Buried deep among the thousands of pages of memos and notes from Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's days in the Clinton White House is an intriguing and mysterious scrawl.
"Health Care Com'n? lots of contributors? coffee folks?" says the note, written next to the words "Ideas generally other." All appear to be in Kagan's handwriting.
The note is significant because then-President Bill Clinton generated trouble with Congress in 1997 for improperly mixing White House business with fundraising and donor rewards, including special White House coffees held for big Democratic money men and women.
The notes are at the top of a typewritten page of policy ideas and events that comes a few pages after one titled "memorandum" and dated Feb. 27, 1997, with Kagan and a colleague in the "from" line and the subject line "ideas." News of the White House coffees for donors became widely known in 1997; other documents released by the library includes a 1997 news story on the White House coffees.
The notes were among 46,500 pages of records from Kagan's time as deputy director of Clinton's Domestic Policy Council, where she served from 1997-99. The documents were released Friday by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in advance of the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing later this month.
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Online:
The documents: http://tinyurl.com/2a55yje
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