of people who have gone to jail. There are 45 people who have gone to jail, some of them White House staff, Cabinet members as well as people from the Justice Department. So many of those (lists) developed when I started to pursue the big picture."

Gabrielle Stevenson. The story of Tripp 'Body Count' list. WorldNetDaily. Tuesday, January 12, 1999.

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