Roberts, Sotomayor, Gorsuch deny NPR report of Supreme Court mask drama

Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice John Roberts issued an announcement Wednesday denying a Nationwide Public Radio report that claimed he had requested his colleagues to put on masks on the bench in deference to fellow Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The assertion by Roberts constituted a uncommon rebuke of reporting by veteran NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg, whose Tuesday story acknowledged that Justice Neil Gorsuch’s refusal of Roberts’ purported request had pressured Sotomayor to participate in oral arguments remotely.

“I didn't request Justice Gorsuch or every other Justice to put on a masks on the bench,” stated Roberts within the assertion issued by the court docket’s press workplace.

In keeping with Totenberg’s story, Sotomayor — who's diabetic — “didn't really feel protected in shut proximity to individuals who have been unmasked” amid the surge in infections attributable to the Omicron variant.

“Reporting that Justice Sotomayor requested Justice Gorsuch to put on a masks shocked us,” the assertion learn. “It's false. Whereas we might generally disagree concerning the legislation, we're heat colleagues and associates​.”

Totenberg went on to explain Gorsuch, who was nominated to the excessive court docket by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2017, as a “prickly justice, not precisely beloved even by his conservative soulmates on the court docket.”

A courtroom sketch seems to point out Justice Neil Gorsuch not carrying a masks and Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s seat empty.

Dana Verkouteren by way of AP

Justice Gorsuch launched a joint assertion with Justice Sotomayor that dismissed an NPR report as “false.”

Erin Schaff/The New York Occasions by way of AP, Pool, File

NPR stated Wednesday that it “stands by” Totenberg’s preliminary story.

Fox Information anchor and chief authorized correspondent Shannon Bream challenged the NPR report Tuesday on “Particular Report with Bret Baier.”

“I'm instructed that isn't correct,” Bream stated. “A supply on the Supreme Courtroom says there have been no blanket admonition or request from Chief Justice Roberts that the opposite justices start carrying masks to arguments.

NPR is standing by its report that Chief Justice John Roberts requested the justices to put on masks throughout oral arguments.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Pool/File Picture

“The supply additional acknowledged Justice Sotomayor didn't make any such request to Justice Gorsuch,” she added. “I’m instructed, provided that truth, there was additionally no refusal by Justice Gorsuch​.”

Bream famous that each one 9 justices have been vaccinated and boosted, and are topic to common COVID-19 testing.

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Observe the most recent information on the Omicron variant with the New York Put up’s dwell protection

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Mike Davis, a former Gorsuch clerk, additionally shot down the report, calling it “100% False.”

“The Chief by no means requested his colleagues to masks up, for any motive​,” Davis posted on Twitter.​

“Whereas we might generally disagree concerning the legislation, we're heat colleagues and associates​,” Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch stated in an announcement.

Erin Schaff/The New York Occasions by way of AP, Pool, File

Sotomayor was criticized earlier this month for making a sequence of incorrect claims throughout arguments difficult the Biden administration’s vaccinate-or-test rule for giant firms. At one level, the Bronx-born jurist wrongly acknowledged that “Omicron is as lethal as Delta,” in addition to that “100,000 youngsters” have been in “severe situation” as a consequence of COVID-19.