Earlier this week, National Public Radio published a report claiming Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch deliberately defied a request by Chief Justice John Roberts — made on behalf of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who has underlying health conditions — that each of the justices wear masks while in court. His refusal, the report said, forced Sotomayor to participate remotely in the bench’s scheduled oral arguments and weekly conferences.
The story wasn’t true.
One glance at the report should have sent alarms off in every journalist’s head, especially since the fifth paragraph made it clear the story was little more than a launching pad for unrelated criticisms of Gorsuch.
The story claims:
At his first sitting in 2017, he sought to dominate the argument and repeatedly suggested that a complex case, involving conflicting provisions, was really very simple.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if we just followed the plain text of the statute?” he asked over and over. “What am I missing?”
A lot, said his colleagues, both liberal and conservative.
“This is unbelievably complicated,” lamented conservative Justice Samuel Alito. Whoever wrote the statute must be “somebody who takes pleasure tearing the wings off flies,” he said, provoking loud snickers on the bench.
The rest of the article reads like a gossip column. It speculates about tensions and old feuds between the conservative justices in a way that would embarrass anyone but a Page Six reporter. Yet dozens of mainstream journalists and leftists shared the story and repeated its claims as if they were true:
Gorsuch’s refusal to mask up on the bench even when asked by the Chief Justice to do so in order that the diabetic and hence immunocompromised Justice Sotomayor could attend in person shows just what kind of jerk Gorsuch is. I wish he weren’t an HLS alum. https://t.co/djLtpKWNtI
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) January 18, 2022
Regardless of what you think about his politics – Gorsuch appears to be a terrible, terrible person. https://t.co/8g1rteWQLu
— Tim Fullerton (@TimFullerton) January 18, 2022
Neil Gorsuch: first class boor, total asshole. Of course, we knew this from his confirmation hearing, where he made clear he could care less if a truck driver froze to death. https://t.co/MnS53kTZo4
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) January 18, 2022
“I cannot imagine how much of an asshat you must be to have a colleague ask you to wear a mask when you’re sitting together and to refuse her.”
— @JVLast on Justice Gorsuchhttps://t.co/L6dq2I4MRB— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 18, 2022
So glad I voted no on this jerk. What kind of guy does this? I could tell in my meeting with him that he thought he was better than everyone else, more important, smarter. Ugh. #Gorsuch https://t.co/sXDIE9pM8S
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) January 18, 2022
But the report was a lie.
A few hours after NPR published the story on Tuesday, Fox News chief legal correspondent Shannon Bream disputed its allegations and reported that there was “no blanket admonition or request from Chief Justice Roberts that the other justices begin wearing masks to arguments.” Her “source further stated Justice Sotomayor did not make any such request to Justice Gorsuch.”
“I’m told, given that fact, there was also no refusal by Justice Gorsuch,” Bream said.
Bream’s reporting was confirmed on Wednesday by Sotomayor, Gorsuch, and Roberts themselves.
“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends,” Sotomayor and Gorsuch said in a joint statement.
Roberts issued his own statement denying NPR’s report:
MORE JUST IN on Maskgate, this time from the Chief Justice: “I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.”
— Robert Barnes (@scotusreporter) January 19, 2022
Why did so many people fall for this fake news? The answer is obvious: They already disliked Gorsuch because of his views, so they gladly jumped on a story that, in their minds, confirmed they were right to dislike him.
Every single person who elevated NPR’s false reporting and used it to insult Gorsuch should admit the error and apologize. But they won’t — because as they proved this week, they’re not honest, nor are they interested in the truth. They’re partisans, and they deserve to be dismissed as such.
