WASHINGTON. President Biden told his advisers that he selected a candidate for the Supreme Court on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the selection process.
President’s decision ends month-long search for replacement judge Steven J. Breuer, a senior member of the three-member liberal wing of the court, who announced in January that he will retire at the end of the court’s current term this summer, once his successor has taken over.
Mr. Biden is under pressure to announce his choice of what he promised would be a black woman, somewhere between a reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his first address to Congress, scheduled for Tuesday. The White House has not commented on his decision, which CNN previously reported.
The announcement could be made as early as Friday, but Mr Biden’s advisers said it could happen before the end of the month, which is Monday. Vice President Kamala Harris canceled a previously scheduled trip to Louisiana on Friday, although advisers to Mr Biden and Ms Harris said it was at least in part because she and Mr Biden would be focusing on Russia in during part of the day. On Friday morning, Mr. Biden is scheduled to hold a virtual meeting with other NATO heads of state.
Earlier Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the president had not yet made a “final, final” decision on the nomination. People familiar with Mr. Biden’s decision did not say Thursday night whether he proposed to the man of his choice.
Since the end of last week, Mr. Biden has conducted interviews with three candidates long thought to be on his short list. He spoke with Judge Ketanji Brown Jacksonwhich 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.
The President also spoke with J. Michelle Childsa federal district court judge in South Carolina, a state whose black voters Biden says helped him win the presidential election.
While the nomination won’t change the ideological balance in the court—the Republican-appointed conservatives will retain their 6-to-3 majority—it would be another achievement: all three Democratic-appointed judges will be women.