President Donald Trump and the First Lady visited the Supreme Court Thursday to attend the investiture of Justice Neil Gorsuch, the president’s first appointee to the federal bench.
The visit was Trump’s first to the Supreme Court. Though Gorsuch has been hearing cases since joining the bench in April, he was formally commissioned Thursday.
Trump chatted briefly with the justices in advance of the courtroom ceremony, and stood for pictures with court photographers.
From L to R, Justices Elena Kagan, Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, President Donald Trump, and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. (Fred Schilling/ Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States)
Much of the conservative legal firmament was present for the day’s proceedings. Former Republican Attorneys General Edwin Meese, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, and Michael Mukasey, chatted fraternally near the front of courtroom, while the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, the administration’s judicial selection guru, sat in regal style with a smattering of conservative litigators and advocates, among them Ken Starr, independent counsel-turned scourge of the Clinton administration. Incoming Solicitor General Noel Francisco and White House Counsel Don McGahn greeted guests in reserved seats.
Assorted GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee arrived at a steady clip, including Sens. Orrin Hatch, John Cornyn, Lindsay Graham, Jeff Flake, Thom Tillis, and Ted Cruz. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was also present.
At 2:00 Justice Gorsuch processed into the courtroom behind Scott Harris, the Clerk of the Supreme Court, and was seated in a leather chair in the well of the courtroom. The chair belonged to Chief Justice John Marshall, the most significant figure in the Court’s history, and is typically used during the investiture of new justices. The president and Mrs. Trump entered shortly thereafter. He was seated near Justice John Paul Stevens, who left the bench in 2010.
The justices entered moments after the president took his seat. Chief Justice John Roberts scanned the room approvingly, while Justice Elena Kagan, seated near Gorsuch at the far left of the bench, shot a smile to her new colleague.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, adorned in the traditional morning coat featured by government officials appearing before the Court, rose and asked the chief justice to accept Gorsuch’s commission. At the chief’s bidding, Harris read the commission to a silent courtroom — the president’s signature, a mammoth bold and black, was visible through the paper. Roberts then administered the oath to the new junior justice.
Roberts and Gorsuch appeared at the ceremony’s conclusion under a bright sun in the Court’s marble plaza.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch at the Supreme Court on June 15, 2017. (Kevin Daley/Daily Caller News Foundation)
Roberts and Gorsuch exchange pleasantries before in the plaza of the Supreme Court. (Kevin Daley/Daily Caller News Foundation.)
Gorsuch greets his wife Louise after his investiture. (Kevin Daley/Daily Caller News Foundation)
The Supreme Court’s term will end later this month.
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