Joe Biden has interviewed at least three potential supreme court nominees and is expected to reveal his decision by the end of this month, according to multiple sources close to the president.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, Leondra Kruger and J. Michelle Childs – all Black women – were among the contenders who spoke with the president, those familiar with the matter told CNN and the Washington Post.

Jackson, who has widely been considered the frontrunner, currently sits on the US court of appeals for the DC circuit after replacing the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in June 2021.

Kruger is an associate justice of the California supreme court and has served as the acting principal deputy solicitor general under the Barack Obama administration.

Childs currently sits on the US district court for the district of South Carolina and was previously nominated by Biden for a seat on the DC circuit court of appeals.

The impending retirement of supreme court associate justice Stephen Breyer has given Biden has the opportunity to fulfill one of his campaign promises: to appoint a Black woman to the supreme court.

On Sunday evening Cedric L Richmond, director of the White House office of public engagement, told members of the organization Win With Black Women that “we’re close”.

“We know what some of the attacks are going to be: not qualified, affirmative action pick… Well, it wasn’t ‘affirmative action pick’ when we just picked friends, white friends of the president, for all these decades. You know, it was just patronage or whatever they wanted to call it,” Richmond said, according to a source who has direct knowledge of the private conference call.

Biden, who is dealing with a growing crisis between Ukraine and Russia, has set the end of February as his deadline to pick a nominee. According to CNN, White House officials have reached out to liberal groups to inform them that Biden will not be shifting from his timeline and urged them to support “top tier” candidates against critics’ attacks.

In a statement on Tuesday, Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, said Biden has not yet made a decision.

“The President has not yet chosen a nominee. He continues to evaluate eminently qualified individuals in the mold of Justice [Stephen] Breyer who have the strongest records, intellect, character, and dedication to the rule of law that anyone could ask for – and all of whom would be deserving of bipartisan support. He looks forward to announcing a nominee this month.”