What defenses has William Kennedy or his legal team raised in response to the lawsuit?

1. Background: the subpoena and the contested November 5 meeting

The Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater served Mr. Kennedy a subpoena seeking his handwritten notes from a more than two‑hour November 5, 1993 meeting about the Whitewater Development Corporation, a meeting organized by Bruce Lindsey at which Mr. Kennedy took extensive notes and which the Committee viewed as directly relevant to its inquiry ^{[1] [2]}.

2. The core defense: common‑interest / joint‑defense privilege

Kennedy’s legal team—echoing memoranda prepared by White House counsel and private counsel—asserted that the communications and Kennedy’s notes were privileged because lawyers representing the President’s official interests and those representing his private interests shared a common legal interest at the meeting; that common‑interest (joint‑defense) theory was advanced to shield the notes from forced disclosure ^{[1] [2]}.

3. Work‑product and attorney‑client protection claimed for the notes

Beyond the joint‑defense argument, the defense treated the notes as either attorney‑client communications or as attorney work product—materials prepared in the course of legal consultations and thus presumptively protected from compulsory production—an overlay the Committee acknowledged the White House and Williams & Connolly memoranda sought to establish ^[1].

4. The refusal to comply and procedural fallout

Because Kennedy refused to produce the notes, the Committee explicitly recommended that the Senate bring a civil action to compel compliance; that recommendation is a direct consequence of the defendant’s invocation of privilege rather than voluntary production, and it frames the dispute as one the Committee believed required judicial resolution ^{[1] [2]}.

5. How the Committee and sources evaluate the defense—and its limits

The Committee’s report does not foreclose the possibility that the common‑interest or joint‑defense theory might apply to government attorneys, but it subjects that claim to scrutiny and indicates skepticism about blanket privilege where different clients’ interests (public and private) intersect; the report’s push for a civil enforcement action signals the Committee found the privilege assertions contested and not self‑effectuating ^{[1] [2]}.

6. Alternative viewpoints and implicit agendas in the record

Legal memoranda from Williams & Connolly and White House counsel that underpin Kennedy’s defense are mentioned in the Committee’s account, and those materials reflect an institutional incentive for the White House to preserve internal communications from public scrutiny—an implicit agenda the Committee flagged even while acknowledging the theoretical reach of joint‑defense doctrines ^[1]. The Committee’s recommendation to sue to compel production reflects its institutional interest in access to materials it deems critical to oversight and suggests the dispute is as much about separation of powers and investigative prerogative as it is about the merits of privilege doctrine ^[2].

7. What the public record shows and what it does not

The public reporting in the Committee’s report and its companion memoranda documents the defenses Kennedy invoked—common‑interest/joint‑defense, attorney‑client, and work‑product protections—and logs the Committee’s procedural response recommending a civil enforcement step; the sources do not contain a full judicial ruling resolving those defenses, and they do not provide Kennedy’s full confidential memoranda or any court decision in this specific dispute to conclusively validate or reject the privilege claims ^{[1] [2]}.