Ever wish you could rifle through a public figure's e-mail? Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's e-mails are about to go public as part of the Senate Judiciary Committee's preparations for her confirmation hearings in a little more than a week.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., is set Friday to release approximately 80,000 pages of e-mails — about 11,000 of them written by Kagan. It's the final installment of documents related to her service as a domestic policy aide and White House counsel to former President Bill Clinton.

It's the third week in a row the files will be made public on a Friday afternoon — the customary time in official Washington for dribbling out unfavorable information or disclosures one hopes won't draw too much attention.

Another roughly 80,000 pages of paper files already have been released, revealing Kagan's role in managing the scandals of the Clinton administration, her pragmatic streak dealing with complex issues such as a massive tobacco regulation measure and her political instincts weighing in on hot-button issues such as abortion, gun control and drug sentencing.

The White House and Clinton have opted to keep a small fraction of the information private, allowing only Judiciary panel members and their top aides to see it. But the 160,000 pages of information is far more than the committee received for other recent high court nominees.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's briefing, which normally comes in the afternoon, takes place at 10 a.m., and will be conducted by Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander in charge of the response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The briefing is happening early to make way for a Facebook video chat with energy czar Carol Browner, who has become one of the go-to oil spill people at the White House in the past week.

President Obama also plans to hold a full meeting of his Cabinet -- not a common event during his first year and a half in office -- to discuss what the administration is doing to stop the leak and to clean up the coastlines of several states.

Over the weekend, even as BP appeared to have some success diverting a bit of the oil from the broken undersea gusher, it became clear that the crisis above water will be just as difficult to deal with.

More images of oil-covered animals began emerging, and there were increasing complaints about the lack of cleanup effort at beaches . One local official wondered aloud why Obama didn't order workers from other oil companies to help BP clean up the spill.

U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson Jr. of South Carolina found Wilson's behavior so outrageous that he held her in contempt of court, ordering her to return $2,500 of her juror's pay and perform 120 hours of community service. Anderson said he would have put Wilson in jail for six months if she did not have four children at home.

But when the defendant in the case, Brandon Basham, asked for his death sentence to be thrown out as a result of Wilson's conduct, Anderson refused and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., backed him up.

And when Basham took his plea to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan agreed that the judge had made the correct call. The high court, to which Kagan has since been nominated, could say as early as Tuesday whether it will hear Basham's case.

It is no surprise that the government is seeking to preserve what it already has won, especially after the time and expense of a capital punishment trial.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan got a boost from potential GOP supporters Thursday, when two Republican senators who will vote on her confirmation both said her lack of experience as a judge is no obstacle to elevating her.

Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and George S. LeMieux of Florida made their comments a day after one of the court's conservative icons, Justice Antonin Scalia, undercut Republican criticism of Kagan's lack of a judicial background.

Scalia's remark, made during a lecture Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Washington, "helps her. Definitely, it helps her," said Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee that will hold confirmation hearings on Kagan set to begin June 28. "I think that argument is not going to go very far."

LeMieux, who had a lengthy meeting with Kagan in the Capitol Thursday, also said judicial inexperience was not a concern.

"I don't find that in any way a prohibition to her service," LeMieux said. The first-term Floridian called Kagan intelligent, articulate and "refreshingly forthcoming" on a variety of questions he posed, on subjects including free speech, guns, gay and lesbian rights and abortion.

The Massachusetts attorney general asked a judge Wednesday to strike down a federal gay marriage ban, arguing it interferes with the right of states to define marriage and have those marriages acknowledged by the federal government.

The challenge to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act by Attorney General Martha Coakley's office was heard in federal court in Boston.

Assistant Attorney General Maura Healey argued states have historically had the right to define marriage.

She said the 1996 law could result in the denial of Medicaid and other benefits to married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

A lawyer from the U.S. Justice Department, Christopher Hall, argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal benefits — including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.

Hall also pointed to instances where the federal government has regulated the definition of marriage in certain immigration cases.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont says the GOP should set aside its "overheated rhetoric" questioning the qualifications and integrity of President Barack Obama's nominee. He's also urging Republicans to stop complaining about the timeline he set for Kagan's confirmation hearings, which are to begin June 28.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Judiciary Republican, has suggested the date is too soon, and warned Monday he might ask for a delay.

Leahy called the gripes "crocodile tears." The timetable mirrors the one used for Republican and Democratic nominees.

Kagan was back on Capitol Hill Tuesday for private meetings with senators.