White House Staffs Up for Supreme Court Nomination Battle

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden is bringing in White House veterans Minyon Moore and Ben LaBolt to help with his efforts to select and confirm his eventual nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, the White House said Wednesday.

Moore and LaBolt will join former Senator Doug Jones, an Alabama Democrat who left office in early 2021, on the White House's temporary Supreme Court team. Jones will be the nominee's guide through the Senate confirmation process, and they will all report to White House Counsel Dana Remus, according to a White House statement.

The three advisers “bring decades of experience to the table and will join the White House team working with the president on the selection of the nation's first Black woman to the Supreme Court,” the White House said in a statement.

Also helping Biden with the process are Vice President Kamala Harris, Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Director of Legislative Affairs Louisa Terrell, White House Senior Adviser Cedric Richmond, Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs Reema Dodin, Senior Counsel to the President Paige Herwig and Counsel to the Vice President Josh Hsu.

The Biden White House is following a longstanding tradition of tapping current or former senators and veterans of previous administrations' political battles to pitch in on a high court nomination.

Jones, whose role was first reported on Tuesday, will be the nomination adviser for legislative affairs. Moore, who led the political affairs and public liaison operations in Bill Clinton's White House and was also a top adviser to Hillary Clinton during her two presidential campaigns, will be the nomination adviser for engagement. She also helped Harris build her White House staff.

Earlier: Biden Consults With Key Senators on Supreme Court Nominee

LaBolt was the White House spokesman for the confirmations of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan during Barack Obama's first term in office and will be a communications adviser for the process. Andrew Bates, a deputy White House press secretary, is handling press around the process.

Biden, who has said he intends to announce his choice by the end of February, has spent time this week conferring with senators about potential nominees and the confirmation process, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday.

Schumer has said he wants the Senate to spend about a month considering the nominee, following the pace set when Republicans sped to confirm Amy Coney Barrett before the 2020 presidential election. Biden suggested in a Tuesday session with the top Democrat and Republican from the Senate Judiciary Committee that he thought the process should move more slowly and take about 40 days, the historical average.