Biden Interviews 3 Supreme Court Candidates as His Search Narrows

WASHINGTON — President Biden has interviewed at least three candidates for his Supreme Court nomination, a signal that he intends to fulfill his promise that he would choose a nominee by the end of the month.

The end of the month is just a week away. According to several people familiar, interviews began late last week. They spoke under condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the political process. Mr. Biden is now under pressure to announce his selection, who he has promised will be a Black woman, somewhere between a rapidly devolving diplomatic effort to contain Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine and plans to deliver his first State of the Union address, scheduled for next Tuesday.

The White House emphasized on Tuesday that Mr. Biden had not made a decision but remained on track to make one before month’s end.

According to a source familiar, Mr. Biden conducted interviews with three candidates, two of whom had been on his short list for some time. He spoke to Judge Ketanji Brown, who won the support of three Republican senators, when Mr. Biden elevated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit. Leondra R.Kruger, a former law clerk for the California Supreme Court, was interviewed as well. She is a Yale Law graduate and is currently a member of four of the current justices.

He also spoke with J. Michelle Childs (Federal District Court judge in South Carolina), a state whose Black residents Mr. Biden has credited for helping him win the presidency.

At least one interview took place in person.

The White House, aware that a Supreme Court nomination is one of the most scrutinized and politically volatile of all presidential duties, has said so little about the process to replace the retiring Justice Stephen G. Breyer that the lack of details has become a running joke: “The long national process will soon be over,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said wryly when a reporter asked if Mr. Biden had finished interviewing.

CNN and the Washington Post had reported some interviews earlier. Several of Mr. Biden’s advisers said he might have more interviews, and emphasized that he intended to be deliberate as he entered the final phase of assessing candidates. Several others also pointed out that Mr. Biden’s interest in a lengthy, detailed process could threaten his own self-imposed deadline.

“He’s not someone who lets outside forces dictate his timing,” said Jeff Peck, a lobbyist who served as general counsel and staff director to the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden was chairman of it. “He will do it when he is ready and when he has decided, but I do think there’s an outside bookend here, in part because of the State of the Union.”

Mr. Biden has spent the last few weeks reading court decisions. As chairman of Judiciary Committee he presided over several Supreme Court nominee hearings. He has said one of his proudest moments in that role was when he helped thwart the nomination of Robert H. Bork, because of what he considered Mr. Bork’s restrictive views on civil rights, women’s rights and the Constitution.

He presided over explosive hearings in 1991 to confirm Justice Clarence Thomas. Those hearings included sexual misconduct charges that led to some accusing Mr. Biden, his all-white, all male committee, of having mistreated Anita Hill who had accused Justice Thomas sexual harassment. Since then, Mr. Biden has expressed his regret to Ms. Hill.

As a senator, Mr. Biden would often emotionally or emphatically question nominees on topics such as civil rights or privacy.

“Just talk to me as a father,” he asked John G. Roberts Jr. during a Senate confirmation hearing in 2005, seeking to understand how Mr. Roberts felt about end-of-life planning. “Just tell me, just philosophically, what do you think?” (Mr. Roberts, now the chief justice, declined to answer the question on those terms.)

Mr. Peck indicated that Mr. Biden used the same method during interviews with an ear for what senators would like to hear during confirmation hearings.

“I’m sure the conversations include the kind of discussions that allow him to kind of gain a bit of insight into a potential nominee’s value system,” he said. “He’s going to want someone who can forge consensus, who can write powerful majority opinions and can also express dissenting views in a clear way that people can understand.”

Mr. Biden is surrounded at the White House by people who know the court’s workings, including Ron Klain, his chief-of-staff. He was Mr. Biden’s counsel on the Judiciary Committee during the 1991 showdown over the nomination of Justice Thomas, and he was a top court adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Dana Remus, the White House counsel, formerly clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a member of the court’s conservative wing.

Cedric Richmond (director of the White House Office of Public Engagement) and Kamala Harir (vice president) are some of his other advisers.

Doug Jones, a former senator from Alabama, is being used by Mr. Biden and his advisors to help him navigate 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 people to receive a call from what a senior White House official said was a “call list” of former colleagues to get their insight and advice.

According to a source, Mr. Grassley said that he was worried that the White House might only offer Zoom meetings to the nominee and that he wanted assurances that any senator who wants an in-person interview could have one.

In multiple daily debriefing calls, Mr. Jones has forwarded lawmaker concerns to Louisa Terrell, White House director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, or Reema B. Dodin, the office’s deputy director, a senior administration official said.

Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former special counsel to the Judiciary Committee, praised the team around the president, but said Mr. Biden risked a “political cost” by taking his time to choose someone as the situation in Ukraine unfolded.

“He’s literally facing the two likeliest issues to draw attention and hopefully draw support but also likely draw opposition,” Mr. Gerhardt said. “There’s no margin for error.”