WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on nomination hearings for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch (all times local):
10:10 a.m.
Top Senate Democrat Charles Schumer is now officially on record as opposing President Donald Trump’s choice for the Supreme Court.
The New York Democrat also said he would lead a filibuster against appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch. He said Gorsuch “almost instinctively favors the powerful over the weak.”
Schumer said doesn’t think Gorsuch would serve as a check on Trump or be a mainstream justice. He blasted Gorsuch for refusing to answer “question after question after question” in hearings this week.
Schumer’s position is no surprise; Democrats remain angry that Republicans controlling the Senate denied former president Barack Obama a hearing on his choice to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died more than a year ago.
—-
3:00 a.m.
Lawyers, advocacy groups and former colleagues get their say on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee after Judge Neil Gorsuch emerged unscathed from two days of tough questioning at his confirmation hearing.
Assured of support from majority Republicans, Gorsuch received glowing GOP reviews but complaints from frustrated Democrats that he concealed his views from the American public. Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver, refused repeated attempts to get him to talk about key legal and political issues of the day. But he did tell Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who worried that Gorsuch would vote to restrict abortion, that “no one is looking to return us to horse and buggy days.”
On Thursday, the panel hears from the American Bar Association, which already gave him a unanimous “well qualified” rating.