Independent counsel Kenneth Starr and White House lawyers squared off Friday over the invoking of executive privilege to block the testimony of key presidential aides in the White House sex scandal.
The 3 1/2-hour, closed hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson represented a sharp escalation of the battle between the White House and Starr in the two-month-old grand jury investigation.Among those attending the session was Neil Eggleston, a private lawyer selected by the White House to handle the executive privilege issue.
Also present were White House counsel Charles Ruff, two other White House lawyers, presidential aide Bruce Lindsey, President Clinton's lawyer David Kendall, and an attorney for White House aide Sidney Blumenthal.
Starr was accompanied by eight other lawyers from his office.
None of the participants would comment afterward on what was said during the hearing or whether the judge had ruled.
Judge Johnson has presided over all of the disputes that have arisen during Starr's grand jury probe into whether Clinton had an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and asked her to lie about it under oath.
Clinton has repeatedly denied the allegations but has yet to offer an explanation of his relationship with the 24-year-old Lewinsky.
"I can't tell you anything about what happened upstairs," Eggleston told reporters as he left the courthouse.
But Lindsey and White House lawyer Lanny Breuer would not deny that executive privilege had been invoked.
Sources close to the investigation said Lindsey and Blumenthal during their grand jury questioning have cited executive privilege in refusing to testify about certain conversations they had with Clinton or the first lady.
Executive privilege involves an assertion of presidential authority to withhold documents or testimony. President Nixon tried to use it unsuccessfully in 1974 during the Watergate scandal.
The privilege has been invoked periodically throughout U.S. history to shield presidents and those who work closely with them from having to answer questions or turn over information to Congress or grand juries.
The Supreme Court in 1974 required Nixon to comply with a subpoena for the Watergate tapes. It marked the first time the court specifically acknowledged the existence of an executive privilege.
A U.S. appeals court last year ruled that executive privilege was not absolute.