Ex-Clinton lawyer Bernard Nussbaum died in his Manhattan home at 84 on Sunday, the New York Times reported.
Mr. Nussbaum was President Clinton’s first White House lawyer and caused a lot of controversy when he interfered in the Justice Department’s investigation into former deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster’s ‘suicide.’
On July 20, 1993, Vince Foster, President Bill Clinton’s childhood friend and Hillary Clinton’s closest White House confidante, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Fort Marcy Park, McLean, Virginia.
Hillary Clinton was behind a 30-hour delay in releasing Vince Foster’s ‘suicide note’ to authorities.
The Clinton White House removed documents from Vince Foster’s office and then-White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum impeded the DOJ’s probe into the deceased deputy White House counsel.
According to numerous reports, Vince Foster ‘knew too much’ about the Clintons’ involvement in the Whitewater scandal.
“The conspiracy theories only accelerated when Mr. Nussbaum sought to restrict Justice Department access to Mr. Foster’s office files.” The Times reported.
The New York Times reported:
Bernard W. Nussbaum, who as President Bill Clinton’s first White House counsel became a lightning rod in a rash of bitter controversies that plagued Mr. Clinton early in his administration, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 84.
The cause was heart disease, his son Frank said.
Mr. Nussbaum was a corporate lawyer in New York and an old friend of the first lady, Hillary Clinton, when her husband named him to the counsel post after being elected as a Democrat to his first term in 1992.
Mr. Nussbaum served for 14 months, resigning at Mr. Clinton’s request amid relentless attacks on the Clintons over a series of imbroglios, starting with a failed Arkansas land venture in which they had taken part years before they reached the White House — an episode known as the Whitewater affair. Then came the suicide of the deputy counsel, Vincent W. Foster Jr., giving rise to official inquiries and fevered conspiracy theories. And finally there was the F.B.I.’s agreement to a White House request for files on dozens of Republicans whom the bureau had screened for White House jobs in past administrations.