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December 22, 1995
Web posted at: 11:30 p.m. EST
From Correspondent Claire Shipman
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- On November 5, 1993, then-White House associate counsel William Kennedy jotted down notes in a meeting between Clinton's personal attorneys and White House lawyers on an impending Whitewater investigation. What Kennedy wrote is now at the heart of a drawn-out battle between the Clinton administration and Senate Republicans. But there may not be much more than smoke to yet another Whitewater grass fire.
With the Senate ready to go to court over the issue, the White House finally handed the documents over Friday. The administration insists that there is nothing in the documents to indicate improper conduct. But Senate Republicans, after reviewing the notes, said they lead to a possible cover-up.
They immediately charged that the notes show the president's attorney and White House lawyers were trying to improperly collect information and may have suppressed or destroyed files. "It raises many more questions, and it is very serious, and when you have a document that says, 'vacuum Rose Law files,' that is something we are going to ascertain. Who did the vacuuming? Were they talking about household cleaning?" said Alfonse D'Amato, chairman of the Senate Whitewater Committee. (230K AIFF sound or 230K WAV sound)
One section of notes from Kennedy's documents reads, "Vacuum Rose Law files ... Whitewater Development Corporation documents ... subpoena ...," and then it says, "documents ... never know ... go out quietly." (94K AIFF sound or 94K WAV sound)
The White House counsel's office defined the word "vacuum" differently. "That reference in the notes, according to Mr. Kennedy, is the fact that there was a real vacuum of information about the Whitewater investment during the campaign," said White House counsel Mark Fabiani.
Republican sources were also pointing to several references to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton which they said might show that she had closer ties to Whitewater activities than she has indicated.
Another point Republicans seized upon was an apparent agenda listed at the top of the notes that includes the line, "try to find out what's going on in investigation." They say that this means White House lawyers were improperly directed to get privileged information on the president's behalf.
But the White House said the line was meant for the president's personal lawyer alone, who had every right to gather information on the investigation.
"Nothing in these notes suggests that any confidential information was exchanged in this meeting," said Paul Rothstein, of Georgetown Law Center. "There is a cryptic statement saying that one of the purposes of the meeting is to try to find out what's going on in the investigation. But it doesn't look like that was successful in the sense of getting any inside information from the government that was not already pretty much publicly available."
Republicans said a reference to the day former Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster died is intriguing, but probably too cryptic to be meaningful. It reads, "II July 20th: FBI issued subpoena and & took records of municipal judge name Hale." Under that notation it reads, "Also the day VF killed himself." And under that, the word "Factor."
Both sides admit it will be hard to prove anything based on the notes alone. The White House insists that a careful reading of the documents will prove that no privileged information was exchanged, or improper directives made.
In any case, some Senate Republicans are more than eager to get started with hearings again, perhaps next week, but most likely at the first of the year.
This episode was not unlike most chapters in the Whitewater saga. It has been chock full of rhetoric, accusations back and forth and a slew of new documents -- more grist for the seemingly endless Whitewater controversy, but providing little clarity.
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