Gorsuch once recommended that federal judges visit Gitmo

President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch recommended in 2005 while serving in the Justice Department that federal judges should visit the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to understand the Bush administration’s “litigating positions.”

“If the DC judges could see what we saw, I believe they would be more sympathetic to our litigating positions,” Gorsuch wrote at the time in an email to Justice Department officials, Politico reported Saturday.

The email was part of latest batch of documents submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to the report.

Gorsuch, then a DOJ lawyer, argued that a visit to the detention center would “dispel myths” about the treatment of the detainees. 

{mosads}“A visit, or even just the offer of a visit, might help dispel myths and build confidence in our representations to the Court about conditions and detainee treatment,” he wrote.

Gorsuch personally visited Guantanamo the same year and praised the U.S. commander of the facility for the conditions of the detention center.

“You and your colleagues have developed standards and imposed a degree of professionalism that the nation can be proud of, and being able to see firsthand all that you have managed to accomplish with such a difficult and sensitive mission makes my job of helping explain and defend it before the courts all the easier,” he said, according to the report.

Democrats are expected to hone in on Gorsuch’s work during the Bush administration while pressing him on a variety of topics, while Republicans have insisted President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee will be easily confirmed.