President narrows Supreme Court search
Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Raymond Kethledge are appeals court judges.
Three federal appeals court judges have emerged as favorites in President Donald Trump’s search for a new Supreme Court justice: Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Raymond Kethledge, two people familiar with the matter said.
Among the three, Trump currently favors Kavanaugh and Kethledge over Barrett, according to the people.
Trump has interviewed at least seven potential replace- ments for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, people with knowledge of the process said earlier this week. Trump said he’ll name his nominee July 9, and the White House aims to have Kennedy’s successor confirmed in time for the court’s next session in October.
The confirmation process promises to be a fight. As soon as Kennedy announced his retirement plans in late June,
Democrats mobilized against Trump’s eventual pick, argu- ing that anyone he selects would help roll back abor- tion rights, Affordable Care Act protections, same-sex marriage and scores of other decisions that have shaped modern America while ruling in favor of corporations and against under-represented minorities.
Barrett, 46, is currently on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals after being nomi- nated by Trump in mid-2017 and confirmed in October. Before joining the bench, she was a professor at Notre Dame Law School, her alma mater, and two decades ago, clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Like four of the five Christians on the court, Barrett is a Roman Catholic.
Kavanaugh, 53, is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colum- bia Circuit who has a back- ground in politics. Before he was nominated to the D.C. circuit by George W. Bush, he was Bush’s White House staff secretary and worked for Bush during the 2000 Florida vote recount. He also played a lead role in drafting Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s 1998 report on Bill Clinton. He is a Yale Law School graduate.
Kethledge, 51, was confirmed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008 after spending most of his career in private practice. A graduate of University of Michigan Law School, he clerked for Kennedy in the late 1990s and advised Republican Sen. Spencer Abraham of Michigan.