Justice Department Sides With Clintons Urges Supreme Court Review Of Ruling On Whitewater Notes

Siding with the White House in its dispute with the Whitewater independent counsel, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court Friday to review a ruling that would force two White House lawyers to turn over notes of their conversations with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“The president must have access to legal advice that is frank, fully informed and confidential,” said Seth P. Waxman, a deputy solicitor general. “Contrary to the court of appeals’ view, attorneys in the government, like their counterparts elsewhere, have duties of loyalty and confidentiality to their client.”

The justices will meet in about two weeks to consider the pending appeal. If they agree to hear the Clintons’ appeal, that action will delay until next year a final ruling on the fate of the confidential notes.

However, if the justices deny the appeal, it will force the two attorneys immediately to provide their notes to Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr.

Starr says the notes are crucial to his probe into whether Hillary Clinton may have obstructed justice by hiding billing records of her work at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark. A box containing those records belatedly was discovered on a table in the family quarters of the White House.

This latest installment in the now long-running dispute between Starr and the Clintons has turned into a legal fight over whether government lawyers have an “attorney-client privilege” that shields their work from outside investigators.

The Clintons say yes. Starr says no. In April, a federal appeals court in St. Louis sided with Starr on a 2-1 vote.

In one sense, the Justice Department’s decision to side with the White House is no surprise. The top officials of the department, including Waxman, are appointees of President Clinton.

However, the department usually acts as the prosecutor of federal crimes, and in the normal case, leans to the prosecution’s view of the matter.