Vetting process for high court candidates cloaked in secrecy

The Obama administration is close to naming a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last month and would have turned 80 on Friday.

If history is a guide, the White House will take elaborate precautions to make sure the choice for the lifetime seat is kept under wraps until the president is ready to reveal it.

“I checked into a hotel downtown, and they said that I ... should go to a particular corner at a particular time in the morning and wait for a Chrysler 300 to pull up, flash its headlights a couple of times, and then I was to get in this car,” he told Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol in an interview last year.

President Obama’s search appears to be focused on a small group of appellate court judges with a history of bipartisan backing.

Soon, Thomas was standing across the street from the federal courthouse, where he was an appellate judge, waiting to catch a ride to the Justice Department.