Jeff Sessions threatens to hold up Elena Kagan’s comfirmation hearing until all of her Clinton era documents are released

Barack Obama has nominated a candidate to the Supreme Court that not much is known about. She has never been a justice and has very limited courtroom experience. Because of this, the only insight that we have of Elena Kagan’s positions are documents that she has written on constitutional matters. Most of the documents that she has written were written while she was in the Clinton Administration and so the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked the Clinton Presidential Library to release those documents for review. This is a request that Terri Garner has agreed to, but with the confirmation that many of the documents would not be released in time for her confirmation hearing.

Patrick Leahy has stated that the confirmation hearing would not be delayed, stating that “there is no reason to unduly delay consideration of this nomination.” And he is right, there is no reason to “unduly delay” these confirmation hearings, but the fact that the only documents that we have on Elena Kagan’s positions will not be released in time for the hearings constitutes a very plausible reason for Republicans to ask for a delay in the hearing.

Jeff Sessions– the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee– agrees, claiming that Republicans will not allow the confirmation hearings to go forward untill all of Kagan’s Clinton era documents have been released. A perfectly reasonable request if you ask me.

I don’t believe that this committee can go forward with an adequate hearing” without all records from Kagan’s tenure as a White House counsel and then domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton

I don’t believe that there is much that Jeff Sessions can do to slow down Kagan’s confirmation hearing, and the hearing will probably go on as scheduled, but one has to wonder why the Democrats are in such a hurry to confirm Elena Kagan that they are unwilling to wait until after all of her written documents have been released.

What are the Democrats afraid of? What are the Democrats trying to hide? These documents are all that the Senate Judiciary Committee has to go by, and these documents are all that the American people have to go by, yet Patrick Leahy is unwilling to let the Republicans and the American people see these documents before the confirmation hearing. There has to be something there that could be a possible threat to her confirmation. We deserve to know what it is before she is given this position for life.