Clinton Library Releases Thousands of Kagan Documents
The William J. Clinton Presidential Library on Friday released thousands of e-mails and other electronic documents relating to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s time in the Clinton administration, the last in a series of document dumps from the library before the start of Kagan’s confirmation hearings on June 28.
Friday’s release included 79,670 pages of electronic documents, with 77,776 of those pages open for public review.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) hailed the release as an “unprecedented” amount of materials being made available for a Supreme Court nomination.
“The National Archives and the Clinton Library have produced an unprecedented volume of materials related to Elena Kagan’s nomination, in response to the Committee’s bipartisan request. They have completed the production of documents as outlined in the Archives letter of May 21, and done so well in advance of the Committee’s hearing,” Leahy said.
“In fact, they have produced more materials, and faster, than were produced in connection with previous Supreme Court nominations,” he added.
But ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) argued that the volume of materials and proximity to the hearings could make it difficult for Republicans to review the documents completely.
“There is a significant amount of material to review in a short period of time. I remain concerned by the both the pace and the timing of document production, as well as the fact that the Committee, the press, and the public have been denied access to a number of documents,” Sessions said.