Court Holds Hearing On Starr Leaks

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr and lawyers representing President Clinton, the White House, and Monica Lewinsky all showed up Tuesday. A legal source told Reuters they were all there for a U.S. appeals court hearing on alleged news leaks by the prosecutor's office.

The source said the closed-door arguments concerned what sort of documents and evidence can be demanded at hearings over allegations by President Clinton's lawyers that Starr has improperly disclosed secret grand jury information to the news media.

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Also in the group was attorney Neil Eggleston, representing presidential confidant Bruce Lindsey, who is refusing to answer certain questions in the Lewinsky probe based on a claim of attorney-client privilege.

Starr stayed in another part of the courthouse.

In a separate development at the U.S. courthouse, several Secret Service officers arrived to testify before Starr's grand jury investigating the sex-and-perjury allegations.

The officers first started giving their precedent-setting testimony Friday about the activities of the president whom they protect. But the most prominent of the Secret Service witnesses, Larry Cockell, who had been head of Clinton's security detail, was not at the courthouse Tuesday.

Mr. Clinton's lawyers in February filed a complaint over alleged Starr news leaks with U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson. Lewinsky's lawyers later filed a similar complaint with the Justice Department.

The controversy resurfaced last month after an article in a new magazine about the media, Brill's Content, quoted admissions by Starr that he and his top deputy, Jackie Bennett, briefed selected reporters on a not-for-attribution basis about the investigation. Starr has repeatedly denied he illegally leaked grand jury information.