Privilege Dispute Could Reach High Court Quickly
Clinton refuses to comment on the likelihood of an appeal
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 6) -- President Bill Clinton can buy some time by appealing this week's ruling denying executive privilege to White House aides Bruce Lindsey and Sidney Blumenthal, but maybe not much time.
In 1974, during the height of the Watergate scandal, it took less than two months for the Supreme Court to dispense with President Richard Nixon's doomed attempt to keep information from Congress.
Judge John J. Sirica said no to Nixon on May 20, 1974. In an expedited review, the Supreme Court ruled against Nixon just 55 days later.
 Transcript: President Bill Clinton, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi |
On Tuesday, Judge Norma Holloway Johnson ruled Clinton aides may not claim executive privilege before the Whitewater grand jury looking into sex and perjury allegations against Clinton.
Independent Counsel Ken Starr is investigating whether Clinton lied about a relationship with ex-White House intern Monica Lewinsky and urged her to do so, too. Clinton has denied the accusations.
At a news conference Wednesday with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, Clinton would not comment on whether he would appeal, and rejected parallels between his claim of executive privilege and Nixon's in Watergate.
"The facts are quite different in this case," Clinton said, although when asked how, he declined to elaborate. (512K wav sound)
Two sources familiar with the White House legal strategy told CNN Wednesday a presidential appeal of the ruling is all but certain, though one source voiced significant doubts the administration would have much, if any, success.
The source cited Johnson's decision, saying she recognized the principle of executive privilege but ruled that in this case the prosecutors' need for information relevant to a criminal investigation outweighed the right to keep internal presidential strategy discussions secret.
The Clinton Administration had argued that a decision last year in a case involving the Mike Espy independent counsel had established the right to protect not only conversations with the president but also strategy discussions among aides that were part of the president's deliberative process.
But the Espy decision included language acknowledging the scales tipped in the prosecutors' favor if the information at the core of the invocation of privilege is not available elsewhere.
White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Wednesday he knew
nothing about the judge's sealed ruling, but dismissed parallels with the Watergate scandal.
"If he [Clinton] is pursuing any matter, I don't think he's worried about any parallels to Watergate because there are none. In the case of
Watergate, crimes were committed, as you may recall," McCurry
said.
Lindsey is a lawyer and longtime friend of Clinton; Blumenthal was a sympathetic journalist before he joined the White House as a communications advisor. Sources say the White House's limited executive privilege claim centers on White House strategy discussions, not the nature of Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky.
Still pending is a ruling from Johnson on whether Secret Service
agents should have to testify about what they observed and heard
from the president.
The doctrine of executive privilege permits a president to withhold certain information from other branches of government, in the interest of the value of receiving frank, honest advice from aides.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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