On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch was being roasted and flambeed on Twitter by the Usual Suspects on the left after NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg filed a “report” alleging that there was a mask dispute between him and fellow Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a dispute that supposedly led Sotomayor to decide recently to join the court from her chambers via microphone when hearing cases and from home via telephone for their weekly conferences.
Per Totenberg, Sotomayor – who is 67 and who is high-risk for catching COVID due to having diabetes – “did not feel safe” around colleagues who didn’t wear masks. Because of this, Chief Justice John Roberts allegedly requested the other Justices mask up out of respect for her wishes. According to Totenberg’s supposed court sources, Gorsuch was the only one who refused, which Totenberg said was what led to Sotomayor deciding to take a different approach to how she conducted her daily business:
[Sotomayor] has been the only justice to wear a mask on the bench since last fall when, amid a marked decline in COVID-19 cases, the justices resumed in-person arguments for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.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.
Naturally, numerous other “news” outlets picked up the story and ran with it, including the USA Today, CNBC, and CNN. Totenberg’s story launched a wave of pieces dunking on Gorsuch for allegedly not being a team player. WaPo cartoonist Ann Telnaes even labeled Gorsuch a “maskless manspreader.” CNN opinion writer Kara Alaimo, who is also a communications professor at Hofstra University, also ran with the “manspreading” angle in her write-up, suggesting misogyny was behind Gorsuch’s alleged power play.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, of course, jumped at the chance to run with the story:
To skeptics, however, the story raised some red flags. For starters, the Supreme Court is one of the few institutions in America where “leaks” are in short supply because they run a tight ship there and view reports of perceived partisan battles between colleagues as a serious affront to everything our nation’s court is supposed to stand for.
Secondly, a former law clerk to Gorsuch went off after the report went live, flatly denying the story and poking holes in it as it began to trend on Twitter:
Last night, Fox News Supreme Court reporter Shannon Bream first reported that her SCOTUS sources told her no such request from Roberts was made and that Sotomayor never asked Gorsuch to mask up:
In an update to the story earlier today, both Justices issued a rare on-the-record joint statement denying reports that there is a dispute between the two about masks:
Not long after that, Chief Justice John Roberts issued his own statement denying the story:
Though this should be cause for mass retractions on Twitter and at the outlets that ran with the original story and accompanying op/ed pieces, don’t count on it. Because not only is NPR standing by their story, but as we speak, blue check conspiracy theorists (some of who work at supposedly reputable news outlets) are busy doing their thing, suggesting Gorsuch and Sotomayor did not actually contradict what NPR reported:
Translation:
It’s the “fake but accurate” defense all over again. Unfortunately, some things – and people – never change.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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