Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, has called the president’s recent attacks on the judiciary “disheartening and demoralizing.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday said that he spoke with the US Appeals Court judge in a private meeting. Mr Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told reporters that Mr Gorsuch "certainly expressed to me that he is disheartened by the demoralising and abhorrent comments made by President Trump about the judiciary."
The president recently criticised a federal judge in Seattle for suspending his visa and refugee ban on seven majority Muslim countries. In a series of tweets, the president called US District Judge James Robart “a so-called judge.” Mr Robart was nominated in 2003 by George W Bush and confirmed unanimously by the Senate.
The president on Wednesday also criticised the three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals for questioning a Justice Department lawyers who defended the ban. The judges also grilled a Washington attorney who argued that the temporary ban had caused “irreparable harm” to his state and its people.
"I don't want to call a court biased, so I won’t call it biased” the president complained, “but courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what’s right.”
"A bad high school student would understand this," he told a gather of law enforcement officers in Washington DC. "Anybody would understand this."
Later this week, the three judges with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals are expected to decide on whether to uphold Judge Robart’s restraining order.
