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Eric Woodson

Professor Corbally

English 101

6 December 2012

Ron Brown: Assassinated

On April 3 1996 a plane fell from the sky crashing and killing one of the 20th centuries most controversial political leaders, Ron Brown. Although the crash was ruled an accident, there is even more controversy surrounding Brown in his death; there is evidence to suggest he was actually assassinated by a single shot to the head and that his murder was plotted by Bill and

Hillary Clinton because they were involved in a number of questionable and illegal activities that he was being investigated for, and he made it known that he was not going to be made a scapegoat for them.

Before things went sour between Brown and the Clintons’ he was virtually Bill Clinton’s point man. “President Clinton, himself, credited Brown, the consummate Washington insider powerbroker, as one of the main reasons why he won the White House in 1994”(Reynolds).

After winning the election President Clinton appointed Ron Brown Secretary of Commerce and made him a member of his cabinet. It was during his years of service when he began to get implicated in several high-profile scandals. His name was tied to The Whitewater Cover-up, the

Denver International Airport scam, a drug smuggling operation in Mena, Arkansas, the Keating

Five, Lillian Madsen and her prostitution ring. “Small wonder that 22 congressmen wrote

Clinton in February 1995, demanding he fire Brown” (Guarino). At the time of his murder,

Brown was under investigation by: a special prosecutor in the Justice Department; the FDIC; the Woodson 2

Congressional Reform and Oversight Committee; the FBI; the Energy Department; the Senate

Judiciary Committee; and even his own Commerce Department Inspector General.

Involved in over a dozen major scandals, Brown was, among other things, Clinton's point man to bring Iranian Muslims and their weaponry into the Bosnia war. That broke the U.S.-endorsed arms embargo. The money for the arms was most likely from Commerce and Agriculture-slush fund money channeled to U.S. manufacturers, thence to U.S. friendly nations and firms overseas, thence to Iran. The arms included helicopter gun-ships, stinger missiles, land mines, anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers, and other quality weaponry.

The last nail in Brown's coffin was pounded four days before the crash. The FBI

and the IRS subpoenaed as many as 20 witnesses for a serious new grand jury probe of Brown in Washington, The February 8, 1996 Washington Post reported that Brown had retained top legal gun Reid Weingarten, a former high official in the Justice Department, as his criminal attorney. You don't pay his prices ($750 an hour) unless you know a criminal indictment is coming and you're probably to jail. (“Murder”)

Brown went to Clinton to ask for help to get him out the difficult situation he was in, and

Clinton let him know he could not help him. It was during this difficult and pressing time that

Brown spoke the words that he was not going down all by himself.

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Works Cited

Guarino, Nicholas. “Shelly Kelly: A witness dies without explanation.” The Wall Street

Underground. Web. 1 Dec. 2012.

“Murder in the First Degree?” Over the Transom. Reprinted on Dangerouslogic.com. September

1996. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.

Reynolds, Barbara, Rev. “Why would anyone kill [Ron] Brown?” Lousiana Weekly. 9 Apr.

2007. Ebsco. Web. 14 Nov. 2012.

Stacey, Don. “SIGHTINGS: The Unexplained Bullet Wound in Ron Brown’s Head.” 11 Jan.

2011. JSTOR. Web. 14 Nov. 2012.

Von Erich, Jonathan. “Ron Brown and Bill Clinton’s Hit List.” Conspiracy. 10 Nov. 2010.

JSTOR. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.