Trump does deep dive on high court finalists

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump spent June 30 engaged in a deep dive into the backgrounds of the top prospects to fill an opening on the US Supreme Court but hasn’t begun interviews with the finalists.
Trump is at his Bedminster, New Jersey, private golf club. He’s been studying the rulings, judicial philosophies and temperaments of his short list, said an administration official familiar with the process.
Trump, who’s spending the weekend with family, had “extensive” conversations by phone with White House Counsel Don McGahn to seek additional insights on some of the likely finalists, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the process.
While the president told reporters a day earlier that it was possible he would interview one or two candidates at Bedminster over the weekend, the official said that no presidential interviews with candidates had taken place, and that such meetings weren’t expected on Sunday either.
Trump said he’d narrowed his search for a nominee to fill a Supreme Court vacancy to about five finalists, including two women, and will announce his pick on July 9.
A person familiar with the process said that White House officials were focussed primarily on five federal appeals court judges — Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Thomas Hardiman, Raymond Kethledge and Amul Thapar.
“I like them all but I’ve got it down to about five,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. In response to a question about Barrett, he called her “an outstanding woman.”
It isn’t clear what other woman might be on Trump’s short list. Trump said he may consider as many as seven candidates.
Trump’s time frame could prove optimistic. The FBI is still conducting background checks, the person said. But the president is already moving to get the process on a fast track. He met with a group of swing-state senators from both parties at the White House to discuss the nomination, and his aides also spoke with more than a dozen other senators.
Virtually all Republican senators have supported Trump’s lower-court selections and most have spoken favourably about Trump’s list of candidates for the Supreme Court.