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December 16, 1995
Web posted at: 10:20 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The budget debate is not the only the battle in which the White House is deeply entrenched. It has been engaged in a tug of war over a set of notes with the Senate Whitewater Committee as well. But unlike the budget negotiators, the White House and the Senate committee appear ready to compromise.
On Saturday, the White House floated through the media an offer to hand over notes from a 1993 meeting to the Whitewater committee on the condition that it would not lead to other requests for documents.
The proposal could avoid a court fight over the confidentiality of the documents.
Whitewater Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato, appearing on CNN's Inside Politics Weekend, welcomed the offer and accepted the condition.
"Yes, it would be acceptable to us," D'Amato said. "Make the information available. We would concede that this will not be a precedent nor is it a waiver of the lawyer-client relationship."
The notes in question were made by former associate White House counsel William Kennedy during a November 5, 1993, meeting between White House lawyers and attorneys for Mr. and Mrs. Clinton to discuss the Whitewater investigation.
The White House maintains the meeting was protected by attorney-client privilege, but said it would release the documents provided that the committee urge all parties investigating Whitewater to agree that turning over the documents does not constitute a surrender of the president's attorney-client privileges.
"What we can't have happen is that the committee would say, 'you gave us the notes and so we want more notes since you have waived your rights,'" said Special Associate Counsel to the President Mark Fabiani. "We want to make sure that turning over the notes won't be a club that is used against us."
D'Amato said that there is a "good chance" that Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr would agree to the condition, but said his effort to get the notes would continue regardless. "You can't put us in the position of saying that we have to get the independent counsel or any other body to accept these conditions," he said.
D'Amato complained that such a deal could have been reached weeks ago and suggested the White House was "attempting to run out the clock" by delaying the investigation until its congressional mandate expires February 29. "We're just beginning to get into the meat of it, which is what went on in Little Rock at that bank called Madison Bank," he said.
White House Counsel Jack Quinn maintained that D'Amato doesn't really want the notes and has not made an effort to contact Starr because he just wants to fuel the controversy over the documents.
D'Amato said that the complaints that he is only trying to score political points with his investigation "sounds very similar to what Richard Nixon used to cry" during Watergate.
He told CNN he expected to find "additional leads" and "something that the administration will not be happy with and might be embarrassing" when he finally gets the notes.
The White House said it is eager to provide the notes. White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said the president wants to clear up the matter, and is not afraid of taking the issue to court. (201K AIFF sound or 201K WAV sound)
The committee is investigating the possibility that funds from a failed savings and loan firm may have been diverted improperly into Clinton's 1984 gubernatorial campaign and to Whitewater Development Corp., an Arkansas real estate venture jointly owned by the Clintons.
There were no negotiations between the White House and the committee ongoing over the issue this weekend.
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