The U.S. Department of Justice is refusing to comply with a request from the House Judiciary Committee to provide the committee with documents and witness interviews that the committee believes, as Chairman Lamar Smith (R.-Texas) put it in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, would allow the panel "to properly understand any involvement by Justice Kagan in matters relating to health care legislation or litigation while she was Solicitor General."

The committee initially made the request in a July 6 letter that Smith sent directly to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The Justice Department rejected the request in a return letter that Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich sent to Smith on Oct. 27.