NEW YORK, NY — Over the weekend, President Elect Donald J. Trump met with Judge William Pryor of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who is one of Trump’s many finalists for the vacant Supreme Court Seat. The meeting was held on Saturday, and was not reported on until the Associated Press confirmed through two sources on Tuesday.
RELATED: Report: Alabamian among Trump’s top ‘three or four’ for Supreme Court
Pryor previously served as Alabama’s deputy attorney general and attorney general (succeeding now-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions) before being nominated to the Eleventh Circuit President George W. Bush in 2003.
During an interview on Fox News, the president-elect said he narrowed the list “down to probably three or four” candidates. “They are terrific people,” Trump said. “Highly respected, brilliant people.”
Reportedly, Pryor made the short list. The meeting in New York will only add to the speculation that he has a good shot at the nomination.
Since Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death early in 2016, the ninth seat on the Supreme Court has remained vacant, as the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate successfully blocked President Obama’s attempt to install Judge Merrick Garland.
Conservative legal scholars and politicians alike have been on the hunt to find the next Scalia, going as far as to conduct a study on judges language in an attempt to find a match. Pryor had one of the highest scores on the index and was only one of three judges to be in the “positive” range.
RELATED: Study: Alabamian on Trump’s SCOTUS short list would carry on Scalia’s legacy
As a judge, Pryor has upheld state voter-ID laws, written anti-Obamacare opinions, and called Roe v. Wade the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.”
It is likely that Scalia’s seat will not be the only one that Trump will fill during his presidency. Two justices – Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsberg – are at least 80 years old, and another – Stephen Bryer – is 78.
