US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, on Tuesday, October 26, granted a temporary stay to block a subpoena seeking Arizona Republican Party leader Kelli Ward‘s phone records in connection to an investigation into the January 6 Capitol riots.
The move came after Kelli Ward and her husband Michael Ward’s attorneys filed an emergency motion to reject a request from the House select committee looking for their phone and text records.
Kagan, who is a liberal justice handling emergency applications that come from Arizona, also asked the House committee to respond by October 28.
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Who is Elena Kagan?
Elena Kagan, who was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 10, 2010, is the fourth woman to become a member of the Court.
Born on April 28, 1960, in Manhattan, the 62-year-old is the second of three children of attorney Robert Kagan and school teacher Gloria (Gittelman) Kagan. Both her parents were the children of Russian Jewish immigrants. Kagan has two brothers, Marc and Irving.
After graduating from Princeton University, Worcester College, Oxford, and Harvard Law School, Kagan clerked for a federal Court of Appeals judge and for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Her career started with the role of a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. She later served as Associate White House Counsel and also as a policy adviser under President Bill Clinton.
When her nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit expired without action, she became a professor at Harvard Law School. She was later named the first female dean of the law institute.
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In 2009, Kagan became the first female solicitor general of the United States. President Obama later nominated her to the Supreme Court to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens after his retirement.
The United States Senate confirmed her nomination by a vote of 63–37.
