I doubt that many DUers would find it very difficult to believe that the Bush administration sometimes has its domestic enemies assassinated. Most or all of us believe that the Bush Administration led us into a war on false pretenses (though perhaps a minority believes that at least they had decent motives). And the good majority of us believe that its plans for preventing and dealing with the recent human tragedy in New Orleans and surrounding areas were so lacking in effectiveness and enthusiasm that at best they should be characterized as willful negligence. Are these things less bad than assassinating one’s domestic enemies? I don’t think so. But the latter does seem scarier in some ways, perhaps because of what it says about the power that our government currently holds. So let’s consider some of these cases:

J. H. Hatfield

J. H. Hatfield wrote a scathing biography of George W. Bush, called “Fortunate Son”, which was published while Bush was running for President in 2000, following numerous aggressive attempts to prevent its publication. In addition to detailing many of the well known (to DUers) unethical and probably illegal business dealings by Bush in the 1990s, the book also alleged that Bush was found guilty of a cocaine use charge which was expunged from his record. I read his book with great interest in early 2001, and shortly thereafter I was dismayed to hear of Hatfield’s “suicide”.

This link discusses Hatfield’s death in June 2001, which was ruled a suicide, the result of a drug overdose in a hotel room. There was no autopsy. Suicide notes were found by the bedside, which Hatfield’s wife identified as being in his handwriting. Other evidence arguing for suicide includes the fact that Hatfield was having severe financial problems, and had just been charged with credit card fraud (which appears to have been a set-up).

Evidence arguing against suicide includes the fact that Hatfield had made public his receipt of death threats against him, his wife, and his daughter, from Bush allies. According to Hatfield, he was told "If you value their lives, you'd better back off from this edition." In addition, the lady who checked him in at the hotel noted that he was "pleasant and smiling" and "made conversation and had no visible signs of distress".

Hatfield’s publisher, Sander Hicks, initially accepted the suicide verdict. However, more recently, in January 2003, he announced that he was making the suicide notes available to forensics experts, to compare with handwriting samples that Hicks had acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, in order to arrive at an independent verdict in the case. I could not find any more recent information on this.

Cliff Baxter

Cliff Baxter was a former Vice Chairman of Enron, and one of the few high level Enron executives who had tried to prevent Enron’s illegal activities, which resulted in the fall of the company and the disappearance of the life savings of many of its employees, in one of the largest corporate fraud cases in U.S. history. At the time of his death he was about to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the scandal at Enron. It was felt by many that his testimony could be devastating to top Enron officials and might even provide a vital link between Enron and the Bush Administration.

Baxter, 43, was found shot to death in his car on the morning of January 25, 2002, near his home in Sugar Land, Texas. As this article explains, local authorities quickly called his death a suicide, without a serious investigation or even an autopsy. But hours later, the local Justice of the Peace, Jim Richard, reversed his decision not to order an autopsy, citing intense public interest.

Baxter was not known to have depression or any other mental problem at the time. He was a multi-millionaire, with an apparently happy family life. Furthermore, he had spoken with a friend recently about the fact that he felt he needed a body guard.

This article discusses the autopsy findings and provides a copy of them. It notes that although the autopsy states “suicide” as the cause of death, no evidence is given to support that conclusion. It also goes into detail about how the physical findings are much more suggestive of murder than of suicide. And finally, it notes that Baxter would have had no need for ratshot, the ammunition used to kill him, and that ratshot is the perfect murder ammunition, since it leaves no evidence capable of matching the gun to the ammunition.

Paul Wellstone

Paul Wellstone was the greatest thorn in the side of the Bush Administration of any U.S. Senator. Had he lived it was thought likely that, starting in 2003, he would have initiated a serious Senate investigation into the September 2001 terrorist attacks against our country. He died in a small plane crash just weeks prior to the 2002 mid-term elections, as it was becoming evident that he would win a third term to the U.S. Senate. It was thought at the time that a Wellstone victory in Minnesota would result in Democratic control of the Senate for the next two years (which would have been the case had Max Cleland not been defeated in Georgia).

According to this article, “None of the typical causes of a small plane accident—engine failure, icing, pilot error—appear to have been involved.” Evidence suggests that both engines were running when the plane hit the ground. The plane had passed through the icing altitude without apparent difficulty, and it was cleared for approach to the airport. Both pilots were very experienced and skilled. The Beechcraft model in which Wellstone was flying has an excellent safety record. Though visibility was limited, it was well above the minimum required.

There had been no problems until shortly before the crash. Witnesses say that the plane hit the ground at an almost vertical angle, and the crash was followed by an “extreme post-crash fire”.

Raymond Lemme

Raymond Lemme was the official from the Florida Inspector General’s office who was in the midst of investigating the election rigging charges of whistleblower Clint Curtis when he died. Curtis’ main allegation was that he was asked to write a computer program that would be capable of switching votes from one candidate to another, and which would be undetectable. Curtis also claims that Lemme had told him shortly before his death that he “had tracked the corruption all the way to the top”.

Lemme was found dead in a Valdosta, Georgia, Knights Inn motel room on July 1, 2003. His arm was slashed twice with a razor blade, near the left elbow. The Brad Blog has thoroughly investigated this case and put forth several reasons to believe that it was not a suicide, as has been ruled by the Valdosta police, including:

1. Evidence includes two motel receipts – an unsigned check-in receipt dated June 29, 2003, and a signed check-out receipt dated June 30, 2003, 6:54 a.m. Yet Lemme was found dead in the hotel on July 1, the day AFTER he apparently checked out. The police claim that the check-out date on the receipt is wrong, and ascribe the “incorrect” date to machine error, but refused to provide additional detail on that.

2. The initial police report stated: "a defect in the camera flash memory cards resulted in no usable photographs. Photographs will not be submitted with this report." Yet good quality photographs of the crime scene, some showing Lemme in the bath tub where he is said to have killed himself, and which were previously said not to have existed, later showed up. The legitimacy of the photographs was confirmed by the Valdosta police.

3. Inconsistency of police report and photographs: An official report by Detective Shannon Floyd states that there was no sign of foul play, and that there was no blood on the towel on which a black belt (apparently used as a tourniquet) was found. Yet, the pictures clearly show blood on the towel and severe bruising on the right side of Lemme’s neck.

4. When Brad Blog attempted to talk with Detective Floyd about her inconsistent findings, they were told that she no longer works for the Department, and the police refused to tell them how they could reach her.

5. After re-opening the case (late 04 or early 05), the case was quickly closed after talking with the Florida Department of Transportation. The Valdosta police refused to comment on why the Florida DOT should have a say in when they close a death investigation in Georgia.

6. Lemme’s work colleagues and family all agree that there were no previous indications that Lemme wanted to die.

7. Nobody knows why Lemme was in Georgia, about 80 miles north of Tallahassee, where he lived and worked. No autopsy was performed, whereas had the death occurred in Florida, an autopsy would have been required.

David Kelly

Dr. David Kelly was a microbiologist and an expert in weapons of mass destruction. He had already blown the whistle regarding the exaggeration of British intelligence reports on the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as the Bush Administration was trying to make the case for invading Iraq. This DU article speculates that the Bush Administration may have had yet a great deal more to fear from Dr. Kelly’s telling what he knew of the Administration’s devious plans for building a case for war in Iraq.

On July 18th, 2003, Kelly was found dead in a secluded lane in Harrowdown Hill, with his left wrist slit. His death was ruled a suicide, but Jim Rarey feels that there were many red flags that indicated otherwise, including:

1. Kelly was initially found propped up against a tree, and yet medical evidence indicated that he died on his back.

2. The ulnar artery was severed, but not the radial artery. This would be extremely difficult for a person to accomplish by himself.

3. Two paramedics at the scene said that there was surprisingly little blood for an artery having been severed, yet the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy testified that there were copious amounts of blood at the scene.

4. The forensic pathologist said that bruises and scratches on Kelly’s body were due to stumbling around in heavy underbrush, yet no heavy underbrush was found at the scene of the death.

5. The day before his death, Kelly communicated with Judith Miller of the NY Times, talking about “many dark actors playing games”.

Ted Westhusing

Colonel Ted Westhusing, one of the Army’s leading scholars of military ethics, volunteered to serve in Iraq in order to enable him to better be able to teach his students, as described in this article. A few weeks before he died, he had received an anonymous complaint that a private contractor was cheating the U.S. government and committing human rights violations, including participating in the killing of Iraqi military personnel and civilians. Westhusing reported all this, but an official investigation found his allegations to be “unfounded”. Westhusing was very upset about these findings.

Shortly thereafter, in June of 2005, Westhusing was found dead in a trailer at a military base in Baghdad, with a gunshot wound to his head. The death was ruled a suicide. At the time he was the highest ranking U.S. officer to die in Iraq.

But Westhusing’s family and friends were not pleased with the suicide verdict. Shortly before his death he had expressed fear of being alone. His family and friends were troubled that he died “without a bodyguard, surrounded by the same contractors he suspected of wrongdoing. They wonder why the manager who discovered Westhusing's body and picked up his weapon was not tested for gunpowder residue.” “He's the last person who would commit suicide,” said a graduate school colleague of his.

Three more Bush biographers and six microbiologists associated with the anthrax hoax

While I was researching the Hatfield death I came across the fact that, with Gary Webb’s death in 2004, this was the fourth “ ‘suicide’ by a researcher who had a detailed understanding of the structure and function of the Bush crime family.” This section of my thread differs from the above sections in that these are very brief accounts, and two of the additional three “Bush researchers” who are discussed here conducted research involving Bush Senior, but apparently had little or nothing to do with our current president.

Gary Webb, the “investigative reporter who broke the story about the CIA's involvement with crack cocaine dealers in Southern California in the 1980’s”, was found dead in Sacramento in December 2004, from a gunshot wound to the head. The death was ruled a suicide. This article notes that Webb had been receiving death threats and discusses the impossibility of a suicide victim shooting himself in the face twice.

This article discusses the deaths of Mark Lombardi and Danny Casalaro. Mark Lombardi was found dead in his loft, from hanging, in March 2000.

Danny Casolaro was writing a book, 'The Octopus', “which was meant to be an explosive expose of the scandals surrounding the presidency of George Bush Sr.”, when he was found dead in August in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1991. He had bragged to friends that he would “bring back the head of the Octopus.” Both his wrists were slashed seven times, and a suicide note was found nearby. The only existing manuscript of the book he was writing, as well as his notes, were missing.

The same article notes six dead microbiologists connected with the 2001 anthrax hoax. The article notes that after the source of the anthrax (the strain that killed several American citizens and was also sent to the offices of Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy) was traced to a Pentagon lab, “microbiologists started dropping off like flies”. Five died between 12 November and 12 December 2001 of “suicides” or “heart attacks”, and one was bashed to death with a baseball bat in a high-security lab.

Putting this in perspective

I must reiterate that we need to be very careful that we do not overstate the case for what might be construed as a pattern of assassinations committed by our current Administration against its domestic enemies. For example, one article, commenting on the odds of so many “Bush researcher deaths” actually being a suicide, calculated the odds against that to be about one in ten quadrillion. That’s patently ridiculous, as those calculations assume that all four of these men were the only ones who were involved in researching Bush family crimes, and that they all occurred in the same year, which they didn’t.

What ARE the odds of so many suicides or violent accidental deaths occurring to enemies of the Bush Administration since, let’s say, George W. Bush’s inauguration? I am an epidemiologist, which means that I make my living by assessing the causes of injury and death, through statistical analysis of real life events. Yet, I can hardly begin to calculate what these odds are. I know that the suicide rate in this country is quite low: In men between the ages of 25 and 65 it is only about 17 to 20 cases per 100,000 population per year. But the main reason that I can’t calculate the odds is that I don’t know what to use as a denominator – which would be the number of persons at risk of such a death (i.e., Bush Administration enemies) during this time period. So, in order to calculate the odds, I would have to have a list of, say, the top 10 or top 200 Bush Administration enemies since Bush’s inauguration, and then see how many of them had died of violent deaths which were ruled suicides or accidents. And in putting together such a list, one would have to be careful not to be biased by existing knowledge of the death of these people.

I will end by giving one sample calculation. IF we assume that, of the 5 “suicide” deaths that I discuss in some detail in this thread (leaving out Senator Wellstone, since that was ruled an accident, not a suicide), all 5 of the individuals were among the top 100 persons whom the Bush Administration would have liked to see disappear, the odds against 5 of the top 100 Bush Administration enemies really dying of suicide over a five year period is about ten thousand to one, assuming that they were not related. If we further consider the facts that most of the victims had no known reason to commit suicide and did not seem at all suicidal, the investigations seemed so rushed and incomplete, the various evidence against suicide in these cases, the known ruthlessness of our current Administration, the likelihood that some people would have been too difficult to assassinate, and the possibility that I may have missed some additional top 100 deaths during this time period, the odds would become even more remote.

This looks like an ominous pattern to me.