Justices Gorsuch, Sotomayor, and Roberts Blow Up NPR Mask Story by Nina Totenberg

Alex Wong, Getty

Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the story from National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg that he refused to wear a mask despite being asked to because of Justice Sonia Sotomayor‘s health is false.

Justice Sotomayor also said that the NPR story by Totenberg is false.

NPR’s response to the statement from the Justices was to say they did not refute the details of the reporting. Totenberg’s story was that it was Chief Justice John Roberts who made the request of Justice Gorsuch on behalf of Justice Sotomayor.

Chief Justice Roberts has now also said that the story is false and he did not do that.

BREAKING from Chief Justice Roberts:

“I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.”

The Chief Justice indicated he will have no further comment.#SCOTUS

— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) January 19, 2022

There are other holes in the Nina Totenberg story that caught fire in the last two days, spawning hundreds of separate articles, mean tweets, and even editorial cartoons. And though the holes were pointed out very publicly, most outlets ran with it anyway. It was widely reported, but not fact-checked, not even by CNN’s Daniel Dale.

Only one journalist, Fox News Channel’s Shannon Bream, actually checked out the story and was the first to report that a source rebutted the entire premise.

Bream reported that no mask request was made by Sotomayor. No mask request was made by Roberts. No mask request was rebuffed by Gorsuch. There was no there there, Bream reported.

Bream’s report was summarily dismissed and ignored by most of the media, and the original story continued to be reported and repeated, uncorrected, throughout the day.

It has now been debunked by all the Supreme Court Justices involved, including the supposed victim herself.

Still, unlike the fake news about Justice Sotomayor dining out without a mask that was pushed in conservative media ten days ago, the “blue check” crowd has yet to demand retractions, nor have there been any soul-searching articles about gullibility or confirmation bias, nor any scolding of NPR or Totenberg.

NPR and Totenberg, meanwhile, still stand by the debunked report. It appears they will hang their refusal to take the Justices at their word on the sole reasoning that Totenberg used the words “in some form” when writing that Roberts “asked the other justices to mask up.”

Nevertheless, the original and still uncorrected report from Totenberg says definitively that Roberts asked. Roberts says definitively that he did not. Gorsuch and Sotomayor both said definitively that the story “is false.” They did not say “only part of the story is false” or “any implication of a specific interaction is false.” They, two attorneys, judges, Justices, said in a declarative statement: “It is false.” They left no wiggle room, nor did Chief Justice Roberts.

This article will not speculate on the reasons for any of these things, we merely observe that they have occurred.