Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's U.S. Supreme Court pick, said Tuesday he would not hesitate to rule against the president. He's vowing independence amid concerns by Democrats he would be beholden to the man who nominated him.
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WASHINGTON – Judge Neil Gorsuch sought to reassure senators Tuesday that he would not be swayed by political pressure if he wins confirmation to the Supreme Court – trying to take the steam out of anticipated attacks from Democrats likely to push him to distance himself from President Donald Trump.
At the start of his second day of confirmation hearings, Republicans questioned Gorsuch about judicial independence and whether he would have any trouble ruling against Trump, who nominated him to the high court. Democrats grilled him on his work at George W. Bush's Justice Department and whether he'd rule against Trump's travel ban.
Gorsuch declined to express his views on Trump's move to ban travelers from several Muslim-dominant countries because "that's an issue that is currently being litigated actively."
When Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., mentioned that a Republican lawmaker recently suggested that Gorsuch would uphold Trump's ban if it came before the court, Gorsuch snapped back: "Senator, he has no idea how I'd rule in that case."
"I'm not going to say anything here that would give anybody any idea how I'd rule in any case like that that could come before the Supreme Court," he added.
On questions regarding abortion, gun rights, privacy and the protracted 2000 presidential campaign recount, Gorsuch declined to share his specific views. Like other Supreme Court nominees have in the past, Gorsuch explained that it would be improper to give his views on current or past cases.
"I have no difficulty ruling against or for any party other than based on what the law and the facts of a particular case require," Gorsuch told the panel. "And I'm heartened by the support I have received from people who recognize that there's no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge – we just have judges in this country.
"My personal views . . . I leave those at home," he added later.
But Democrats pressed ahead. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked about Gorsuch's work on issues involving enhanced interrogation of suspected terrorist detainees while he served in Bush's Department of Justice.
Even though the issue has been in the news during the past week, Gorsuch said he did not remember a document in which he was preparing talking points for the then-attorney general. "Yes," is handwritten next to a typed question: "Have the aggressive interrogation techniques employed by the Admin yielded any valuable intelligence?"
Feinstein said she would supply Gorsuch with the documents for future questioning. In general, Gorsuch portrayed himself as a facilitator rather than a policymaker during his 14 months at the DOJ in 2005 and 2006.
"I was a lawyer for a client," he said.
Feinstein asked about Gorsuch's role in designing a signing statement for Bush on a detainee treatment law; she characterized it as indicating that the president did not feel bound by the law he had just signed.
"I certainly never would have counseled anyone not to obey the law," Gorsuch responded.
Republicans intend to move quickly on confirming the 49-year-old Gorsuch, who sits on the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He has been told to anticipate up to 10 hours of questioning Tuesday from the 20 members of the Judiciary Committee. Republicans on the committee have expressed their support for Gorsuch, but Democrats are eager to fill in parts of his public record that they say remain thin.
And Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., warned Republicans on Tuesday that his party would attempt to slow down consideration of Gorsuch because Republicans last year blocked then-President Barack Obama's attempts to fill the vacancy of the late Antonin Scalia, and because Trump's presidential campaign is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation.
"You can bet that if the shoe was on the other foot – and a Democratic president was under investigation by the FBI – that Republicans would be howling at the moon about filling a Supreme Court seat in such circumstances," Schumer said. "After all, they stopped a president who wasn't under investigation from filling a seat with nearly a year left in his presidency."
Each senator has been allotted up to 30 minutes to question Gorsuch during the first round of questions. A second round, likely to begin Wednesday, gives senators an additional 20 minutes to quiz the nominee.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, also brought up such hot-button topics as abortion and gun rights in hopes of preempting some Democratic inquiries, asking Gorsuch for his opinion on well-known Supreme Court cases. In each case, Gorsuch said that the high court had ruled and that he would respect the court's precedent while analyzing fresh cases.
To be more expansive in his answers would mean "I would be tipping my hand and suggesting to litigants that I've already made up my mind about their cases," he told Grassley. "That's not a fair judge."
Trump said during the campaign that he would nominate people to the Supreme Court who would overrule Roe v. Wade and return decisions on abortion back to the states.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Gorsuch on Tuesday whether Trump asked him to do that during his interview before his nomination.
"Senator, I would have walked out the door," Gorsuch replied.
It was at least the second time senators had pressed Gorsuch on what Trump had said during the campaign that he was looking for in a Supreme Court justice. But Gorsuch said he does not believe in litmus tests, and was never questioned about them.
The hearing began amid Democratic doubts about Gorsuch's impartiality and lingering resentment over the circumstances of his selection. During opening statements Monday, he promised to remember the "modest station we judges are meant to occupy in a democracy" if he is elevated to the nation's highest court.
The day followed a familiar confirmation hearing script – glowing assessments from senators of the party whose president made the nomination, vows of scrutiny from senators out of power, and a humble, deferential opening statement from the nominee.
But there was a sharp-edged difference as well. Democrats on the committee made clear that they are not over the decision of their Republican colleagues to keep open the seat held by Scalia.