WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today joined NPR Morning Edition to discuss the confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, and the ongoing investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
“Well, he’s certainly a charming conservative—what I’d call a ‘smiling Scalia’—he comes across well, he’s engaging,” said Senator Coons. “I think it’s important to look past the personality and to really understand his framework and his approach to decision-making, because, if confirmed, he will likely be a Justice for 25-30 years.”
“There is a lot of smoke. And the smoke continues. There were just some more alarming allegations about Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager, that he laundered I think it was $12 million in funds from Yanukovych, who was the former strong man of Ukraine and very close to Putin,” said Senator Coons. “There continues to be a lot of smoke, but what I think is encouraging about the news delivered by FBI Director Comey is that it’s clear that there is an investigation moving forward.
Full audio available here.
Excerpts from the interview:
Senator Coons on yesterday’s confirmation hearing: "Well, he held up impressively under 11 hours of questioning. He’s certainly a charming, engaging, intelligent, and skilled judge. In his decade on the 10th Circuit, he’s participated in 2,700 decisions. I focused my questions yesterday on two different areas: Hobby Lobby, which was a groundbreaking case that for the first time recognized the idea—what I think is the unprecedented concept—that large for-profit corporations can have religious Free Exercise rights, and that those religious Free Exercise rights overrule the privacy interests, the autonomy interests of thousands of employees, and barred their access to contraceptive choices. I was hoping to better understand how he came to these conclusions and whether he appreciated how unprecedented that decision was, and whether he was able to articulate and defend how he reached those decisions. I also asked about a lengthy book that he wrote on assisted suicide just over 10 years ago, where he emphasized the inviolability of human life. Both of these I think are pretty important principles that he has reached out and made precedent-shattering or precedent-setting decisions, or indicated an intention to, and that he’s taken certain stances when he worked for the Bush Justice Department and in that book about assisted suicide that I think are pretty strong indicators of what I think many of his core values may be."
More from Senator Coons on Judge Gorsuch: "Well, he’s certainly a charming conservative—what I’d call a ‘smiling Scalia’—he comes across well, he’s engaging. I think it’s important to look past the personality and to really understand his framework and his approach to decision-making, because, if confirmed, he will likely be a Justice for 25-30 years."
Senator Coons on whether he will support Judge Gorsuch’s nomination: "I’m not there yet. We have two more days of hearings, and then a week for us to sort of process everything. I’ve heard the same as you mentioned from a number of practitioners who are my friends or classmates who either appeared in front of him or litigated with or against him say he’s engaging, has great integrity, has an open mind. He is an impressive judge, but I have real concerns about just how conservative he actually is."
Senator Coons on whether recent announcements about the FBI put a greater emphasis on whether Judge Gorsuch can stand independent to this president: "I think it makes it more important than ever that we have clarity both about how he came to be nominated, whether he’s actually going to stand for an independent judiciary, his views on the separation of powers, and a number of senators have dedicated their questioning on focusing on that."
Senator Coons on whether he thinks the Congressional and FBI investigations into possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia will be conclusive: "There is a lot of smoke. And the smoke continues. There were just some more alarming allegations about Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager, that he laundered I think it was $12 million in funds from Yanukovych, who was the former strong man of Ukraine and very close to Putin. There continues to be a lot of smoke, but what I think is encouraging about the news delivered by FBI Director Comey is that it’s clear that there is an investigation moving forward. To the best of my knowledge, the Senate Intelligence Committee continues to cooperate and continues to get access to raw intelligence, so I think we need to let these investigations move forward."
Senator Coons on how long these investigations should go on: "I think they’ve been working for at most a few weeks; the FBI investigation since late last summer. I thought it was striking that the FBI Director is now saying that there’s an ongoing investigation involving Trump, and he didn’t feel compelled to say that when it may have made a big difference in the campaign. He did indicate there was some ongoing investigation into emails related to Secretary Clinton, but did not indicate anything to suggest there an ongoing investigation involving then-candidate Trump despite there being lots of concerning signals as early as last summer that there had in fact been Russian efforts to intrude into our electoral system. This is not just about the last election, though, it’s about the next election, and it’s about what we are going to do together to defend our democracy."
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