The US Attorney General, Ms Janet Reno, said yesterday she saw no grounds to remove the independent counsel Mr Kenneth Starr, who is investigating allegations that President Clinton had a sexual affair with a former White House intern and conspired to cover it up.
"At this point, I have seen no evidence that would justify that action," Ms Reno said on the Fox News Sunday television programme.
Mr Clinton denies the allegations against him and has complained that he has become the target of a character assassination campaign.
At a news conference on Thursday, he implied that Mr Starr was part of it.
But when asked why he did not ask Ms Reno to fire Mr Starr, Mr Clinton replied tersely that this would be "inappropriate".
Ms Reno said yesterday she would pursue her "responsibilities with respect to the ultimate issue of whether an independent counsel should be removed or not". But she said she saw no justification now for such a move.
Asked about her relations with Mr Starr, Ms Reno said: "I don't know Judge Starr very well, but to date, I've had, I think, a very cordial relationship with him."
Mr Starr's inquiry is an outgrowth of his investigation of Mr Clinton's decade-old Whitewater business dealings in Arkansas.
Meanwhile, a new controversy exploded yesterday over the selective disclosure by a senior Republican Congressman of phone calls made by Mr Clinton's former confidant, Mr Webster Hubbell, when he was in prison.
Newly disclosed excerpts showed Republicans had edited out material from the tapes, including some in mid-conversation, which appeared to exonerate Mrs Hillary Clinton of suggestions of wrongdoing at an Arkansas law firm.
Portions of the tapes and 27 pages of transcripts were released last week by Mr Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who heads the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.
Those excerpts, which included Mr Hubbell saying: "I will not raise those allegations that might open it up to Hillary", seemed to suggest possible wrongdoing by Mrs Clinton.
After seemingly exculpatory comments from the conversations were played on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday, Mr Burton said the tapes had been edited "to protect the privacy" of Mr Hubbell and his wife, Suzanna.
Later yesterday, however, he said he would now release nearly 150 hours of taped conversations. Accused of selectively editing out portions of the conversations, he said: "Tomorrow we will release the entirety of the 54 conversations from which we previously made public only extracts.
"I believe this will once and for all put the lie to any accusations of `editing', 'doctoring', or `out of context quotation'," he said in a written statement.
Mr Hubbell was the former third in command at Mr Clinton's Justice Department and a former law partner of Mrs Clinton in Little Rock.
The conversations were recorded in 1996 while he was in a federal prison for bilking the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock, Arkansas.