Starr Calls for Quick Ruling by Supreme Court

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr on Thursday took the dramatic step of urging the Supreme Court to short-circuit the federal appeals process and rule quickly on whether President Clinton can use executive privilege to block questioning of two senior aides in the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation.

Citing the court’s historic executive-privilege ruling 24 years ago, which ultimately forced President Nixon to divulge the Watergate tapes, Starr said that his investigation is at risk of being “substantially delayed.”

Starr already has won lower court rulings on executive privilege and other important evidentiary issues, but he warned that his investigation would be slowed by further White House appeals.

“This office’s investigation regarding Monica S. Lewinsky and others is a matter of extraordinary national importance,” Starr said in his petition to the Supreme Court. “. . . It is strongly in the nation’s interest that the case be resolved quickly so that the grand jury’s investigation can move forward at the earliest practicable date.”

Emphasizing the gravity of the confrontation between his office and Clinton, Starr added: “This case presents a direct challenge by the office of the president to the ability of a federal grand jury to obtain relevant evidence of possible criminal activity by executive branch officials.”

Starr asked the Supreme Court to hear arguments on the dispute on June 29, before the justices break for their summer recess.

Officials at the White House said they would need time to review Starr’s petition and had no immediate comment.

A Supreme Court hearing would provide greater visibility to a legal clash that so far has been conducted largely in secret sessions and would invite parallels to Watergate that the White House has been struggling to avoid.

If the high court agrees to hear the matter, it would mark the nine justices’ second involvement with the controversy over the intersection of Clinton’s private and official lives. The Supreme Court ruled last May that Clinton’s status as president could not derail a sexual harassment lawsuit pressed by former Arkansas state worker Paula Corbin Jones.

The documents filed Thursday by Starr provided a more complete view of the trench warfare surrounding virtually every issue in the Lewinsky matter. Starr is investigating whether Clinton lied about his dealings with the former White House intern and whether he or others tried to cover up an illicit relationship.

Clinton’s lawyers had filed paperwork signaling their intention to appeal Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson’s ruling this month ordering the two presidential aides to testify fully before a grand jury about the matter.

The judge, citing unspecified evidence presented to her by Starr’s office, has ordered the aides--Deputy Counsel Bruce R. Lindsey and political strategist Sidney Blumenthal--to answer the questions before the grand jury. Administration lawyers have cited executive privilege, attorney-client privilege and a related, governmental “work-product” privilege in an attempt to block the questioning.

Paul Rothstein, a Georgetown Law School professor who specializes in evidentiary privileges, predicted that the high court will, as it did in 1974, short-circuit the appeals process and agree to promptly resolve the dispute over executive privilege.

“It’s important for the country to get it resolved,” Rothstein said. “The delay that would otherwise be caused by going up through middle-level appeals [at the U.S. Circuit Court] would put Mr. Starr’s investigation on ice for a very long time, and might even render it moot.”

Moreover, Rothstein said that administration lawyers may have undermined the president’s chance of winning at the Supreme Court by asserting such a variety of privileges in response to Starr’s inquiries.

In addition to the three privileges asserted regarding Lindsey and Blumenthal, administration lawyers have sought to block the questioning of three Secret Service officials by invoking a novel, “protective-function” privilege. Judge Johnson last week ruled that the officials must testify.

Rothstein said that the wielding of so many privileges “makes it look like he’s not concerned with the [legal] principles, but with obstructing the investigation.” Rothstein added, “It gives the perception that there are nefarious motives, when you are using every tool available.”

One high-profile supporter of Clinton, former White House lawyer and spokesman Lanny J. Davis, said the president should drop any plans for appealing and instruct Lindsey and Blumenthal to testify.

Davis said that because he believes Clinton has told the truth in denying that he had sex with Lewinsky or encouraged her to lie under oath, he should avoid further delay.

“I believe the president, and, therefore, nothing the president could have said to Lindsey or Blumenthal would be damaging,” said Davis, who left the White House staff this year.

Earlier on Thursday, Lewinsky provided investigators with fingerprints and samples of her handwriting, while Jordan made his fourth appearance before the federal grand jury.

Lewinsky, holding the hand of her father, Bernard Lewinsky, drew a swarm of television cameras as she arrived at offices of the FBI in West Los Angeles.

The father used the occasion to once again inveigh against Starr, declaring, “My daughter is a pawn and Kenneth Starr is trying to use her as a pawn to get the presidency.”

In Washington, Vernon Jordan, the lawyer and lobbyist who has been a trusted advisor of Clinton’s, testified for several hours before the grand jury examining evidence in the Lewinsky controversy. Jordan said afterward that he has been summoned to return again June 9.

“For the fourth time, I have answered every question over and over and over again,” Jordan told reporters afterward. “I will return for a fifth visit [when], again, I suspect I will have to answer the same questions over and over and over again. And I am quite prepared to do that.”