Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch said President Donald Trump's comments about the judge in Washington State who blocked his immigration order were "disheartening" and "demoralizing," CNN reported.
Gorsuch made his remarks to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut.
"He said very specifically that they were demoralizing and disheartening, and he characterized them very specifically that way," Blumenthal said Wednesday. "I said they were more than disheartening, and I said to him that he has an obligation to make his views clear to the American people, so they understand how abhorrent or unacceptable President Trump's attacks on the judiciary are."
Trump has been criticizing Judge James Robart since Robart halted his executive order, calling him a "so-called judge" and tweeting, if something bad were to happen to America, then people should blame him.
Trump's order restricts people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for at least 90 days, halts Syrian refugees from entering indefinitely, and bans all refugees for 120 days.
Robart ruled Friday the states that filed the lawsuit — Washington and Minnesota — had "met their burden of demonstrating that they face immediate and irreparable injury as a result of the signing and implementation of the executive order."
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued last week, challenging key parts of the order as illegal and unconstitutional. Robart granted Ferguson's request for a temporary restraining order "on a nationwide basis," forbidding federal employees from enforcing Trump's order.
The Justice Department lodged a strongly worded response on Robart's decision, saying halting the travel ban "harms the public" and "second-guesses the President's national security judgment."
CNN reported on Twitter that Gorsuch's spokesman Ron Bonjean confirmed the words attributed to him by Blumenthal.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard the Justice Department's arguments Tuesday but seemed skeptical of the dispute being presented, The New York Times reported. The Justice Department said the order was a "traditional national security judgment that is assigned to the political branches."
Judge Michelle Friedland questioned whether the ban needed to be put in place immediately.
"Has the government pointed to any evidence connecting these countries with terrorism?" she asked August E. Flentje, the Justice Department's lawyer, to which he responded the government had not had enough time to present evidence considering the rapid pace of the litigation.
The appeals court is set to make its decision within days, but an appeal to the Supreme Court is likely.
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