President Clinton refused several times at a press conference yesterday to reply to questions about his relationship with Ms Monica Lewinsky. "I have answered it repeatedly and have nothing to say," Mr Clinton said when asked about their relationship.
At another stage he said "I really believe it's important that I not say any more about this. I really believe that in some ways I am the last person who should have a national conversation about this."
It was reported earlier that a judge had ruled against Ms Lewinsky's claim for total immunity from prosecution in exchange for giving testimony to a grand jury. President Clinton also defended Mrs Clinton against refusing to answer some questions from independent prosecutor, Mr Ken Starr, who is investigating the Whitewater affair.
Mr Starr's investigation into whether Mr Clinton had a sexual relationship with the 24-year-old former White House intern and also encouraged her to commit perjury as part of a cover-up, has been slowed up for the past seven weeks waiting for this decision.
Ms Lewinsky's lawyer, Mr William Ginsburg, had claimed that she had been promised full immunity from prosecution by Mr Starr in return for her testimony before a grand jury about her relationship with Mr Clinton. But Mr Starr denied he had made such an agreement and this has now been upheld by Federal Judge Norma Holloway whose ruling has not yet been officially released.
This now clears the way for Mr Starr to call Ms Lewinsky as a witness and ask her under oath if she will confirm taped conversations in which she claimed to a colleague, Ms Linda Tripp, that she had a sexual relationship with Mr Clinton over a period of 17 months.
Before the existence of the tapes was revealed, Ms Lewinsky had sworn in an affidavit that she did not have such a relationship and that neither Mr Clinton nor his friend, Washington lawyer, Mr Vernon Jordan, had tried to get her to lie about the relationship.
During the past two months, Mr Starr has been calling other witnesses to try and corroborate what Ms Lewinsky said on the tapes about having had oral sex with Mr Clinton in the White House.
The situation now is that Mr Starr can offer Ms Lewisnky limited immunity if she will testify truthfully about her relationship with the President. Presumably he hopes that she will confirm what she said on the tapes and retract her denial of having sex with Mr Clinton in her affidavit.
If she refuses to co-operate with Mr Starr, he could indict her for alleged perjury or she could be sent to jail for contempt of court if she refuses to answer questions under oath. However, Mr Ginsburg has indicated he will appeal against Judge Holloway's ruling and this could lead to further hold-ups in Mr Starr's inquiry.
On another front, it has been revealed that Mrs Hillary Clinton declined to answer two questions from Mr Starr about her conversations with her husband. Her refusal came during five hours of questioning in the White House last Saturday about her role in the Whitewater failed property development in Arkansas over 10 years ago.
Mrs Clinton's lawyer, Mr David Kendall, said that she was not obliged to answer these questions under long-standing legal privilege for communications between spouses.
Mr Starr is expected to wrap up this aspect of his wide-ranging Whitewater inquiry in the coming weeks. But it is not known when he will report to Congress the results of his investigation into the Whitewater and Lewinsky matters.
It would then be up to the House of Representatives to decide if the President should be impeached for serious misdemeanours and for the Senate to try him if an impeachment ruling is made. Many observers believe that the House Republicans will be unwilling to impeach Mr Clinton in an election year and when his personal popularity is so high.