Limbacher: Kathleen Janoski Describes Cover-Up in Ron Brown Investigation
Steve Hancock
[ Article reposted from alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater ]
[ Author was Bill Nalty <CBa...@worldnet.att.net> ]
[ Posted on Sun, 26 Apr 1998 18:57:26 -0500 ]
The Washington Weekly
April 27, 1998
KATHLEEN JANOSKI DESCRIBES COVER-UP IN RON BROWN INVESTIGATION
By Carl Limbacher
OYSTER BAY--Contrast the antics of Susan McDougal, and the favorable,
high profile media attention she's received - with the way Kathleen
Janoski has been treated. Chief Petty Officer Janoski, you may recall,
came forward to The Pittsburgh Tribune Review's Christopher Ruddy last
January, joining three other senior officers with the Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology who report a series of disturbing developments in
the case of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's death.
Officer Janoski, then the chief forensic photographer for the AFIP, was
the first to notice a suspicious headwound on Secretary Brown's corpse
when it arrived at Dover Air Force base four days after the plane crash
officials claim cost Brown his life. "Wow", she exclaimed, according to
Ruddy, "Look at the hole in Ron Brown's head. It looks like a gunshot
wound." Her outburst caused an immediate commotion amongst those within
earshot of Brown's examination table. And what she observed set in
motion perhaps the most disturbing governmental cover-up in recent
memory.
Though Janoski makes a compelling witness and the implications of her
story may be staggering, the mainstream press has refused to bring her
account to the nation's attention. That is, with one exception. On April
14, Kathleen Janoski made her coast to coast debut on The Bob Grant
Show, a New York talk radio program nationally syndicated by the WOR
Radio Network. The hour-long interview offered a devastating account by
a firsthand player whose credibility is as impressive as her
credentials: Janoski is a 22 year Navy veteran with absolutely no motive
to lie.
If our press had even a shred of integrity left, Grant's interview with
Kathleen Janoski would have made front page headlines the next day. As
it is, the same media that fawns incessantly over a discredited Susan
McDougal, has completely ignored Janoski's explosive revelations. It is
left to the Washington Weekly to bring them to you here in full:
GRANT: We do have here on the line, Chief Petty Officer, United States
Navy and chief of forensic photography with Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology, Kathleen Janoski. And she alleges that there has been a
cover-up in the investigation of Ron Brown. Ms. Janoski, I welcome you
to the Bob Grant program via the telephone. I understand that you have
received some threats of one type or another. That there's been some
pressure brought to bear to have you cease and desist from speaking out.
Is that true?
JANOSKI: Yes that is. Essentially what's happening is that I'm being
punished as a whistleblower because I went on record with The Pittsburgh
Tribune Review back in January. I used to be chief of forensic
photography but I was kicked out of my office with essentially 32 hours
notice and forced to walk away from a quarter million dollar inventory
that I'm still assigned responsibility for.
GRANT: Was there any mention made to you that if you toned down, that if
you stopped trying to alert the American public, that if you stopped
whistleblowing, that maybe everything would be OK again?
JANOSKI: Well, actually I wasn't given much of an explanation of
anything. I was not given a reason as to why I was being kicked out of
my office. I asked for one several times both verbally and in writing
but I was just told I was being re-assigned.
GRANT: Ms. Janoski, could you tell us what you think is the reason for
the Navy treating you the way they have?
JANOSKI: It's actually the Army and the Air Force Colonel who's in
charge of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. What it is - there's
four of us altogether, (Lt. Col. Steve) Cogswell, (Lt. Col. David)
Hause, myself and (Air Force Major Thomas) Parsons. And we all went on
the record saying that Ron Brown had what appeared to be an apparent
gunshot wound to the head - and that Ron Brown needed an autopsy, which
he did not receive.
GRANT: So that was it: you talked about what appeared to be a mark that
looked as though he had been hit by a gunshot.
JANOSKI: Well, actually it wasn't a mark. It was a hole in his skull. It
was perfectly round, inwardly beveling and it's diameter was .45 inches.
And it had punctured the skull. Brain was showing. And that's
essentially what we said: that Ron Brown had a wound that appeared
consistent with an apparent gunshot wound and that he needed an autopsy.
(Janoski has FBI training in gunshot wound analysis). And because of
that we're essentially being punished by the Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology.
GRANT: So you were the first to identify a wound on Brown's head that
looked like it had been caused by a gunshot?
JANOSKI: Yes.
GRANT: You also made an allegation that x-rays were destroyed to hide
evidence of a possible bullet wound.
JANOSKI: Well, what happened was - we have a Naval criminal
investigative agent who's assigned to our office. And about six months
after the crash she told me that the first set of x-rays were
deliberately destroyed because they showed a "lead snowstorm". And a
second set of x-rays were taken and they were deliberately made less
dense to try to diminish or eradicate that "lead snowstorm". A Naval
criminal investigative agent assigned to my office told me this.
GRANT: Now initially you had declined to be interviewed but you changed
your mind shortly before a gag order was issued and you came forward,
you said, because the AFIP had failed to properly investigate possible
wrongdoing by it's own officials in the Brown case. And because of the
way the military treated two AFIP pathologists. We have talked to Lt.
Col Steve Cogswell and Lt. Col. David Hause. Now, I understand that
after they both went public, bad things happened to them.
JANOSKI: Yes, yes. We were all supposed to go to the American Academy of
Forensic Sciences meeting in February. We had our tickets, we had our
reservations, we'd paid our registration fees. And right before we were
supposed to leave, the director of AFIP canceled our orders immediately.
Also, Dr. Cogswell was forbidden to lecture, forbidden to go on trips.
Cogswell, Hause and Parsons were no longer permitted to do any
autopsies. And also Dr. Cogswell was kicked out of his office at the
same time I was. And he's been re-assigned, they re-assigned him to oral
pathology. So they have a medical examiner working with a bunch of
dentists right now. He's very ill-equipped to work in that area. So
essentially what they're doing is something that's typical in punishing
a whistleblower. They're setting him up for failure.
GRANT: Ladies and gentleman, we're talking to somebody that's certainly
not a part of the right wing conspiracy that I belong to. I haven't seen
her at any of the meetings.
JANOSKI: (Laughing) Well, I'm a Democrat but don't hold that against me,
OK.
GRANT: She's a lifelong Democrat. She's been active in politics to the
extent that she did volunteer work for the 1972 presidential campaign of
George McGovern. And you say you voted for Bill Clinton.
JANOSKI: Yes.
GRANT: And you say that you receive a White House Christmas card each
year for having worked as a volunteer at the Clinton White House.
JANOSKI: Yes, I was a volunteer for two years. I answered the
president's mail in the Old Executive Office Building.
GRANT: And now all of this is happening to you. You could end it if you
would disavow some past statements: if you would say you were wrong -
that it really didn't look like a bullet hole.
JANOSKI: But then I'd be lying if I did that.
GRANT: But that's what they want you to do. Because they lied they want
you to lie.
JANOSKI: Yes, they want me to lie. And I refuse to do that.
GRANT: What is it that they're afraid of?
JANOSKI: You know, I'm not sure. When Brown's plane first crashed, I
just figured it was just another one of those typical plane crashes that
we're always called out to investigate. But the military is so intent on
bullying and intimidating us into silence, that I'm starting to wonder
if maybe there's more sinister motives at work.
GRANT: I was terminated at a previous network because on April 3rd of
1996 (the day of Brown's plane crash), when I was in conversation with a
caller, I looked up at the television screen that we had in the studio,
without the sound of course, and I saw a scene from Bosnia. The words on
the screen said, "It is reported that one possible survivor in the crash
may have escaped with his life". I said to the caller, "I see that
somebody may have survived. You know I just have a hunch it might be Ron
Brown". And then I added the words, "Well, of course, at heart I'm a
pessimist". And that was my ticket out of there. Then, everybody was so
solemn about the death of Ron Brown. I remember seeing the President
shedding what appeared to be tears. Later on we found out that perhaps
they'd given him several drops of Murine and let it run down his cheek.
But when he didn't think he was on camera he was laughing and joking.
Are you aware of that?
JANOSKI: I've heard reports of that. Actually I was at that memorial
service at Dover Air Force Base on that Saturday. I was taking
photographs of all the hearses on the tarmac, and all the transfer cases
holding the bodies, which were flag draped. I was actually there. But I
was too far away from the president to notice his reactions. I was
closer to where the bodies were.
GRANT: In a moment I want to ask you if there was Thermite on any of the
bodies. We'll get back to a very brave patriot by the name of Kathleen
Janoski in just a minute. (Commercial break)
GRANT: I want to reprise the question of Thermite on the bodies. Do you
know anything about that?
JANOSKI: The bodies weren't tested for Thermite at Dover, which would
show the possibility of explosives. They never tested for Thermite.
GRANT: Let's get to the telephones here. You're on the line with Chief
Janoski.
CALLER: Kudos to you, Bob, for this courageous interview. And Chief
Janoski, let me commend you too for your courage and fortitude
throughout this entire episode. I'd like to ask you a question about
chronology. Reportedly you and the others worked on Ron Brown's body
four days after his death. Is that right?
JANOSKI: The bodies arrived on Saturday after the crash. We actually
started working on the bodies that Sunday following the crash. That was
Easter Sunday, April 7th.
CALLER: OK, that would be four days. And then Lt. Cogswell was
dispatched to Croatia the next day, right?
JANOSKI: Well actually, Lt. Cogswell saw Brown's body briefly that
Sunday. He left Dover Sunday and drove back to the Washington, DC area.
They flew out of Washington Sunday night and they arrived in Germany on
Monday.
CALLER: The point of my question was, at some point Cogswell called back
to Dover and told (Col. William) Gormley (the ranking AFIP doctor at at
Dover) that he couldn't find anything at the crash site that would
explain that headwound and told him that Brown should be autopsied. By
that point, was Ron Brown's body still even at Dover? Could it still
have been autopsied or had they already shipped the body out?
JANOSKI: The body had already been embalmed and it had been released to
the funeral home. So at the time that conversation took place, Ron
Brown's body was no longer at Dover.
CALLER: So Gormley never even intended to rely on what Dr. Cogswell had
to tell him, did he?
JANOSKI: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, Cogswell said he couldn't
find anything to match the wound at the crash site. Everything was
either too big or too small to have caused the headwound.
CALLER: Well, thank you very much and please hang in there. Somewhere,
some day, some how, somebody's got to pay attention to this. This is an
outrage.
GRANT: You would hope that the gentlemen would be right when he said
that somewhere, some day, somebody's got to pay attention to this. But I
don't know what it takes. You would think that the family of Ron Brown,
now that Tracey Brown, his daughter, on this very same radio station,
she was asked by someone about the need for an autopsy and she seemed
very vague about it. You would think the family would be first and
foremost in finding out what really happened to their father.
JANOSKI: You have to realize that they're getting very limited
information also. And the real tragedy of all this is, that while Ron
Brown's body was in the morgue and all this controversy was going on;
whether or not this was a bullet hole or whether or not it looked like a
bullet hole - no one from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner's office had
the decency to call the Brown family to notify them that their husband,
their father had this suspicious headwound. I believe that the first
time they heard of it was when the story first broke in the newspaper,
which was about a year and a half later. But no one had the decency to
tell them. No one had the decency to offer them an autopsy.
GRANT: And yet there are people who go around the country acting as
though they know everything about everything, like Jesse Jackson - who
said - "Well maybe there should be another autopsy."
JANOSKI: There was no first autopsy.
GRANT: Exactly. So people don't realize that there wasn't even a first
autopsy.
JANOSKI: Yes, there was no autopsy. We had a dead Cabinet member, we had
a suspicious headwound, we had what appeared to be metal fragments
inside the head on the x-ray - and there was no autopsy. How do you
explain that?
GRANT: What about the 34 other passengers on that ill-fated plane. Did
you see what might appear to be bullet holes in their heads?
JANOSKI: Oh no - not at all.
GRANT: Just Ron Brown.
JANOSKI: Yes. And you have to look at who he was. He was a Cabinet
member. There are always going to be questions later concerning the
death of a well known individual.
CALLER: The only reason we are all here listening to this right now, is
because someone had enough courage and intelligence to make copies of
the x-rays and pictures. And that was you. What went through your mind
when you first saw those x-rays and pictures? Something must have told
you that there was a crime here and you felt you must make copies to
preserve this. Because everything else has been lost.
JANOSKI: No, actually it was very simple. I had never taken photographs
of x-rays from a light box. So what I was doing was testing out the
metering system on my Nikon F-4 camera. And I just happened to be over
by the light table and I just happened to be taking pictures of the
x-rays of Ron Brown. As a matter of fact, I didn't even realize what I
had on film, until that Naval criminal investigative agent said
something to me six months later about a "lead snowstorm" being on these
x-rays. So I go back to my office. I had to rummage through all these
boxes to look for the slide film. I had no idea what I had.
CALLER: There is a theory that when murders, and I'm not saying that
this was a murder, but when murders are committed in a highly secretive
manner - a bullet that is untraceable is used and it's made of dry ice.
It has enough hardness to pierce the skull and then it just disappears.
JANOSKI: Yes, I've heard that before. But what you have to realize is
that the doctor in charge of examining Ron Brown's body didn't look for
an exit wound at all.
GRANT: He did not look for an exit wound at all?
JANOSKI: No, the injury was at the very top of Ron Brown's head. So if
it was a bullet, the bullet probably would have went through the body
and would have exited around the buttocks or the groin area. Well that
area was never examined thoroughly at all. Nor was I told to take
photographs to show either the presence or the absence of any injury
down there at all.
(Janoski's contention that Brown's body was never examined and
photographed for an exit wound is both new and significant. Only days
earlier, Brown's daughter, Tracey, revealed that the family had hired
their own forensic pathologist after the bullet wound controversy
exploded last December. And he had told them that there was no exit
wound on Brown's body based on the available evidence. Tracey cited that
erroneous information as one of the key reasons her family was satisfied
that Brown had not been shot.)
CALLER: There were reports that there was a radar operator on an AWACS
airplane who killed himself shortly after Brown's plane crash. Is that
correct?
JANOSKI: No. That was the maintenance man who was in charge of the radio
beacon. Apparently the radio beacon had been moved 10 degrees and that
was one of the reasons why the plane crashed. He conveniently committed
suicide three days after the crash with a rifle shot to the chest.
(Commercial break)
GRANT: If you've just joined us we're talking to Kathleen Janoski. She's
a Chief Petty Officer, United States Navy, and was the chief of forensic
photography with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. She alleges
that there has been a cover-up in the investigation of the death of Ron
Brown. She was the first to identify a wound on Ron Brown's head that
looked like a gunshot wound. And this is her first national radio
interview and her first interview at a major station. Ms. Janoski, how
do you fell about going public? After the threats you've had, after the
intimidation you've experienced, and indeed, after the consequences you
have suffered - how do you feel about it?
JANOSKI: I feel that high visibility now is my best defense. If I go on
the record, if I talk to people in the media on radio or TV, I feel
right now that, that's my only protection at this point.
GRANT: I think you're absolutely right. At this point, the more people
who know your story, the better it is for you.
JANOSKI: Yes. The AFIP is not upset that they made a mistake and they
terribly bungled this death investigation. The reason why they're upset
is because the press found out, the American public found out. And that
upsets them more than anything.
GRANT: All right, let's get back to our busy phones here.
CALLER: Are you taking any extra measures concerning your security now
that you've come out about this?
JANOSKI: Well, I'm a little bit more careful. I always make sure that
someone knows where I am at all times. I always give somebody the phone
number of where I'm going to be. It's pretty scary, actually, to have to
shift into a mode of being worried about these things.
GRANT: And mind you - who could she possibly be worried about? Is she
worried about the Russians? Is she worried about the Chinese? Or some
other foreign entity? No, she's worried about her own government. A
government of the people, by the people and for the people and she has
to worry about it. And for good cause.
CALLER: I was curious if there was an investigation of the passengers
for any potential sinister motive - or whether any of them could have
been operatives? Also, what about the theory that Brown's wound could
have been self inflicted? Were the passengers screened for weapons prior
to the flight?
JANOSKI: I'll tell you what I know. And as far as I know, there is no
investigation ongoing right now. I don't know if the passengers were
screened for weapons. However, there was a burnt 9 mm clip that was
found with one of the bodies. It was in one of the body bags. I'm sure,
if there was a burnt 9 mm clip, that somewhere on the plane there was a
9 mm gun.
CALLER: Kathleen, I just wanted to let you know that when that plane
first went down, the government said that there were no black boxes in
the airplane and nobody knew what happened to them. But there's a
gentleman who lives down here in Simi Valley (CA) who was the engineer
for Boeing. And he put the five black boxes in. They upgraded that
plane. It was originally a 200 S-X series. They upgraded it to a 500 S-X
series. In other words, it has five black boxes in it and they all have
to be working to start the engines. To get off the ground you have to
have all five of them working. He has the original logs with the
original serial numbers of the black boxes he put in there and the
government's saying that the plane didn't have black boxes. That's a
lie. That same summer Mr. Clinton went out to Wyoming to vacation at
Yellowstone National Park. And the C-130 that carried his limousines
crashed in the mountains there and killed the whole crew.
JANOSKI: Yes, we did that crash.
CALLER: They had the black boxes for that airplane within thirty minutes
of it crashing. But after Brown's crash they said no military planes
have black boxes. But this gentleman here in Simi Valley has his
personal copies of the actual FAA logs: the engineer's logs that they
keep themselves and he knows for a fact that he put them in.
JANOSKI: Isn't it interesting how the mainstream media is just ignoring
facts like that? (Commercial break)
GRANT: Let's say hello to this caller in Saratoga. Ms Janoski is still
on the line. Go right ahead.
CALLER: Were the bullet fragments in the x-ray angular or globular? Did
they have a defined edge?
JANOSKI: I would say they were not real well defined. They weren't
perfectly circular like buckshot. They weren't perfectly circular but
they weren't real well defined. And they were rather small.
CALLER: Because there is a version of a projectile called an hydraulic
projectile which generally uses Mercury and totally destroys the
projectile after impact. And when you mentioned that there was no exit
hole I wondered what kind of a projectile it was?
JANOSKI: Well, since nobody looked for an exit wound, we really don't
know whether there was an exit wound or not. And you may find this
interesting. There was no test done for gunshot residue around the wound
either.
CALLER: Kathleen, you seem to express some fear for your personal
safety. Is this based upon any threats that you've received? Or is it
based on observations you've made about other people?
JANOSKI: Well, we had an internal AFIP investigation and I was
essentially threatened with a court martial, and theoretically the death
penalty, if I did not answer a number of questions. And at that point I
retained Judicial Watch and Larry Klayman as my legal counsel. He saved
my butt, that's for sure. And when the internal investigation was going
on, it was very threatening and very coercive towards the four of us. We
realized that the internal investigation was actually targeted towards
us. There were over 25 people in my office who had been at Dover that
day yet the majority of them were never interviewed.
CALLER: Have you received any specific physical threats?
JANOSKI: No - nothing physical. No. But you know how people imply and
infer things? You don't have to come right out and say things but you
know life is going to be miserable for you.
GRANT: And Ms. Janoski is well aware of what's happened to some people
in this country. How some people have a bad habit of walking backwards
into a dagger 24 times.
CALLER: I just called my Congressman, Bill Thomas, he's a Republican. I
talked to one of his staff about this and they don't even know anything
about it.
JANOSKI: Right. The mainstream media has pretty much ignored this.
CALLER: I mean, this is a congressman and he knows nothing about this?
JANOSKI: Well, I live in Arlington, VA and they can feel free to call me
and ask for my opinion.
CALLER: I have one other thing to say. Please watch yourself because,
you know what happened to Vince Foster and all these other guys.
GRANT: No, nothing is going to happen to Kathleen Janoski because we're
going to keep talking about her on the Bob Grant Show. They wouldn't
dare harm a hair on her head. I salute you, Chief Janoski. We'll talk
again very soon. Give my regards to Larry Klayman.
That historic conversation, heard perhaps by millions of listeners, is
now nearly two weeks old. Yet no one in the prestige press has taken
note of it. Ironically, Grant, who was fired from his previous station
for indulging in an off-handed bit of gallows humor on the day Brown
died, seems to be one of just a handful of commentators who's at all
interested in getting answers to questions about the demise of the late
Commerce Secretary.
Audiotaped copies of the Grant-Janoski exchange have been forwarded to
several high profile conservative journalists who write for prominent
mainstream publications. We shall see if any of them have the integrity
and courage to run the media blockade and reveal the whole Ron Brown
story to their readers, as told firsthand by an eyewitness whistleblower
now being persecuted by the Air Force.
The American press, which hangs on every manipulative word belched forth
by Susan McDougal and her lawyers, only compounds their disgrace by
pretending Kathleen Janoski and her cohorts are not to be believed.
Published in the Apr. 27, 1998 issue of The Washington Weekly
Copyright 1998 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
Reposting permitted with this message