President Donald Trump has “no regrets” about his attacks on federal judges, according to White House press secretary Sean Spicer.
Spicer also said Thursday the President “absolutely” stands by his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, despite Gorsuch calling Trump’s attacks on the judiciary “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”
However, Spicer took issue with the assertion that Gorsuch was referring directly to Trump’s attacks with those remarks.
“I think it’s important to understand that the judge was very clear that he was not commenting on any specific matter. He was asking about his general philosophy,” Spicer said, referring to a statement from Kelly Ayotte, who is coordinating Gorsuch’s confirmation process for the White House. “So you can’t then take that and equate it back to the specific. He literally went out of his way to say I’m not commenting on a specific instance.”
Ayotte said, in a statement Thursday, of Gorsuch’s remarks about Trump’s attacks: “He has also emphasized the importance of an independent judiciary, and while he made clear that he was not referring to any specific case, he said that he finds any criticism of a judge’s integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing.”
