Indian-American Judge Amul Thapar is among the top names considered by US President Donald Trump to replace Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to various media reports. Ginsburg died Friday at the age of 87.
Trump, who on Saturday indicated that he wanted to act “without delay” in naming a replacement, has not indicated who or when. But he has had a list of potential candidates for a long time, which he recently updated with 20 names.
Thapar has been on the list for a while and had made the list of names as a possible candidate to succeed Justice Stephen Kennedy, who retired in 2018. He lost that race to Brett Kavanaugh.
Thapar, 51, is a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
“We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered the selection of the justices of the United States Supreme Court. the president of the United States tweeted, adding, “We have this obligation, without delay!”
In another post, Trump thanked former Senate Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, for removing a rule that required 60 votes to confirm a nominee. Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate. All presidential nominations for certain federal offices must be confirmed or rejected by the Senate.
Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already indicated that he is ready to begin the process and said in a statement that the US president’s candidate will get a vote. In 2016, he had blocked President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, saying he should be left to the next president even though elections were due to take place after nine months.
Thapar has been on Trump’s list for quite some time. He had been considered in 2017 to replace Antonin Scalia. Trump eventually left with Neil Gorsuch. Later in the year, he appointed Thapar to the Cincinnati-based Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Thapar was confirmed by 52 votes to 44, becoming the second Indian-American judge on an appeals court. Shri Srinivasan, who was appointed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by Obama and confirmed in 2013, was the first.
Thapar, 47, was born in Detroit to immigrants from India, Raj Thapar and Veena Bhalla. He went to college in Boston and studied law at the University of California, Berkeley.
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