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Utah's Mike Lee, Thomas Lee Reportedly On Trump’s Short List For SCOTUS Vacancy

Pool photo
Sen. Mike Lee during his 2016 Senate debate. Lee and his brother, state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Lee, are said to be on Trump's short list for the Supreme Court.

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court means President Trump will soon make his second selection to the nation’s highest court — and at least two nominees he’s said to be considering will be familiar to Utahns.

President Trump told White House reporters on Wednesday that he will select Kennedy’s successor from a short list of 25 nominees his administration vetted before he selected Justice Neil Gorsuch last year.

 

On that list? Utah’s Republican Sen. Mike Lee and his brother, Thomas Lee, associate chief justice of the Utah State Supreme Court.

 

The two-term senator has expressed interest in the posting before. An attorney by trade, Lee once clerked for Justice Samuel Alito before President George W. Bush appointed him to the Supreme Court.

 

At the U.S. Capitol today, Lee gave a hallway interview to Congressional reporters about the possibility. “[I] would not say no,” he said of a Supreme Court appointment.

 

Thomas Lee is another contender. He’s served on the Utah Supreme Court since 2010. Their father, Rex Lee, was the former Solicitor General of the United States during the Reagan administration.

 

Both Mike Lee and Utah’s senior Sen. Orrin Hatch are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will have a hand in confirming the next justice.

 

Any confirmation hearing will likely set up a battle with Democrats over the direction of the court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday he intends to confirm a new justice by the fall.

Julia joined KUER in 2016 after a year reporting at the NPR member station in Reno, Nev. During her stint, she covered battleground politics, school overcrowding, and any story that would take her to the crystal blue shores of Lake Tahoe. Her work earned her two regional Edward R. Murrow awards. Originally from the mountains of Western North Carolina, Julia graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008 with a degree in journalism. She’s worked as both a print and radio reporter in several states and several countries — from the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Dakar, Senegal. Her curiosity about the American West led her to take a spontaneous, one-way road trip to the Great Basin, where she intends to continue preaching the gospel of community journalism, public radio and podcasting. In her spare time, you’ll find her hanging with her beagle Bodhi, taking pictures of her food and watching Patrick Swayze movies.
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