38
Opinion of the Court
that a trial judge had erroneously rejected a defendant's claim of privilege on the ground that his answer to the pending question would not itself constitute evidence of the charged offense. As we explained:
"The privilege afforded not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction under a federal criminal statute but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant for a federal crime." Hoffman v. United States, 341 U. S. 479, 486 (1951).
Compelled testimony that communicates information that may "lead to incriminating evidence" is privileged even if the information itself is not inculpatory. Doe v. United States, 487 U. S. 201, 208, n. 6 (1988). It is the Fifth Amend-ment's protection against the prosecutor's use of incriminating information derived directly or indirectly from the compelled testimony of the respondent that is of primary relevance in this case.
III
Acting pursuant to 18 U. S. C. § 6002, the District Court entered an order compelling respondent to produce "any and all documents" described in the grand jury subpoena and granting him "immunity to the extent allowed by law." App. 60-61. In Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441 (1972), we upheld the constitutionality of § 6002 because the scope of the "use and derivative-use" immunity that it provides is coextensive with the scope of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.
The protection against the derivative use of compelled testimony distinguishes § 6002 from the 1868 statute that had been held invalid in Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547 (1892), because it merely provided "use" immunity, as well as from the more recent federal statutes that broadly provide "transactional" immunity. In Kastigar the petitioners argued that, under our reasoning in Counselman, nothing less
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