WorldNetDaily’s lingering case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome is such that it blames any death of anyone even remotely associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton on a conspiracy theory of the couple targeting their enemies (never mind all evidence to the contrary). Last June, WND tried to cynically add another name to the list, and Bob Unruh updated this ghoulish conspiracy in a Feb. 22 article:
A former Clinton aide who signed Jeffrey Epstein into the White House multiple times was found dead in 2022 with a gunshot wound to his chest, an extension cord tied around his neck and attached to a tree.
No gun was found in the vicinity.
But his death now has been determined to be a suicide, according to a report assembled by the Daily Mail.
It’s just one of a long list of suspicious deaths that have been documented among those who were in the circle of people that included Bill and Hillary Clinton.
[…]Newsweek said the “Clinton Body Count” “conspiracy” dated to the 1990s when a now-deceased attorney “railed against the Clinton administration’s deadly 1993 Waco, Texas, siege of the Branch Davidian church that resulted in more than 75 deaths.”
The late talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh discussed the “Clinton body count” in 2016, citing a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled “Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die.”
Limbaugh said at the time he recalled Ted Koppel, then anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline,” routinely discussing the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster.
Just one problem: The Daily Mail published an article the next day that debunked the conspiracy theory that it and WND had been pushing:
A shotgun WAS found near the body of the Clinton White House aide who killed himself on a ranch in Arkansas, the local sheriff is now saying.
And more details of how cops now believe Mark Middleton killed himself have been released.
Papers released earlier by Perry County sheriff Scott Montgomery said deputies who were called to the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, an hour west of Little Rock, after an abandoned BMW SUV was found there specifically said there was no gun in the car.
But now a further set of papers has been released to DailyMail.com that says a weapon – a Stoeger 12-gauge coach gun – was found on the ground 30 feet from Middleton’s body.
In the new papers, Sergeant Keenan Carter gives a detailed explanation of how he believes Middleton – an aide who signed pedophile Jeffrey Epstein into the White House several times during Bill Clinton’s presidency – took great lengths to ensure his suicide bid was successful – after writing a text to his wife saying he had ‘found a perfect place for a nap in the sun.’
[…]Carter said in this report that the gun landed so far from Middleton’s body ‘due to the recoil from the discharge and the height and angle of the ground.’
‘This officer didn’t find any evidence to indicate that there was anyone else present with Mr. Middleton at this scene or any evidence that there was any type of struggle and or foul play.’
WND has not updated or retracted Unruh’s article, nor did it published a separate article with the evidence that debunked it. Similarly, the Daily Mail never updated its original story to add the correct information debunking its premise.
Nevertheless, Unruh repeated other purported entries on the so-called “Clinton body count.” One was “former U.N. official John Ashe, founded [sic] dead in his New York home. Officials said it was a heart attack, but local police said his throat had been crushed by a barbell.” As Snopes detailed, Ashe — who is on the alleged list because he was about to go on trial on corruption charges, which WND had previoiusly misleadingly portrayed as linked ot Hillary Clinton — did indeed die in a barbell accident, and his death was originally erroneously reported as from a heart attack.
Unruh also cited “attorney Shawn Lucas, 38, who helped serve the DNC with a lawsuit claiming then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz ‘rigged the [2016] primary for Hillary Clinton’ and days later was found dead in his bathroom. The cause of death wasn’t determined.” In fact, Lucas’ cause of death has been determined: a medical examiner called the death accidental due to the “combined adverse effects of fentanyl [a synthetic opioid pain medication], cyclobenzaprine [a muscle relaxant], and mitragynine [better known as kratom].”
Unruh went on to mysteriously reference “Another man, an MI6 spy who had illegally hacked secret data on Bill Clinton, [who] was found dead, naked, padlocked and stuffed in a duffel bag in a London hotel bathtub. Scotland Yard said it was a suicide.” Unruh is referring to Gareth Williams, who died in 2010, and he’s misleading about what Scotland Yard said about Williams. It reported that Williams had unorthodox sexual tastes and had apparently visited bondage and sadomasochism websites, including several related to claustrophilia, a desire for confinement in enclosed spaces. A source close to the inquiry said that “They have been unable to find any trace of anyone who should not have been in the flat and every reason to believe that Gareth may have climbed into the bag himself and been unable to get out.”
WND leaned into this direction regarding thet death of Dana Hyde, who worked in both the Clinton and Obama, as the result of an in-flight incident. It reprinted a March 7 article from the Western Journal (which began life as a right-wing nonprofit founded by WND editor Joseph Farah) under the headline “Another Clinton official dead”; though the article itself did not push any Clinton conspiracy, a reader poll attached to the article asked, “Does working for the Clintons increase anyone’s chances of dying mysteriously?” A reprinted March 26 Western Journal article on the full cause of Hyde’s death, however, carried a headline identifying her only as an “Obama official.”
The “Clinton Body Count” was discredited a long time ago, well before we did our first exploration of it way back in 2005.