Amid leaks, Justice Gorsuch says US Supreme Court needs room for 'candid conversations'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

May 3, 2026 12:18 PM EDT Updated 1 hour ago


May 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch expressed unease on Sunday concerning the continuing leaks of internal deliberations at the ​nation's highest judicial body, citing the need for the nine justices to be able to engage in "candid ‌conversations."

Gorsuch, a member of the court's 6-3 conservative majority, made his comments in the aftermath of publication by the New York Times last month of leaked memos related to a Supreme Court action in 2016 blocking Democratic President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan. It was the latest in ​a number of leaks involving the court in recent years.

"We want some transparency, but we also have to ​leave room for candid conversations and deliberations with one another," Gorsuch, appointed to the court in ⁠2017 by Republican President Donald Trump, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. Gorsuch pointed to the availability of live audio of ​the court's oral arguments as an example of transparency. "But do we need time to actually talk quietly with one another, to ​find those places where we can reach agreement? Yeah, we do," Gorsuch said.

The court has dramatically increased the use of its so-called emergency docket - also called the "shadow" docket - handing Trump repeated wins since he returned to office last year that allowed him to pursue aggressive and sometimes novel ​uses of executive authority while challenges played out in lower courts. This emergency docket power was the subject of the ​leaked memos published in the New York Times.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/amid-leaks-justice-gorsuch-says-us-supreme-court-needs-room-candid-conversations-2026-05-03/

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"We want some transparency, but we also have to ​leave room for candid conversations and deliberations with one another," Gorsuch, appointed to the court in ⁠2017 by Republican President Donald Trump, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program.

To even have some modicum of "balance" he should be appearing on some public broadcast station rather than Faux.

[erronis]

1. Needs "room" for "candid conversations". I think he wants a SCIF to meet with his donors.

Not a government-supplied SCIF but a sequestered camp with well-stocked liquor cabinets, top-level chefs, and all the perks that people like Koch, Bezos, Thiel, Musk, Springer, Mercer, MBS, etc. would want to visit and "chat".

"We want some transparency, but we also have to "leave room for candid conversations and deliberations with one another," Gorsuch, appointed to the court in 2017 by Republican President Donald Trump, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. Gorsuch pointed to the availability of live audio of 'the court's oral arguments as an example of transparency. "But do we need time to actually talk quietly with one another, to "find those places where we can reach agreement? Yeah, we do," Gorsuch said.

[Baitball Blogger]

20. Oh, you've got that so right.

This Supreme Court makes the Borgia Popes look like boy scouts. They already have the kind of private access to their sugar daddies that occurs in Florida, where people with business interests talk candidly with the elected officials privately, while the issue is pending review. Horrible, horrible HORRIBLE way to run a government. I cannot wait for the rest of the American people to wake up and support us in our effort to change laws to dilute the power of the crooked 6. What they want is the freedom to conspire. We are so onto what they're doing and the only way to turn it around is to call them crooks to their faces.

[oasis]

2. Take your "balance" and shove it Trump puppet.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. So, "candid" with the other justices, but hidden from the citizens

He basically wants an NDA.

As you say, he was appearing in a partisan environment. The point that Reuters make about the "shadow docket" often having no reasoning given for the (RW) decisions is the important one - that's why the leaks are happening (it's what has changed from previous decades), and a decent, unbiased interviewer would have brought it up.

[moniss]

4. Basically they are setting out the

propaganda that the low opinion/disrepute of the court is not their fault.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. The obscene use of the "shadow docket" with rulings allowing egregious damage to continue unabated for months

is proof enough of guilt of their extremist bias.

How they respond to the mifepristone request will confirm whether stare decisis of their own current members' recent decision on this matter has any meaning at all, or is worthless.

[patphil]

5. What the SC needs is 4 additional liberal Justices.

But that's not gonna happen unless we Control the Senate and the White House after the 2028 election.
Even then it will take a courageous President to make the move.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. "But that's not gonna happen unless we Control the Senate"

You need more than just "control" (as in a simple majority). We need a 60 vote majority.

[pat_k]

12. If they don't go nuclear first, I am starting to agree that the Democratic Party needs to.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. You have been seeing the conundrum that Thune has been going through with doing that

because if they did, the disenfranchising SAVE Act would be law right now.

Back in 2021 when we had both chambers (the Senate was tied but since we had the VP, we took technical control with Harris as the tie-breaker), we didn't have the votes to change the Rule. In 2022 when Fetterman ran "to be the 51st vote to codify Roe" (after it had just been overturned), we still didn't have enough to change the Rule.

[pat_k]

15. I suspect the reluctance will continue.

I suspect that for enough of them, they refrain out of fear of consequences when they are in the minority, while enough of us will refrain out of a sense of fairplay -- that the veto power of the minority the filibuster represents is generally a pro-democracy moderating force in our system.

[patphil]

16. The nuclear option must be used. If ever there was a time for it's use, that would be it.

We can't be faint of heart, or it'll be over a decade before we're able to fix what the SC broke, if ever.
I don't think we can simply wait until enough republican SC justices leave the court. By then the republicans could be back in power, and they'll just continue where they left off.
We need to fix voting rights, limit campaign contributions, reestablish women's reproductive rights, and place the Supreme Court under the same system of judicial oversight that the rest of the Federal Judicial System operates under to name a few things.
Also we need to redefine the extent of Presidential Power, and Presidential Accountability, by reversing the rulings of the SC that make the President immune to prosecution.
The current SC has effectively blessed gerrymandering, and other laws that are pushing us back toward Jim Crow. We can't expect to have Democrats in a position to defend the nation if we don't fix this stuff as fast as we can.

[BaronChocula]

6. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree

His mama sought similar secrecy refusing to hand over subpoenaed documents to Congress as reagan's EPA chief. She was cited for contempt and resigned. Too bad we're stuck with her son for some time to come.

[pat_k]

8. Traitors generally like to keep their traitorous plans under wraps.

And every so-called "conservative" member of SCOTUS has been a black-robed traitor since at least 12/12/2000

Five Supreme Court Justices are criminals in the truest sense of the word.
Vincent Bugliosi
February 5, 2001

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/none-dare-call-it-treason/

[AverageOldGuy]

10. Congress holds most of their meetings open to the public

Why not the Not-So-Supreme Court?

What do they talk about in private that the don't want anyone to hear?

[onenote]

11. Far more communications between members of Congress are non-public than public.

Based on forty years of working on Capitol Hill.

[VTderry]

13. TLDR: Perjurer resents exposure of his repeated acts of partisan treason

[slightlv]

17. So he wants to go back to smoke filled rooms with lockouts of everyone

in which to make their "shadow" decisions. Doesn't sound so transparent to me! Except it gives trump one more excuse to spend billions more of our tax dollars on a Secure room. Don't they have enough of them in DC to use?

[mzmolly]

18. He's forgetting who pays his

salary.

[struggle4progress]

19. This from the guy who shrieks at lower courts when they can't read his mind

based on shadow-docket rulings without any supporting argument?

He's not worried he won't be able to express his legal opinions: he's worried people will discover there's only naked partisanship behind them

[H2O Man]

21. Fuck him!

Recommended

[mntleo2]

22. No! No!

...you entitled SCOTUS especially conservatives (who don't want anybody to know what evil they create)! You seem to think you can operate in secret. I do not think so. You need to come out of your dark elitist closets and TALK, you freaks!
Cat from Seattle

[Smilo]

23. So what does he and his fellow republican justices

want to hide?

There is no reason for a "sensitive compartmented information facility" for the supreme court. All they need to discuss is legal process and procedures, or is that they want to be able to bully the other justices away from everyone?

[PhilosopherKing]

24. Gorsuch

Needs to get bent.

[RetiredParatrooper]

25. FU Gorsuch

Your deliberations should be public. When ruling on laws that effect 350 million people, you have no 'candid conversations'.