Clinton body count
Executive summary
The “Clinton body count” is a long-running conspiracy theory that asserts Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for the suspicious deaths of dozens—sometimes more than 100—people connected to them; the allegation began as a compiled list in the early 1990s and has since been amplified across fringe sites and partisan outlets [1] [2]. Extensive reporting and debunking trace the origin to Indianapolis lawyer Linda Thompson’s list and its circulation by Rep. William Dannemeyer, while mainstream investigations have found no credible evidence tying the Clintons to homicides on the scale claimed [3] [2].
1. How the myth began and spread
The meme originated with a 1993 list titled “The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence or the Kiss of Death?” compiled by Linda Thompson, which enumerated dozens of people who died after having some connection—real or alleged—to the Clintons; the list was then trimmed and circulated in Congress by William Dannemeyer in 1994, giving it an air of political legitimacy that helped it spread [1] [3]. Over the decades the roster grew on blogs and conspiratorial websites, migrating from the militia movement and fringe videos such as The Clinton Chronicles into modern social feeds where lists are recycled and expanded without independent verification [2] [4].
2. What the lists actually contain and who publishes them
The lists are mixed atlases of confirmed suicides, accidents, unresolved deaths, and plainly unrelated fatalities, republished by partisan or fringe outlets that present the aggregation as proof rather than evidence—examples include long “exhaustive” compilations on sites like Right Wire Report and Tricentennial.us that add new names and speculative links year after year [5] [4]. Mainstream fact-checkers and historians have repeatedly documented that many names on these lists have no proven connection to Clinton wrongdoing and that causal leaps are common in the retellings [2] [1].
3. High-profile cases that fueled the narrative
Certain deaths—such as the 1993 suicide of White House aide Vince Foster, the 2016 murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, and later the Jeffrey Epstein saga—became lightning rods for the body-count narrative because they intersected with politics, crime, and incomplete public information; each generated intense speculation, but investigative reporting has not produced evidence that the Clintons ordered killings in these cases [2] [3] [6]. Media errors and retractions—most notably outlets that amplified false links between Seth Rich and DNC leaks—fed conspiratorial belief systems even after corrections were issued [3].
4. Investigations, whistleblowers, and the difference between corruption and murder claims
Serious oversight and prosecutorial disputes—such as Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s release of DOJ records alleging interference or blocked probes into the Clinton Foundation—have been used by some to imply cover-ups, but those documents concern investigative decisions and alleged institutional resistance, not evidence of homicide or a campaign of killings [7]. Conflating alleged investigative obstruction with proof of murder is a logical leap the lists routinely commit; the existence of contested law-enforcement behavior does not substantiate claims that the Clintons killed political opponents [7].
5. Why the story endures despite debunking
The Clinton body count survives because it satisfies a political narrative—casting powerful figures as murderous elites—and because lists offer a simple, viral explanation for complex, often unrelated tragedies; debunking articles and encyclopedic entries (including Snopes and Wikipedia histories) repeatedly trace the rumor’s roots and show how fabrications and doctored images have proliferated, yet those corrections rarely travel as fast as sensational claims [1] [3] [2]. Fringe outlets and partisan authors continue to republish and expand the lists, ensuring the myth’s persistence [5] [8].
6. Bottom line on evidence and responsible interpretation
After three decades of public scrutiny, the Clinton body count remains an allegation-driven meme without verified, credible evidence that the Clintons engaged in a systematic campaign of murder; origin tracing shows an activist-compiled list, amplified politically and then cultivated by fringe media, rather than a forensic record of criminal conspiracy [3] [1] [2]. Reporting documents suspicious deaths and institutional questions—legitimate subjects of oversight—but those legitimate concerns should not be conflated with the extraordinary claim that the Clintons are responsible for dozens of homicides without substantive proof [7] [6].