Judge Neil Gorsuch was on the list of judges that President Donald Trump promised he would choose from during the campaign. | AP Photo Trump picks Gorsuch for Supreme Court The 49-year-old federal appeals court judge would be the court's first conservative addition in a decade. 
 
 President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Judge Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, elevating a 49-year-old judge who has served on a federal appeals court for more than a decade to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. 
 
 “When Justice Scalia passed away suddenly last February, I made a promise to the American people: If I were elected president, I would find the very best judge in the country for the Supreme Court,” Trump said. “I promised to select someone who respects our laws and is representative of our Constitution and who loves our Constitution and someone who will interpret them as written.” 
 
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 Trump used his characteristic superlatives to introduce Gorsuch, calling him the “best” judge for the job and praising his credentials without expounding on the specifics of his legal philosophy. Trump even touted Gorsuch’s Ivy League pedigree — the kind of affiliations Trump has sometimes denigrated as breeding grounds for the out-of-touch elite. 
 
 "Mr. President, I am honored and I am humbled," Gorsuch said after being introduced. 
 
 Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric sat in the front row during the announcement. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, were also in attendance, as were a number of congressional leaders. Scalia’s widow, Maureen, was also in the audience. 
 
 Gorsuch pledged that, if confirmed, he would serve as “a faithful servant of the constitution and laws of this great country.” 
 
 “The Supreme Court’s work is vital not just to a region of the country, but to the whole, vital to the protections of the people’s liberties under law and to the continuity of our constitution — the greatest charter of human liberty the world has ever known,” Gorsuch said. 
 
 In his remarks, Gorsuch praised Scalia. “Justice Scalia was a lion of the law. Agree or disagree with him, all of his colleagues on the bench cherished his wisdom and his humor. And like them, I miss him,” he said. 
 
 Gorsuch was on the list of judges that Trump promised he would choose from during the campaign, and his selection to the high court is expected to rally conservative activists who successfully pushed Republicans to block hearings for Judge Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama’s pick, after Scalia’s death in February 2016. 
 
 Gorsuch was appointed to the circuit court in 2006 by George W. Bush. He was confirmed by a Senate voice vote, meaning there were no objections to his confirmation but individual senators' votes were not recorded. Trump touted Gorsuch as having been confirmed "unanimously." 
 
 Gorsuch said he cherishes the traits he considers essential to a judge — “impartiality and independence, collegiality and courage” — and said he looks forward to his hearing before the Senate, which he called the “greatest deliberative body in the world.” 
 
 Gorsuch’s statement provided some hints that he’s what legal scholars call an "originalist" or "textualist," favoring a literal meaning of statutes and the Constitution. 
 
 “I respect, too, the fact that in our legal order it is for Congress, and not the courts, to write new laws,” Gorsuch said. “It is the role of judges to apply, not alter, the work of the people’s representatives. A judge who likes every outcome you reach is very likely a bad judge — stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.” 
 
 View Who is Judge Neil Gorsuch? President Donald Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the vacant seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. 
 
 And he made a nod to his religion: “I am so thankful tonight for my family, my friends and my faith,” he said. “These are the things that keep me grounded at life’s peaks and that sustain me in its valleys.” 
 
 If confirmed, Gorsuch is unlikely to swing the ideological balance on the court. Legal experts see him as largely falling in line with the conservative bloc, as did Scalia. But, at 49, he would be the youngest justice on the court and represent an infusion of new blood into conservative ranks that have not seen an addition for a decade. 
 
 Democrats have threatened to filibuster Trump's nominee, and the Senate's top Democrat criticized Gorsuch's record on Tuesday night. 
 
 “The burden is on Judge Neil Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to vigorously defend the Constitution from abuses of the executive branch and protect the constitutionally enshrined rights of all Americans,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “Given his record, I have very serious doubts about Judge Gorsuch’s ability to meet this standard.” 
 
 Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ed Markey of Massachusetts have all indicated they'll vote against the nominee. 
 
 Senate Republicans praised Trump's pick and noted that Democrats had not blocked him from joining the appeals court. "Eleven years ago, the Senate was so confident in Judge Gorsuch’s abilities that it confirmed him by voice vote," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). "In the time since, he has shown himself worthy of that distinction, and I would hope that my Senate colleagues give him the respect he deserves this time around, as well, and support his confirmation.” 
 
 Gorsuch has the typical pedigree of a high court justice. He graduated from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford, clerked for two Supreme Court justices and did a stint at the Department of Justice. 
 
 He attended Harvard Law with Obama. On Tuesday afternoon, Obama's former ethics czar, Norm Eisen, another classmate, tweeted: "Hearing rumors Trump's likely Supreme Court pick is Neil Gorsuch, my (and President Obama's!) 1991 Harvard Law classmate.If so, a great guy!" 
 
 Since 2006, he has served on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and he is praised by conservative scholars for the clarity and force of his writing. 
 
 “Neil Gorsuch is one of the most respected conservative originalist legal intellectuals of his generation,” said Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center. “He’s unusual for his memorable writing style, the depth of his reading and his willingness to rethink constitutional principles from the ground up. Like Justice Scalia, he sometimes reaches results that favor liberals when he thinks the history or text of the Constitution or the law require it, especially in areas like criminal law or the rights of religious minorities, but unlike Scalia he’s less willing to defer to regulations and might be more willing to second-guess Trump’s regulatory decisions.” 
 
 Gorsuch is a favorite of legal conservatives because he has sharply questioned a three-decade-old legal precedent that many on the right believe has given too much power to the regulatory state. The landmark 1984 Supreme Court ruling involving the Chevron oil company held that courts should defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous federal laws. 
 
 In a ruling last August in an immigration case, Gorsuch questioned the wisdom of that doctrine, arguing that the meaning of the law is for judges to decide, not federal bureaucrats. 
 
 “Where in all this does a court interpret the law and say what it is?” Gorsuch asked in an extended digression on the subject. “When does a court independently decide what the statute means and whether it has or has not vested a legal right in a person? Where Chevron applies that job seems to have gone extinct.” 
 
 Other rulings give conservatives confidence that Gorsuch is a strong supporter of religious freedom rights. Last September, he joined a dissent arguing that requirements for contraception coverage in Obamacare ran roughshod over the rights of religious nonprofits. 
 
 View Trump picks Gorsuch for Supreme Court President Donald Trump picks Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court on Tuesday. 
 
 Gorsuch also wrote a 2000 law journal article and a 2006 book arguing strongly against assisted-suicide laws. The practice of allowing the terminally ill to end their lives is now legal in six states and is on the verge of being legalized in Washington, D.C. 
 
 Gorsuch was confirmed to the Denver-based appeals court by a voice vote. His confirmation to the Supreme Court is expected to be contentious. Republicans hold a 52-48 advantage in the Senate, but Democrats, led by Schumer, are expected to force Republicans to muster 60 votes through a filibuster. 
 
 Trump has suggested Republicans should eliminate the filibuster if Democrats use it, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been more circumspect about that idea, saying it remains up to the Senate, not the White House. 
 
 Gorsuch has seen the grinder of Washington, D.C., up close. His mother, Anne Burford Gorsuch, ran the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan but resigned under pressure amid a criminal investigation and a House contempt of Congress citation over records related to alleged political favoritism in toxic-waste cleanups. 
 
 She maintained her innocence and was never charged in the matter. 
 
 Gorsuch is from Colorado. His supporters note that he is an outdoorsman who fishes, hunts and skies. On the court, conservatives hope he could become the intellectual heir to Scalia, long the outspoken leader of the conservative bloc. 
 
 “The real appeal of Gorsuch's nomination is he’s likely to be the most effective conservative nominee in terms of winning over Anthony Kennedy and forging conservative decisions on the court,” Rosen said. “He clerked for Justice Kennedy, and they like and trust each other. If any nominee could sway Kennedy to conservative decisions, it would be Gorsuch.” 
 
 ||||| President Trump has announced Judge Neil Gorsuch of Colorado as his pick for the Supreme Court. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) 
 
 President Trump has announced Judge Neil Gorsuch of Colorado as his pick for the Supreme Court. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) 
 
 For nearly eight months, President Trump has boasted that appointing Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court ranks high among his signature achievements. 
 
 But earlier this year, Trump talked about rescinding Gorsuch’s nomination, venting angrily to advisers after his Supreme Court pick was critical of the president’s escalating attacks on the federal judiciary in private meetings with legislators. 
 
 Trump, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions, was upset that Gorsuch had pointedly distanced himself from the president in a private February meeting with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), telling the senator he found Trump’s repeated attacks on the federal judiciary “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” 
 
 The president worried that Gorsuch would not be “loyal,” one of the people said, and told aides that he was tempted to pull Gorsuch’s nomination — and that he knew plenty of other judges who would want the job. 
 
 It is unclear whether Trump’s “explosion,” as another administration official described it, truly put Gorsuch’s nomination in jeopardy or whether the president was expressing his frustration aloud, as he often does. But at the time, some in the White House and on Capitol Hill feared that Gorsuch’s confirmation — which had been shaping up to be one of the clearest triumphs of Trump’s tumultuous young presidency — was on the verge of going awry. 
 
 Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) ushers Neil M. Gorsuch into his office on Feb. 8. Behind Gorsuch is former senator Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.). (Alex Wong/Getty Images) 
 
 This account is based on interviews with 11 people familiar with the episode, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. 
 
 Trump was especially upset by what he viewed as Gorsuch’s insufficient gratitude for a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court, White House officials said. The judge sent the president a handwritten letter dated March 2, thanking him for the nomination and explaining how grateful he was, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. 
 
 “Your address to Congress was magnificent,” Gorsuch wrote. “And you were so kind to recognize Mrs. Scalia, remember the justice, and mention me. My teenage daughters were cheering the TV!” 
 
 The reference to “the justice” was to Antonin Scalia, the late justice whom Gorsuch replaced, and “Mrs. Scalia” is his widow, Maureen. 
 
 Aides said Trump did not immediately receive the note, but it was retrieved by legislative affairs director Marc Short and then viewed by Trump on March 10, helping ease his concerns. 
 
 “As head of legislative affairs, our team was in charge of his nomination, and never did I view his nomination in jeopardy, nor did the president ever suggest to me that he wanted to pull him,” Short said. “The process obviously caused frustration, but that frustration was compounded by the fact that Gorsuch had sent him a personal letter that he never received.” 
 
 Gorsuch, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment. 
 
 President Trump watches as Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch hugs his wife, Marie Louise, moments after Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy administered the judicial oath in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 10. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) 
 
 “The president’s nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch was among his first and most important accomplishments during his first year in office, and delivered on a major campaign promise,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement. “At no point did the president consider withdrawing Justice Gorsuch’s nomination. He is very proud of the accomplishment.” 
 
 Advisers also told Trump that Gorsuch was trying to demonstrate the independence necessary to make it through the confirmation process and that pulling the nomination would have far-reaching repercussions and might infuriate supporters who were enthusiastic about the conservative jurist. 
 
 In April, two months after Trump first expressed his ire, the Senate confirmed Gorsuch on a vote of 54 to 45. Trump and his allies promptly began boasting about the appointment as one of the president’s major achievements. 
 
 The incident that so angered Trump came shortly after a federal judge had issued a nationwide stop to the president’s travel ban targeting a list of majority-Muslim countries. At the time, the president disparaged the “so-called judge” on Twitter, writing that the ruling “put our country in such peril.” 
 
 “If something happens blame him and court system,” Trump wrote. “People pouring in. Bad!” 
 
 Trump had additionally said that a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that held oral arguments to review the judge’s order was “disgraceful” and that the judges cared more about politics than following the law. 
 
 Gorsuch, meanwhile, was moving through the confirmation process, doing rounds of courtesy meetings with senators on Capitol Hill — including the one with Blumenthal, which quickly became news after the senator shared their private discussion with reporters. 
 
 “I told him how abhorrent Donald Trump’s invective and insults are toward the judiciary,” Blumenthal told The Post in an interview. “And he said to me that he found them ‘disheartening’ and ‘demoralizing’ — his words.” 
 
 Ron Bonjean, a member of the group guiding Gorsuch through the confirmation process, confirmed the account at the time. 
 
 The remarks angered the president, who attacked Blumenthal on Twitter, saying the senator misrepresented Gorsuch’s comments. But at the time, at least, he also felt that Gorsuch himself was being disloyal. 
 
 In a meeting with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Trump attacked the judge in sharp terms, surprising his fellow Republicans. 
 
 “He’s probably going to end up being a liberal like the rest of them,” Trump told the Republican leaders, according to a person with knowledge of the comments. “You never know with these guys.” 
 
 A senior White House official who was in the room during the meeting disputed that characterization, saying the president is concerned about the judicial outlook of all lifetime nominees. 
 
 But McConnell was so concerned that he made a point of repeatedly telling Trump to stay the course on Gorsuch — and that he would make sure the judge made it through the confirmation process with as few hiccups as possible. 
 
 “It’s clear [Trump] was very upset with the comment” by Gorsuch, said someone familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. 
 
 The person added that he largely faults the White House for failing to adequately prepare Trump for Gorsuch’s comments and to explain that Supreme Court nominees asserting their independence from the president who appointed them was a natural part of a successful confirmation process. 
 
 In fact, establishing Gorsuch’s independence from Trump was so important that it was the subject of the first question he was asked by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a fervent Gorsuch supporter. “Tell us whether you’d have any trouble ruling against the president who appointed you,” Grassley said at the time. 
 
 “That’s a softball, Mr. Chairman,” Gorsuch replied. “I have no difficulty ruling against or for any party, other than based on what the law and the facts and the particular case require. And I’m heartened by the support I have received from people who recognize that there’s no such thing as a Republican judge or a Democratic judge. We just have judges in this country.” 
 
 Despite Trump’s early concerns, Gorsuch’s young tenure has given the president little reason to question his appointment to the Supreme Court. If anything, the justice — who has emerged as one of the court’s most conservative members — has been criticized for not distancing himself enough from both the president and the Republican Senate leaders who championed his nomination through the highly partisan confirmation process. 
 
 Gorsuch traveled to Kentucky with McConnell to lecture at the senator’s two alma maters. One of his first public speeches was to a conservative scholarship organization that held its luncheon meeting at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, the subject of a lawsuit alleging that payments to Trump’s companies violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause. 
 
 Gorsuch also was the featured speaker at the annual black-tie gala of the Federalist Society, which had recommended him to Trump for the Supreme Court, telling the cheering crowd that neither originalism nor textualism “is going anywhere on my watch.” 
 
 In April, Trump bragged to the National Rifle Association that Gorsuch “is really something very special” and in June told the Faith and Freedom Coalition that no president had accomplished more in their first 100 days, citing Gorsuch as a key achievement. 
 
 “I appointed and confirmed a Supreme Court justice in the mold of the late, great Antonin Scalia,” he said, “and now Justice Gorsuch has a seat on the United States Supreme Court.” 
 
 In his March note to Trump, Gorsuch was similarly effusive. 
 
 “The team you have assembled to assist me in the Senate is remarkable and inspiring,” he wrote. “I see daily their love of country and our Constitution, and know it is a tribute to you and your leadership for policy is always about personnel.” 
 
 He concluded, “Congratulations again on such a great start.”
– Was the bloom at one point off the Neil Gorsuch rose? When President Trump first tapped the Supreme Court justice for the job earlier this year, he praised Gorsuch as being the "best" candidate for the job, and by many accounts, Gorsuch has since made good at carrying out the president's conservative agenda. And Trump has publicly touted Gorsuch as one of his main achievements so far—but privately things may have been quite different initially. Sources tell the Washington Post Trump was furious after hearing Gorsuch was slamming him in private meetings with lawmakers (specifically a February one with Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal) in response to the president's attacks on the judiciary. So furious, in fact, that Trump spoke of yanking his nomination of Gorsuch and finding someone else for the job, sources say. "He's probably going to end up being a liberal like the rest of them," Trump reportedly told Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell during a meeting; a source says McConnell had to talk Trump down. Part of what fueled Trump's "explosion" was that Gorsuch didn't seem "loyal" and appeared ungrateful for the opportunity of a lifetime position on the Supreme Court, other sources note. What appears to have soothed Trump's nerves: a handwritten letter from Gorsuch, dated March 2 and seen by the Post, expressing his gratitude. "Your address to Congress was magnificent," Gorsuch wrote. "And you were so kind to ... mention me. My teenage daughters were cheering the TV!" The White House is pushing back on the Post report. "At no point did the president consider withdrawing Justice Gorsuch's nomination," a spokesman said in a statement. "He is very proud of the accomplishment."