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December 20, 1995
Web posted at: 1 a.m. EST
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House announced Tuesday night that it had reached an agreement with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to release disputed Whitewater notes. But House Republicans were not going for the offer.
The White House and the Senate Whitewater Committee have been battling over notes taken by former White House associate counsel William Kennedy during a November 5, 1993, meeting between White House attorneys and private attorneys for the Clintons regarding the Whitewater investigation.
The White House maintains it will release the notes only if the Independent Counsel and Senate and House Whitewater investigative bodies will agree that the handover is not a waiver of Mr. and Mrs. Clinton's right to attorney-client privileges and that it will not lead to the request for release of other documents.
Starr accepted the condition, but Republicans on the House Whitewater panel refused.
Whitewater Committee Chairman Alfonse D'Amato also rejected the agreement by the White House and Starr, saying the matter will be taken to a full Senate vote on Wednesday, which could push the matter into federal court.
The Senate Committee had indicated earlier that it, on its own, would be willing to concede that the president had not waived his rights, should he turn over the documents. So the White House had been working furiously to get agreement from other investigative parties, in order to be able to hand over the documents before the Senate vote.
That possibility now looks remote. In a statement issued Tuesday, the White House said, "The situation is now clear: The White House wants to release the notes ... The unwillingness of the House chairman to make an agreement similar to the one the Independent Counsel made demonstrates dramatically that the White House was right all along: The House Republicans intend to argue that disclosure of the Kennedy notes entitles them to pry into every confidential conversation the president has ever had with his lawyers."
Administration officials say they think the House may have made its move because it wanted to see the Senate vote take place and that after the vote, a deal may be more likely.
The meeting from which the embattled notes are taken was held in the offices of the Clinton's private attorney, David Kendall shortly after news reports appeared about a criminal probe into the relationship between the Clintons' Whitewater Development Corp. and Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association. James McDougal, the Clintons' partner in Whitewater, was the owner of Madison Guaranty when it went bankrupt.
The Whitewater Committee and Starr are investigating the possibility that funds from McDougal's failed savings and loan may have been improperly diverted into both Clinton's 1984 Arkansas gubernatorial campaign and the Whitewater project.
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