Justice’s scheduled appearance at Trump hotel raising eyebrows

WASHINGTON» U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch plans to speak Thursday at the Trump International Hotel in a keynote appearance that’s drawn criticism because of the location and its ties to President Donald Trump, who nominated the Colorado native to the high court.

It’s not clear what Gorsuch will say at the inviteonly event, though organizers with The Fund for American Studies, a conservative group, said they expect he’ll talk for about 30 minutes on topics such as the constitution and American exceptionalism.

The speech, though, isn’t what is attracting an outcry — as there’s a long tradition of Supreme Court justices accepting invitations to speak before groups across the political spectrum.

Rather, it’s the setting inside the Trump International Hotel — a hangout for hangers-on of the administration just a few blocks from the White House. Critics contend Gorsuch’s presence there sends the wrong signal.

“However implicit, and however you may not desire to create such an impression, the appearance of such an endorsement is why you should not appear at a hotel owned by, and named after, a candidate for political office,” wrote several opponents of the idea, from the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, to Norman Ornstein, a political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

An added worry is that the hotel itself has been the target of legal action, as Trump opponents have argued that the lodging paid for by international guests violates rules against federal officials accepting foreign payments.

But Richard Collins, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, said while Trump’s ownership of the hotel is a “novel and troublesome issue,” the speaking engagement by Gorsuch is less worrisome and “pretty remote” from that controversy.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to begin its fall term Monday.