Critical of "significant" impediments to his investigation, Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr said Saturday that President Clinton's White House lawyers, as government employees, are "duty-bound" to turn over disputed notes.
And in a harsh depiction of a key Whitewater figure, Starr said former Clinton business partner Susan McDougal wants "a license to lie" - immunity from perjury charges - in exchange for telling what she knows about the failed financial venture.Clinton, in Barbados for a meeting with Caribbean leaders, was asked by a reporter if he thought Starr's comments had become "a little personal." He responded, "Not on my part."
"I think it's obvious for several years now we've been very cooperative and will continue to be," Clinton said.
However, Starr said unprecedented claims of privilege by the White House had impeded his investigation for months.
"It is unhelpful to our investigation when relevant information is denied a grand jury when there are invocations of privilege instead of full and complete cooperation and candor," he said.
"Never in history has this kind of privilege been asserted in a federal criminal proceeding. I view that as significant," he added.
Starr and the Clintons are in a legal battle over notes from interviews between Hillary Rodham Clinton and government attorneys in July 1995 and January 1996 about her role in the Whitewater land deal.
Clinton authorized an appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court, overturning U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock, Ark., ordered the White House to surrender the notes.
Clinton said his White House counsel, Charles Ruff, insisted the notes should be protected under attorney-client privilege and told him, "This is a major constitutional question."
Starr's view of the matter differs. In a speech to newspaper editors, he said, "White House attorneys . . . represent the federal government, and as such, they are duty-bound to disclose relevant information to a federal grand jury."