Neil Gorsuch on
Email Slamming Guantanamo Bay Lawyers: 'Not My Finest Moment'
http://time.com/4710216/neil-gorsuch-confirmation-hearing-email/
In a rare moment of public regret, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch said an
email he sent criticizing lawyers representing Guantanamo Bay detainees was
"not my finest moment."
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who has engaged Gorsuch in some of the
roughest back-and-forth of the confirmation hearings, brought up the email
during the third round of questions and the ninth hour of the hearing. Gorsuch
sent an email in 2006 while he worked at the Justice Department which had a
subject line, "Elite law firm pro bono work for terrorists," and
contained a link to an article about conservatives criticizing lawyers
representing Guantanamo Bay detainees. "I thought you might find this of
interest," Gorsuch wrote in the message. "It seems odd to me more
hasn't been made of this."
"[The] principle that you don't identify the lawyer with the
particular view of the client or the views that the lawyer advances on behalf
of a client is critical to the fair administration of justice," Durbin
said, citing now-Chief Justice John Roberts' response to a question on the
topic during his hearings. "Would you put in perspective any comments that
you made about people representing Guantanamo detainees?"
"I have nothing but admiration for those lawyers,"
Gorsuch responded. "The email you are referring to is not my finest moment
blowing off steam with a friend privately. The truth is, I think my career is
better than that. When I have seen individuals who have needed representation,
as a judge when I have gotten handwritten pro se filing, [when] I have seen
something that might have merit in it, I picked up the phone and have gotten a
lawyer for that person... I would like to think that my career taken as a
whole, Senator, represents my values appropriately."
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