Top 5 new insights into Elena Kagan

The Clinton Presidential Library has released 75,000 of Kagan's emails — providing new perspective on the enigmatic Supreme Court nominee

Elena Kagan.
(Image credit: Corbis)

In what could prove the most enlightening window yet into the personality and politics of the famously opaque Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, the Clinton Presidential Library last week released 75,000 emails sent to and from Kagan in the late 1990s, when she was a domestic policy adviser for Bill Clinton. Senators will be delving into Kagan's past when her confirmation hearing starts on June 28. Thanks to the emails and the media's compulsion to scrutinize them, here are five things we already know about her:

1. Kagan is no stranger to foul language: Kagan occasionally peppered her emails "with salty language that would make Vice President Joe Biden proud," says Josh Gerstein at Politico. In one message, she used "a New Yorkerized version of the word 'unbelievable'" — un(expletive)believable — to respond to a message about a legislative glitch involving welfare reform.

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