WASHINGTON – President Obama is not interested in sitting on the Supreme Court once he leaves office, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.
On Tuesday, a voter in Decorah, Iowa, asked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton whether she would consider naming Obama to the court if she was elected president.
“Wow, what a great idea!” she told the questioner at one of her town hall meetings. “Nobody has ever suggested that to me. Wow. I love that!”
But speaking to reporters Thursday, Earnest threw cold water on the idea, suggesting that the former constitutional lawyer might want to explore a broader range of pursuits once he steps down from office in January 2017.
“My guess is that his aspirations for his post-presidency extend beyond a Supreme Court appointment,” Earnest said. “I think as a constitutional lawyer that the president ... would have plenty of things and plenty of ideas for how he would do a job like that. But I think his preferences for how he wants to spend his time after he leaves the White House would lie in areas that would give him the opportunity to handle a wider range of issues than just those issues that come before the court.”
