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Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch pushed back on a report that they are in a dispute over the latter’s refusal to wear a face mask.
NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported this week that Sotomayor is essentially being forced to work remotely because of Gorsuch. Sotomayor’s immunocompromised health condition puts her at increased risk from the coronavirus, and according to Totenburg, Gorsuch declined to wear a mask even after Chief Justice John Roberts asked all justices to do so.
The report was called into question by Fox News Chief Legal Correspondent Shannon Bream, who said her own Supreme Court sources told her the NPR story was “not accurate.”
On Wednesday, New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak obtained a joint statement from Sotomayor and Gorsuch that seems to favor Bream’s side of the story over Totenberg’s.
“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us,” the justices said. “It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we
While the statement raises questions about the accuracy of Totenberg’s story, it is worth noting that the careful wording does not refute the specific allegation NPR put forth, which is that it was Roberts who asked Gorsuch to mask up:
Now, though, the situation had changed with the omicron surge, and according to court sources, Sotomayor did not feel safe in close proximity to people who were unmasked. Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, in some form asked the other justices to mask up.They all did. Except Gorsuch, who, as it happens, sits next to Sotomayor on the bench. His continued refusal since then has also meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.
As you can see, the story doesn’t say Sotomayor personally asked Gorsuch to mask up, as the statement from the justices would suggest. It was Roberts who reportedly took the initiative of asking the bench to mask up, and Sotomayor chose to work remotely when Gorsuch refused to do so.
Nonetheless, with the two justices declaring the story “false” and talking about their friendship, Bream’s read on the matter seems to have the upper hand on Totenberg’s.
UPDATE – 12:50 p.m. ET: NPR issued a statement standing by their original reporting, saying the justices’ comments don’t directly contradict the story, that Totenberg never reported Sotomayor
UPDATE – 2:27 p.m. ET: Now Roberts is denying that he asked Gorsuch to wear a mask.