Vladimir Putin Narrows Search For US Supreme Court Nomination

MOSCOW- Source close to the Kremlin report that President Vladimir Putin has started the process of narrowing down his short list of nominees for the vacant seat in the United States Supreme Court. The Russian leader has reportedly settled on “three or four names” that he deemed appropriate for the position and that will “uphold Russian values” in the highest court of the American judicial system.

Putin, who has been busy deciding on several appointed and unappointed positions in the U.S. federal government in recent weeks, has yet to publicly hint at potential justices, but it is widely believed he will look for a candidate who is right-leaning and, as one pundit put it, “sympathetic with the plight of the Russian people.”

When questioned on Monday in Moscow about concerns over foreign influence in the decision, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters “There is no foreign influence to speak of. President Putin and his staff will be the only people making this decision.”