Asserting attorney-client privilege, lawyers for the White House on Monday asked the Supreme Court to protect the secrecy of conversations Hillary Rodham Clinton had with government lawyers about the White-water investigation.
In a petition to the high court, the administration asked the justices to overturn a federal appeals court order that notes of White House lawyers' conversations with Hillary Clinton be turned over to a Whitewater grand jury.The petition said that unless the appeals 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."
The White House is asserting that the doctrine of attorney-client privilege applies to conversation that Hillary Clinton had with a team of government and private lawyers.
At issue are notes taken of those conversations by members of the White House counsel's staff.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, 2-1, last month that the White House could not invoke attorney-client privilege to cover those notes.
Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr is investigating what he called widespread evidence of possible obstruction of his investigation of Whitewater. He has de-scribed Hillary Clinton as a "central figure" in his probe, according to recently unsealed court papers.
The dispute began last summer when the Whitewater grand jury sitting in Little Rock, Ark., subpoenaed the notes taken by White House lawyers of the two conversations Hillary Clinton had with a team of government and private lawyers.
One set of notes was taken during breaks in Hillary Clinton's Jan. 26, 1996 grand jury testimony. Another was taken by a White House lawyer during a July 11, 1995 meeting she had with the team of attorneys. Eleven days later, she was interviewed about Whitewater matters by the independent counsel.
The Supreme Court petition said the White House counsel's office was a necessary component of the defense team because of the extensive investigations by Starr and congressional committees.
"This swirl of inquiries has produced a host of legal issues for the office of the president, requiring the involvement and advice of White House attorneys," said the brief by the private attorneys hired to represent the White House.
Starr has said that White House lawyers, as government employees, were "duty-bound" to turn over disputed notes.