Powers of the President of the United States Richard Nixon tried to use executive privilege as a reason for not turning over subpoenaed audio tapes to a special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in "United States v. Nixon" that privilege was not absolute. The Court reasoned that the judiciary’s interest in the “fair administration of criminal justice” outweighed President Nixon’s interest in keeping the evidence secret. Later President Bill Clinton lost in federal court when he tried to assert privilege in the Lewinsky affair. The Supreme Court affirmed this in "Clinton v. Jones", which denied the use of privilege in cases of civil suits.
Bill Clinton Supreme Court candidates asked about the kind of justices he would appoint to the Supreme Court, President Bill Clinton insisted that he had no litmus test for his justice, but at the same time, that he only wanted justices who would be pro-choice when it came to abortion. "I will appoint judges to the Supreme Court who believe in the constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose", Clinton said in an interview on April 5, 1992. In an interview on June 18, 1992, Clinton said, "I don't believe in the litmus test for Supreme Court judges, but I do think that