Of all things, Donald Trump has decided to make Vince Foster's suicide an issue in the campaign, calling the death of the former Deputy White House Counsel in the Clinton administration "very fishy." This is yet another example of how Trump's pugilistic, let-it-all-hang-out style is not serving him well, because a more responsible opponent could point out that the Clintons' behavior with regard to Foster was fishy in and of itself, even as it was made it clear the Clintons didn't murder the guy.

For those either too young to remember or who simply need a reminder, Foster was a former partner of Hillary Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas and Deputy White House Counsel until he committed suicide in 1993. The evidence that Foster was battling clinical depression and died by his own hand is rock solid, but nonetheless his death prompted a lot of conspiracy theories. Here's how Trump has rekindled those theories:

He called theories of possible foul play "very serious" and the circumstances of Foster's death "very fishy."

"He had intimate knowledge of what was going on," Trump said, speaking of Foster's relationship with the Clintons at the time. "He knew everything that was going on, and then all of a sudden he committed suicide."

He added, "I don't bring [Foster's death] up because I don't know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don't do that because I don't think it's fair."

Now Trump isn't helping quash unnecessary rumors here. He says "I don't think it's fair" to talk about Foster being murdered right after he mentions that people think he was murdered, so he seems disingenuous at best.

But it is fair game to talk about Foster's relationship to the Clintons. Initially, Foster worked with Hillary Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas, where he was instrumental in making her the firm's first female partner. Among the other notable things he did at the firm, Foster and Webb Hubbell, with Hillary Clinton's approval, brought in a bunch of women alleged to have had sexual relationships with Bill Clinton and offered to represent them when a political opponent threatened to expose the affairs. The goal was to intimidate and silence the women, and it appears to have worked. Gail Sheehy reports that Hillary Clinton herself sat in at least one of the meetings with the women. (Hillary Clinton would later tell Sheehy in 1992 to look into unproven accusations of infidelity against George H.W. Bush.)

Foster was by all accounts a terrific lawyer, though that's not to be confused with being a good person. In her book Living History, Clinton compares him to Atticus Finch. It's an interesting parallel. Atticus Finch unsuccessfully and publicly sought justice for a powerless man falsely accused of rape. Foster privately silenced women taken advantage of by Bill Clinton, then a governor and later an accused rapist.

As for his time in the White House, as Deputy Legal Counsel Foster presided over a number of failed appointments. He was a central figure in cleaning up messes related to the Clintons' Whitewater and Travelgate scandals.

Missing Rose Law Firm documents relevant to the Whitewater scandal would later turn out to be found inside the White House in 1996. Who knows whether Foster was complicit in any cover-ups, but upon his death the Clintons did immediately raid his office for Whitewater-related documents:

Foster's death was officially ruled a suicide. The Clinton White House eventually admitted to misleading investigators about how senior officials had seized and disposed of files relating to the first couple's controversial investments in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a failed real estate venture.

Clinton spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers admitted that then-White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, who had recovered documents relating to the Whitewater controversy from Foster's office after his death, did not turn over the documents to the Clinton family's personal attorney, contrary to what White House officials had claimed. Nussbaum had actually given the documents to Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, who placed them in a White House safe for five days before being turned over to the family attorney.

As if that wasn't bad enough, in 1995 the New York Times reported an aide, Sylvia Matthews, was dispatched to go through Vince Foster's trash:

The committee also focused today on Mr. Foster's office trash. Members questioned Sylvia Mathews, a former White House aide, in laborious detail about what she had found in Mr. Foster's garbage on the night he died. Other than a few routine documents, the garbage contained nothing that shed light on Mr. Foster's thinking, said Ms. Mathews, who is now chief of staff at the Treasury Department.

Miss Matthews is now Mrs. Burwell. That's right: Sylvia Burwell, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services who is now busy sorting out Obamacare's refuse, is the same aide that went through Foster's trash the day he died. Loyalty to the Clintons has a generous rewards program, as the quasi nationalization of health care means that Burwell is now pulling the strings on a sixth of the national economy. And whatever lobbying gig is sure to follow will no doubt be extremely lucrative

Anyway, this is some seriously disturbing House of Cards-style politicking. The facts surrounding Foster's relationship to the Clintons stink to high heaven and really do testify to how corrupt they are. However, the utility of reopening decades old charges is limited and must be handled carefully. A more skilled and intelligent candidate could and should call attention to what went on here, along with all the other Clinton corruption scandals, to highlight how supremely unworthy Hillary Clinton is of the public trust.