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Whitewater Won't Go Away

In a Supreme Court petition, the White House asserts privilege for Mrs. Clinton's conversations with government lawyers

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 12) -- Against the backdrop of renewed, sharp sniping between the White House and independent counsel Kenneth Starr, lawyers for the White House today asked the Supreme Court to protect the secrecy of conversations that Hillary Rodham Clinton had with government lawyers about the Whitewater probe.

In a petition to the high court, the administration asked justices to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that notes of White House lawyers' conversations with Mrs. Clinton be provided to the Whitewater grand jury in Little Rock, Ark.

The new petition followed an unusually pointed exchange over the weekend between special prosecutor Starr and the White House over whether the administration is attempting to impede Starr's Whitewater probe.

In a talk to newspaper editors in Arkansas, Starr said the White House was "duty-bound" to turn over the notes summarizing the conversations between lawyers and Mrs. Clinton.

But White House special counsel Lanny Davis said Starr's claim the White House was impeding the probe was "nonsense" and Starr's push to get the notes was "a fishing expedition."

From Barbados, the last stop on a weeklong trip, President Bill Clinton said the administration has been "very cooperative and will continue to be."

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set the stage for the dispute when it ruled 2-1 last month that the White House could not invoke attorney-client privilege to cover the notes.

The new White House petition invoked a slippery-slope claim, arguing that unless the lower court order is overturned, "the next step would be for the grand jury to require the White House counsel or other government attorneys to testify about conversations with the president or other government officials concerning the legal advice they have given and the information they have gathered in their internal investigations."

Starr is investigating what he called widespread evidence of possible obstruction of his investigation of Whitewater. He has described Mrs. Clinton as a "central figure" in his probe, according to recently unsealed court papers. (352K wav sound)

The dispute over the notes began last summer when the Whitewater grand jury in Little Rock, Ark. subpoenaed the notes taken by White House lawyers.

The notes summarize two conversations that Mrs. Clinton had with a team of government and private lawyers. One conversation was on Jan. 26, 1996, during breaks in Mrs. Clinton's grand jury testimony that day.

The second conversation was during a July 11, 1995, meeting that Mrs. Clinton had with the team of attorneys.

The White House's petition says the White House counsel's office was a necessary part of the defense team.

In his weekend talk to newspaper editors, Starr also accused Susan McDougal, a former Whitewater partner of the president and Mrs. Clinton, of seeking a "license to lie" in her demand for immunity from perjury charges in exchange for testimony before a grand jury. (256K wav sound)