Obama, Chicago's Judge Wood, talked

by Mark Silva and updated.

President Barack Obama has met with Chicago-based appellate judge Diane Wood, believed to be one of the candidates whom the president is considering for an appointment to the Supreme Court, our friends at Bloomberg News report.

And our own source, confirming Obama's meeting with Wood this week, says she is one of at least three candidates who have undergone deep background checks for a potential appointment to the high court.

The president also has consulted with every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the decision he faces, Bloomberg's Ed Chen and Greg Stohr report, citing an administration official who says Obama met with Wood.

Wood, a member of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, was in Washington today for a conference on judicial independence at Georgetown University's law school. She declined to say whether she had been to the White House.

Another believed candidate among a half-dozen or more suspected possibilities for appointment to the seat of retiring Justice David Souter, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, delivered the opening remarks at the conference.

A Democratic official tells the Tribune Washington bureau that the White House has made deep background checks of Wood, Kagan and New York appellate judge Sonia Sotomayor, also widely viewed as a leading candidate for the court.

The White House declined to say today publicly which, if any, candidates for the court the president has personally interviewed. But a third potential nominee, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, was at the White House yesterday for an announcement of the Obama administration's new auto emissions and fuel mileage standards.

"The president is, has been, very active in thinking through who the best nominee would be," White House Press Secretary Roberg Gibbs said.

(Photo of Judge Diane Wood by Lloyd DeGrane,/ University of Chicago / AP)