Gorsuch dismayed by Trump’s attacks on judges
High court nominee calls the comments ‘demoralizing ’
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch distanced himself Wednesday from disparaging comments President Trump has made about the federal judiciary.
In a private meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn., the federal appeals court judge called Trump’s attacks “demoralizing ” and “disheartening,” a member of his advisory team confirmed. The comments — made during the type of courtesy call that seldom makes news — went viral.
Trump’s comments began last weekend after a judge blocked his executive order imposing a temporary travel ban on immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries and refugees. They escalated Wednesday in reaction to Tuesday’s live-streamed oral arguments as the case was considered by a threejudge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Gorsuch’s comments were solicited after Trump suggested Wednesday that judges have acted politically — something Gorsuch says he has eschewed in his decade-long career on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
“I don’t ever want to call a court biased, so I won’t call it biased,” Trump told a group of sheriffs and police chiefs in discussing the travel ban case pending before the San Francisco-based appeals court.
“But courts seem to be so political,” Trump said.
Trump also had called federal District Judge James Robart of Seattle, who first blocked the travel ban, a “so-called judge.”