WASHINGTON -- Judge Neil Gorsuch sought to reassure senators Tuesday that he would not be swayed by political pressure if he is confirmed for the Supreme Court.
Also, Gorsuch called President Donald Trump's attacks on federal judges "disheartening" and "demoralizing."
During the second day of his Senate confirmation hearings, Gorsuch dodged attempts to pin him down on controversial cases that would likely go before him as a justice, and he retreated frequently to the position that judges should have no views on political issues.
But he seemed happy to answer what he called the "softball" question offered by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, about whether he would have any trouble ruling against Trump, the man who nominated him for the high court.
[U.S. SUPREME COURT: More on Gorsuch, current justices, voting relationships]
"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.
Gorsuch made much of his Western roots, and the Columbia-Oxford-Harvard graduate used a homespun tone, punctuating his answers with "gosh," "golly" and "nope."
Lawmakers pressed him on abortion, gun rights, privacy and the protracted 2000 presidential campaign recount. Like other Supreme Court nominees have, Gorsuch explained that it would be improper to give his views on cases that might come before him or to grade decisions made in the past.
He had a tense encounter with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who sparred with him on issues of campaign finance and "dark money," including a $10 million campaign by the group Judicial Crisis Network to advocate for Gorsuch's confirmation.
Whitehouse said the group's donors do not have to be disclosed, and he wondered what they saw in Gorsuch that would warrant such an expenditure.
"You'd have to ask them," Gorsuch said.
"I can't because I don't know who they are," Whitehouse shot back.
Democrats questioned Gorsuch about his work in 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."
He did, however, say publicly what he had previously told senators in private about Trump's criticism of judges who ruled against him on that issue.
"When anyone criticizes the honesty and integrity or the motives of a federal judge, I find that disheartening, I find that demoralizing," he said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked, "Including the president?"
"Anyone is anyone," Gorsuch replied.
When Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Gorsuch if a president is free to ignore laws on national security grounds, Gorsuch replied that "nobody is above the law in this country, and that includes the president of the United States."
Some Democratic senators who are not on the Judiciary Committee called for a pause in the confirmation process after FBI Director James Comey said Monday that the bureau is investigating Russian meddling in last year's election and potential ties between Trump associates and Russia.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said on Twitter that while the investigation continues, "lifetime court appointments can wait."
Grassley dismissed the idea as ridiculous.
Pressed on issues
Other senators quizzed Gorsuch about several of Trump's past statements. During the presidential campaign last year, Trump said 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 whether Trump had 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 he was looking for in a Supreme Court justice. But Gorsuch said he does not believe in litmus tests and that he was never questioned about them.
Each senator has been allotted up to 30 minutes to question Gorsuch during the first round of questions.
The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, 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 Department of Justice in 2005 and 2006.
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.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pressed Gorsuch on claims by a former student at the University of Colorado Law School who said Gorsuch implied in a legal ethics class in April that he believes many female job applicants unfairly manipulate companies by hiding plans to begin families. She remembered him saying that many accept job offers but quickly leave with maternity benefits.
"Those are not my words, and I would never have said them," Gorsuch said. He later explained that he was trying to teach students about inappropriate questions from prospective employers, not endorsing such inquiries. Other students have said the accuser was misconstruing the lesson.
Slow-down warning
Republicans intend to move quickly on confirming the 49-year-old Gorsuch, who sits on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Those on the committee hope to refer Gorsuch to the full Senate on April 3 so he can be confirmed before Easter.
But 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 created by Justice Antonin Scalia's death, and because Trump's presidential campaign is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation.
Schumer said it seemed "unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court justice with a lifetime appointment" in light of the looming FBI investigation, which could last for months or years.
"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.
In the hearing room earlier in the day, Grassley raised such hot-button topics as abortion and gun rights in hopes of pre-empting some Democratic inquiries, asking Gorsuch for his opinion on well-known Supreme Court cases. In each case, Gorsuch said 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."
With Gorsuch in the witness chair, Democrats repeatedly referred to a Supreme Court nominee that never had a hearing, Judge Merrick Garland, who had been nominated by Obama last year to fill Scalia's vacancy but was blocked by Republicans.
Under questioning by Leahy, Gorsuch had kind words for Garland, but he declined to weigh in on the Senate's decision not to take up Garland's nomination.
"I think it would be imprudent for judges to start commenting on political disputes between themselves or the various branches," Gorsuch said.
Information for this article was contributed by Ed O'Keefe, Robert Barnes and Sean Sullivan of The Washington Post; and by Mark Sherman, Erica Werner and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press.
A Section on 03/22/2017