\u00a0<\/span>more than 144,000 pages of records it received Wednesday that detail Gorsuch\u2019s time at the Justice Department. The department withheld an additional 3,000 pages of documents it said were protected as well as others that it classified as attorney work product.<\/p>\nAn initial review of the first part of the massive release, which covers Gorsuch\u2019s tenure as principal deputy to the associate attorney general from 2005 to 2006, consists mostly of news clippings and reports for Gorsuch to review. These include a report on the United States\u2019 treatment of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and another on its efforts to fight sex trafficking.<\/p>\n
Most of the emails in the production are fairly mundane, with Gorsuch and other employees discussing messaging and coordinating events and responses to topics in the news.<\/p>\n
But some show Gorsuch\u2019s limited involvement in several controversial Bush-era policy fights, such as the treatment of detainees and revelations about government surveillance programs.<\/p>\n
In some emails, Gorsuch and his colleagues monitor and discuss an amendment to a 2005 defense authorization bill offered by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that cut down on the ways detainees held at Guantanamo Bay could challenge their detention. A pared-down version of Graham\u2019s amendment was included in the bill.<\/p>\n
In addition to the lengthy document dump, the Department of Justice also responded to a letter from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., looking for Gorsuch\u2019s work on several high-profile cases involving detainees, their treatment and the Bush Administration\u2019s use of surveillance during the War on Terror.<\/p>\n
Most of Gorsuch\u2019s involvement in the 10 cases about which Feinstein asked were limited to monitoring developments, but he helped develop case strategy and reviewed briefs in others, such as\u00a0<\/span>Doe v. Gonzales,\u00a0<\/span><\/em>a challenge to the Patriot Act that was decided by the Second Circuit while Gorsuch was with the Justice Department.<\/p>\nThe DOJ\u2019s letter to Feinstein also details various task forces Gorsuch served on while at the department, including one on human trafficking and another on immigration courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals.<\/p>\n
Gorsuch was also involved in creating the DOJ\u2019s Office on Privacy and Civil Liberty Issues, according to the letter, and helped with Operation Home Sweet Home, a department program that tried to identify housing discrimination.<\/p>\n
In one email from the 144,000 pages handed to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Gorsuch asks a colleague if it would be possible to double the all-time high of tests performed under the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we should at least explore it,\u201d Gorsuch said in an email sent Jan. 12, 2006. \u201cNot sure how doubling from existing level will look when someone compares it to prior highs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (Courthouse News) \u2013 3\/10\/17 – With less than two weeks to go before he appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on his nomination to the Supreme Court, the American Bar Association on Thursday gave 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch its highest possible rating. The \u201cwell qualified\u201d rating was the result of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18628,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18627\/revisions\/18628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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WASHINGTON (Courthouse News) \u2013 3\/10\/17 – With less than two weeks to go before he appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on his nomination to the Supreme Court, the American Bar Association on Thursday gave 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch its highest possible rating.<\/p>\n