WASHINGTON -- Elián González could play a role in next month's confirmation hearings for Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general.

Last week, eight Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee fired off letters to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Ark., and Attorney General Michael Mukasey seeking any documents prepared by Eric Holder or his staff on a variety of Clinton-era controversies, including ``the April 22, 2000, raid in Miami, Florida, by Border Patrol agents to take Elián Gonzalez into custody.''

Holder served as deputy attorney general during the raid in Miami. His role as an Obama presidential campaign advisor prompted a small contingent of Cuban exiles to protest outside Obama's speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami in June.

Obama was an Illinois lawmaker when González was sent back to his father in Cuba and he did not take a public position on the custody battle that pitted the boy's Miami relatives against his father.

During the presidential campaign, Obama called the dispute a ''wrenching situation for the families,'' but said he was focused on a Cuba policy that would ``create political freedom on that island and allow the people who live there to prosper.''

The senators said in the letter to Mukasey that the request is consistent with information sought on prior nominees. A spokesman for Obama's transition team said ``we believe that requests for nonprivileged relevant documents should be honored promptly.''

Holder's confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin Jan. 15 and the sweeping nature of the requests for documents suggests the hearings could be contentious. Among other matters, the senators asked for information about the Justice Department's investigation into fundraising activities by then-Vice President Al Gore during the 1996 election and Holder's role in Clinton's controversial pardon of billionaire financier Marc Rich in 2001 and other pardons.

They also want records on the Justice Department's investigation into the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas.

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