President Not Above Law, Gorsuch Says When Asked About Trump

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch said Tuesday he wouldn’t hesitate to rule against Donald Trump if the law required it. He also told senators he made no promises to Trump about how he would decide any case, even though the president briefly mentioned abortion when the two met.

Answering questions in a marathon session Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gorsuch defended his decade-long record on a federal appeals court and vowed to follow the law no matter who is involved in an issue.

“Nobody is above the law in this country, and that includes the president of the United States,” the nominee said as Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy asked about court review of presidents’ national security decisions. Gorsuch refused to say whether he would uphold Trump’s ban on travel from six mostly Muslim nations, though he said the Constitution has multiple protections for religious minorities.

Trump didn’t ask him to make any commitments on cases during their meeting before the nomination, Gorsuch said. Trump did mention the Roe decision “briefly,” Gorsuch said under questioning by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal.

“He said that one of the topics that came up during the course of the campaign was abortion and that it was very divisive and split people equally,” Gorsuch said. “And then he moved on to other topics.”

Gorsuch said he “would have walked out the door” if Trump had asked him specifically to vote to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion-rights ruling. The judge said he didn’t discuss Roe with any of Trump’s advisers.

Earlier Tuesday, Gorsuch called the decision a “precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed,” while giving no indication of whether he thought the case was correctly decided. Trump, during his presidential campaign, said that his Supreme Court nominees would be “pro-life” and that Roe would “automatically” be overturned once he had made enough appointments.

‘So-Called Judge’

When Blumenthal asked him about Trump’s criticism of federal judges who ruled against him -- calling one a “so-called judge” -- Gorsuch repeated the same words he used in February in meetings with Blumenthal and other senators.

“When anyone criticizes the honesty, the integrity, the motives of a federal judge I find that disheartening, I find that demoralizing because I know the truth,” Gorsuch said.

“Anyone including the president of the United States?” asked Blumenthal. Gorsuch responded, “Anyone is anyone” and refused to comment further.

Gorsuch sparred with Blumenthal over 1965 and 1972 Supreme Court decisions that guaranteed the right to use contraceptives. Although Gorsuch said those rulings were settled precedents and in no danger of being revisited, he declined to say directly that the decisions were correct.

Democrats say they fear Gorsuch will reinstate a conservative Supreme Court majority that over the past decade has voted 5-4 to roll back protections for consumers, workers and racial minorities, while giving corporations new rights. He is Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee.

QuickTake on Gorsuch and the U.S. Supreme Court

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called Gorsuch “one of the most qualified people I think President Trump could have chosen from the conservative world.” He added, “Frankly, I was worried about who he might pick. Maybe somebody on TV.”

Another day of questioning is set for Wednesday. Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has said the committee plans to vote on Gorsuch’s nomination April 3, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky repeated Tuesday that the full Senate will vote later that week, before a mid-April Senate recess.

Separately from the Judiciary panel’s hearing, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Gorsuch has “made a very poor impression” on Democrats by declining to answer a number of questions.

Schumer, of New York, said the Senate shouldn’t rush ahead on Gorsuch’s confirmation while Trump is under the “gray cloud” of the FBI investigation of potential ties between his presidential campaign and Russia. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey confirmed the probe on Monday.

Chevron Ruling

Democrat Amy Klobuchar asked Gorsuch about an opinion he wrote calling for reconsideration of a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that gives broad power to administrative agencies to interpret federal statues. The widely invoked ruling, known as Chevron, says when a law is unclear, courts should defer to the affected agency as long as its interpretation is reasonable.

“You were clearly talking about overturning Chevron,” said Klobuchar of Minnesota. Gorsuch said he wouldn’t necessarily vote to reverse the decision. “I would try to come at it with as open a mind as a man could muster,” he said.

Questioned by Democrat Dianne Feinstein about his service in the Justice Department during President George W. Bush’s administration, Gorsuch said there was a "tug of war" within the administration over a presidential statement that reserved the right to use harsher interrogation methods in special situations. Gorsuch said he was among those who wanted a "gentler" statement.

‘The Scribe’

“I certainly would never have counseled anyone that they could disobey the law,” Gorsuch said. He also said he was merely “the scribe” in preparing testimony by the attorney general to Congress that said lawmakers couldn’t bar the president’s power to wiretap Americans.

Later, the nominee said anyone who assumes he would back Trump’s travel ban “has no idea how I would rule in that case.”

Gorsuch sought to reassure Feinstein and other Democrats who contend that he rules mostly in favor of corporations and against ordinary Americans.

Stresses Fairness

"If you want cases where I’ve ruled for the little guy as well as the big guy, there are plenty of them," he said. "What I’d like to convey to you from the bottom of my heart is that I’m a fair judge."

Democrats said they will hold Gorsuch to a higher standard than previous Supreme Court nominees, in part because of last year’s successful Republican blockade of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice for the seat that has been open since February 2016.

Democrats will be hard-pressed to stop Gorsuch’s nomination given Republicans’ 52-48 control of the Senate. Under current rules, Democrats need only 41 votes to filibuster the nomination, but Republicans could change those rules with a simple majority vote, an approach that has become known as the "nuclear option." Republicans are united behind the nominee.

— With assistance by Catherine Dodge, Margaret Talev, Steven T. Dennis, and Terrence Dopp