Gorsuch is being cagey about his views on Trump and ethics. That could pose huge problems.
By Sarah Posner March 22 at 3:12 PM
At his Senate confirmation hearings Wednesday, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, declined to answer questions about the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits a public officeholder from accepting payments from a foreign government or foreign government-owned entity without congressional approval.
The questions, from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), highlighted how extraordinarily fraught Gorsuch’s nomination is, as his hearings unfold amid the unprecedented presidential conflicts of interest precipitated by Trump’s refusal to divest from his vast business empire. And these unparalleled circumstances make Gorsuch’s answers — or, more accurately, his evasions — a matter of grave consequence for public confidence in the court’s ability to hold Trump accountable, should it hear any political corruption cases against Trump.
The possibility of a Supreme Court case against Trump is more than speculative. Days after Trump took office, the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, along with some of the nation’s leading ethics and constitutional lawyers, filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Trump “has violated the Constitution during the opening moments of his presidency and is poised to do so continually thereafter for the duration of his administration.” The improper benefits to Trump, CREW charges, include leases by foreign entities in Trump-owned buildings, reservations at his hotels and payments from rebroadcasts of “The Apprentice,” among other things.
Apparently using this pending litigation as an excuse, Gorsuch demurred from Leahy’s questions on the grounds that if confirmed, he would likely hear such a case. Throughout his hearings, Gorsuch has leaned on this crutch — that Supreme Court nominees should not comment on the merits of pending cases or cases that are likely to come before the court. He has used this pretext to avoid saying whether he agrees with the holding in, for example, in Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case legalizing abortion.
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