WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden informed his advisers Thursday that he had chosen a Supreme Court nominee, according to two people familiar with the selection process.
The president's decision ended a monthlong search to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, the senior member of the court's three-member liberal wing, who announced in January that he would retire this summer at the end of the court's current term once his successor was in place.
Biden is under pressure to announce his selection, who he has promised will be a Black woman, somewhere between the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and his first State of the Union address, scheduled for Tuesday. The White House did not comment on his decision, which CNN reported earlier.
An announcement could come as soon as Friday, but Biden's advisers have said it could take until the end of the month, which is on Monday. Vice President Kamala Harris canceled a previously planned trip to Louisiana on Friday, although advisers to Biden and Harris said that was at least partly because she and Biden would be focused on Russia for part of the day. Biden is scheduled to meet virtually with other NATO heads of state Friday morning.
Earlier Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the president had not made a "final, final" decision on the nominee. People familiar with Biden's decision would not say Thursday evening whether he had extended an offer to the person he had chosen.
Beginning late last week, Biden held interviews with three candidates who had long been seen as on his shortlist. He spoke with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who won the support of three Republican senators when Biden elevated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
He also interviewed Leondra Kruger of the California Supreme Court, a former law clerk on the Supreme Court whose Yale Law pedigree is shared by four of the current justices. The president also spoke with J. Michelle Childs, a U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina, a state whose Black voters Biden has credited with helping him win the presidency.
While the nominee's confirmation would not change the court's ideological balance — conservatives appointed by Republicans would retain their 6-3 majority — it would achieve another first: All three justices appointed by Democratic presidents would be women.
