Trump floats Mike Lee as Supreme Court pick
Donald Trump on Friday announced an expanded list of potential Supreme Court nominees that includes Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — who is still holding out on endorsing the GOP presidential nominee.
{mosads}Lee, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and was an assistant U.S. attorney in Utah, tops the list, which NBC News first reported.
Lee has been critical of Trump, remarking in May that he “scares me to death” and continuing to withhold his endorsement, though he has not come close to crossing party lines and backing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
In June, Lee called on Trump to adopt a “constitutional agenda.”
Other names on the list include Neil Gorsuch, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit who was appointed in 2006 by George W. Bush, and Margaret Ryan, a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Services who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.
Iowa Supreme Court Justice Edward Mansfield, Georgia Supreme Court Justice Keith Blackwell, Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles Canady, Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Justice Timothy Tymkovich, Amul Thapar with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky and Federico Moreno of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida round out the expanded list.
Trump in May released his first list of 11 judges that he said he would consider for the nation’s highest court to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon.
The move was aimed at pleasing critics of his on the right still skeptical of the New York businessman, who at the time indicated that he may add to the list.
Among those on Trump’s original list was Utah Supreme Court Judge Thomas Lee, Mike Lee’s brother and the son of former Ronald Reagan solicitor general Rex Lee.
Updated at 12:32 p.m.
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