Biden will welcome Senate Judiciary Democrats to the White House on Thursday

By CNN Newsource

Published February 9, 2022 10:37 AM

By Betsy Klein, Kaitlan Collins and Phil Mattingly, CNN

President Joe Biden will host Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats at the White House Thursday, a White House official confirmed to CNN, as he ramps up his courting of critical senators before selecting a successor to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Biden, the official added, “has also continued his conversations with Republicans this week,” but declined to provide specific details on whom he has spoken with. He also continues to consult with “a diverse group of legal experts,” the official noted.

Biden previously met with the committee’s chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, and top Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, in the Oval Office last week. He also spoke to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last week.

The President, the official said, is “grateful to all of the members who are working with him in good faith during this process.”

All of the candidates the White House is considering, the official said, are “deserving of bipartisan support because of their deep qualifications.”

As CNN reported Tuesday, White House officials have begun reaching out to potential Supreme Court candidates to gather more information about their records. And, as a part of the normal protocol in the vetting process, the FBI has contacted friends and former colleagues of potential nominees. A senior administration source told CNN that there have been no in-person meetings between candidates and White House staff as yet, and that some interactions with staff are likely to be over the phone.

Daily strategy meetings inside the West Wing are also underway as Biden has spent several evenings in the residence reviewing binders related to past cases of potential picks.

“As he’s looking at the process, he’s reviewing not just bios, but he’s also reviewing cases and he is looking at binders of cases, because he is … taking this approach very seriously. He’s taking a very thorough approach to it,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday.

The process of selecting a Supreme Court justice historically involves a significant amount of vetting and interviews at the staff and presidential level. Psaki noted that Biden remains on track to select a nominee before his self-imposed end-of-February deadline.

Former Alabama Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, who will guide the eventual nominee through the process in the role known in Washington as Sherpa, started working at the White House Tuesday as the search to fill the vacancy kicks into high gear.

A short list of potential nominees had been circulating Washington well before Breyer’s retirement plans became public, and officials in the White House Counsel’s office built files on various candidates in anticipation of a potential vacancy.

DC Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger and South Carolina US District Judge J. Michelle Childs have been widely viewed as representing an early short list.

But other women reportedly under consideration include: 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Holly A. Thomas, Federal Circuit Judge Tiffany P. Cunningham, civil rights attorney and 11th Circuit Court candidate Nancy G. Abudu, 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Arianna J. Freeman, NYU law professor Melissa Murray, 7th Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, District Judge Wilhelmina “Mimi” Wright, North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, 2nd Circuit Judge Eunice Lee and Sherrilyn Ifill, a civil rights attorney who recently announced plans to step down from her role as president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Asked Tuesday whether the field had winnowed from the dozen candidates floated, Psaki acknowledged, “That is a natural part of the process,” but declined to reveal specific numbers of remaining candidates.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.