WASHINGTON. President Biden has interviewed at least three candidates for the Supreme Court nomination, indicating that he intends to fulfill his promise to select a nominee by the end of the month.
But less than a week is left until the end of the month. The interviews began late last week, according to several people familiar with the trial, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to its political sensitivities. Mr. Biden is now under pressure to announce his choice of what he promised to be a black woman, a cross between a booming diplomatic effort to curb Russian aggression against Ukraine and plans to make his first address to Congress. scheduled for next Tuesday.
The White House stressed on Tuesday that Mr. Biden has not yet made a decision, but intends to make one before the end of the month.
According to a person familiar with the process, Mr. Biden interviewed three candidates long on his shortlist: he spoke with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, which won the support of three Republican senators when Mr. Biden elevated it to the level of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He also interviewed Leondra R. Krueger of the California Supreme Court, a former Supreme Court clerk whose Yale law ancestry is shared by four current justices.
He also spoke to J. Michelle Childsa federal district court judge in South Carolina, a state whose black voters Biden says helped him win the presidential election.
At least one of the interviews was personal.
The White House, aware that the Supreme Court nomination is one of the most tightly controlled and politically volatile of all presidential duties, has said so little about the replacement process. outgoing Judge Steven G. Breyer that the lack of details has turned into a running joke: “The long national trial is about to end,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said wryly when a reporter asked if Mr. Biden had finished the interview.
Washington Post as well as CNN each has reported some interviews previously. Several of Mr. Biden’s advisers said he may have more interviews and stressed that he intended to be thoughtful as he entered the final evaluation phase. Several others also indicated that Mr. Biden interest in a lengthy, detailed process may threaten his own deadline.
“He’s not someone who lets outside forces dictate his time,” said Jeff Peck, a lobbyist who served as general counsel and director of personnel on the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden was its chairman. “He’ll do it when he’s ready and when he makes a decision, but I do think there’s an outside crutch here, partly because of the state of the country.”
In the past few weeks, Mr. Biden has been reading court decisions late into the night. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Biden presided over hearings of several Supreme Court candidates. He said one of his proudest moments in the role was helping to thwart the candidacy of Robert H. Bork due to what he saw as Mr. Bork’s restrictive views on civil rights, women’s rights, and the Constitution.
In 1991, he presided over explosive hearings confirmed by Judge Clarence Thomas. Allegations of sexual harassment were leveled at those hearings, leading some to accuse Mr. Biden and his all-white, all-male committee of mistreating Anita Hill, who accused Judge Thomas of sexual harassment. Mr. Biden has since expressed regret to Miss Hill.
As a senator, Mr. Biden would often forcefully or emotionally question candidates on issues such as civil rights and the right to privacy.
“Just talk to me like a father.” he asked John G. Roberts Jr. during Senate confirmation hearings in 2005, trying to understand how Mr. Roberts felt about end-of-life planning. “Just tell me, purely philosophically, what do you think?” (Mr. Roberts, now Chief Justice, declined to answer the question under such conditions.)
Mr. Peck said Mr. Biden most likely used the same method during the interview, listening to what senators would like to hear during confirmation hearings.
“I’m sure the conversations include discussions that allow him to get some idea of the potential candidate’s value system,” he said. “He’s going to need someone who can build consensus, who can write a strong majority opinion, and who can also express a dissenting opinion in a clear, understandable way for people.”
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Leondra R. Krueger. The California Supreme Court justice has many of the qualities typical of U.S. Supreme Court candidates, but she is anomalous in at least one respect: FROMhe serves in the state court. The moderation of Judge Kruger might have made her mediation force in Washington.
At the White House, Mr. Biden is surrounded by people who understand the workings of the court, including his chief of staff, Ron Klein. He was an adviser to Mr. Biden on the Judiciary Committee during the 1991 squabble over the nomination of Judge Thomas, and was chief judicial adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Dana Remus, White House Counsel, was previously a clerk for Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., a member of the court’s conservative wing.
His other advisers on the matter include Cedric Richmond, director of the White House Office of Public Affairs, and Kamala Harris, vice president, although she was out of the country when the interviews began.
Mr Biden and his advisers rely on Doug Jones, a former senator from Alabama who will help a possible candidate get into the Senate. Last week, Mr. Jones began calling lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, was one of the first to receive calls from former colleagues, who a senior White House official said was a “call list” to get their opinion and advice.
In that discussion, according to a person who was briefed on the matter, Mr. Grassley told Mr. Jones that he was concerned that the White House could only offer meetings with the candidate via Zoom and wanted to make sure that any senator who wants a personal interview with a candidate can have one.
In numerous daily phone calls, Mr. Jones conveyed lawmakers’ concerns to Louise Terrell, director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, or Rima B. Dodin, deputy director of the office, according to a senior administration official.
Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a former Special Counsel to the Judiciary Committee, praised the team around the president but said Mr. Biden was risking “political costs” by slowly choosing someone as the situation in Ukraine unfolded. .
“He is literally facing two of the most likely issues that will attract attention and hopefully support, but also likely to generate resistance,” Mr. Gerhardt said. “There is no margin for error.”