RBG resignation news,while dem heads explode : The White House counsel’s office and senior aides on the Senate Judiciary Committee, now chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), have begun drafting a shortlist of potential court nominees. It features judges the president has considered for previous vacancies along with some new names. Many of them are women, sources say. They include Seventh Circuit judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was a leading contender for the last Supreme Court vacancy, created by Justice Anthony Kennedy; Sixth Circuit judges Joan Larsen, Amul Thapar, and Raymond Kethledge; Eleventh Circuit judge Britt Grant; and Third Circuit judge Thomas Hardiman; and Neomi Rao, Trump’s current nominee for Kavanaugh’s old seat on the D.C. Circuit Court. Should Ginsburg’s seat open, it would be the first confirmation battle of White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s tenure. The president’s first White House counsel Don McGahn — who focused heavily on confirming conservative judges to the federal bench — left the White House shortly after he played a central role in Kavanaugh’s October confirmation. “Outside of war and peace, of course, the most important decision you make is the selection of a Supreme Court judge, if you get it,” Trump said last summer.

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