GOP senator: Democrats’ push for quick Kagan hearings could cause ‘train wreck’

GOP senator: Kagan hearings being pushed too soon

WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee says Democrats’ push to start Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings on June 28 could cause a “train wreck.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama says Republicans will ask for a delay unless senators get access to tens of thousands of pages of records from Kagan’s tenure in the Clinton administration.

The national archivist told Sessions and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee chairman, in a letter last week that his staff would begin releasing the documents by June 4 and try to accommodate the panel’s June 28 deadline.

Kagan served as a White House counsel and then domestic policy adviser to Bill Clinton.