WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Sept. 29) -- The U.S. Justice Department is supporting former associate attorney general and convicted Whitewater figure Webster Hubbell by agreeing with his claim that Independent Counsel Ken Starr exceeded his authority in pursuing the tax evasion charges against Hubbell.

The department filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week that agreed with a federal judge who threw out the charges against Hubbell, his wife, his tax attorney and his accountant. Starr is appealing the judge's decision.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson dismissed the case after concluding that the tax evasion case went beyond Starr's mandate to investigate the Whitewater land deal and that the appellate panel of judges who gave him permission went too far.

Starr should have obtained Attorney General Janet Reno's approval before embarking on the tax prosecution, a Justice Department attorney wrote in the September 23 filing.

Robertson made similar arguments when he dismissed the tax case in July.

Robertson "correctly concluded that the independent counsel did not have authority ... to bring the indictment," the Justice Department wrote in a brief signed by criminal division lawyer J. Douglas Wilson.

Expanding jurisdiction in the tax case called for an application by Reno to the three-judge panel, justice lawyers held. But Starr went directly to the panel.

Robertson ruled that the panel "may interpret" but not expand Starr's mandate "without the consent of the attorney general."

Justice lawyers disagreed with Robertson on a separate issue. Robertson ruled that the tax charges could be dismissed based on Hubbell's contention that Starr violated an immunity agreement given to Hubbell.

Hubbell admitted to stealing from his Arkansas law firm. He agreed to cooperate with the Whitewater probe as part of a guilty plea and a grant of immunity.

Under the agreement, Hubbell was required to turn over more than 13,000 pages of records, which revealed unreported income. Starr used those records to indict him.

Robertson ruled that Starr's prosecution violated Hubbell's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

But the Justice Department wrote in its brief that "act of production" immunity does not bar using the incriminating contents against the person who turns them over.

Charles Bakaly, a spokesman for Starr, declined comment Tuesday on the Justice Department filing.

John Nields, a lawyer for Hubbell, filed a brief that disagreed with the Justice Department's argument on the immunity issue. Nields declined to comment when contacted Tuesday.

Hubbell, the former law partner of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, came to Washington after President Clinton's election in 1992 and became the Justice Department's associate attorney general.

He resigned in March 1994 as prosecutors began investigating his billing practices.

Starr began his current investigation of Hubbell in connection with possible obstruction of justice charges after discovering that the Clinton White House, with the approval of the president and first lady, tapped friends of the president for hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to Hubbell.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.