Inside Obama’s interviews with 5 Supreme Court candidates in race to replace Scalia

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Washington Times:

President Obama has begun interviewing candidates for the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

 

NPR, citing sources close to the process, said those being interviewed include Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; Judge Sri Srinivasan, of the same court; Judge Paul Watford, of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco; Judge Jane Kelly, of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis; and U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who serves in Washington. All of them have been reported previously as potential candidates.

 

Judges Garland, Srinivasan and Watford are considered leading contenders, NPR said. Attorney General Loretta Lynch took herself out of consideration this week, a Justice Department spokesman said Tuesday.

 

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll out Wednesday found that 55 percent of American voters disapprove of Senate Republicans’ plan to block Mr. Obama from replacing Scalia, who died last month at age 79.

 

The survey, as expected, was sharply divided along party lines, with 69 percent of Republicans approving of keeping the seat open. Nearly eight in 10 Democrats, 79 percent, disapprove of the GOP’s strategy.