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The One Tweet That Summed Up NPR’s Fiasco Over Their Fake News SCOTUS Story

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  January 19, 2022 5:00 PM

What a mess. National Public Radio stepped in a massive pile of fake news—and they’re adamant that they were right despite the principals of the story, who happened to be Supreme Court justices, all saying that the liberal outlet lied. The story that set off liberal America was that Justice Neil Gorsuch refused to wear a mask which prompted Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who has diabetes, to work from home. Gorsuch reportedly ignored a request by Chief Justice Roberts regarding the mask. Here’s the NPR story again as a refresher (via NPR):

It was pretty jarring earlier this month when the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court took the bench for the first time since the omicron surge over the holidays. All were now wearing masks. All, that is, except Justice Neil Gorsuch. What's more, Justice Sonia Sotomayor was not there at all, choosing instead to participate through a microphone setup in her chambers.

Sotomayor has diabetes, a condition that puts her at high risk for serious illness, or even death, from COVID-19. She has been the only justice to wear a mask on the bench since last fall when, amid a marked decline in COVID-19 cases, the justices resumed in-person arguments for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.

Now, though, the situation had changed with the omicron surge, and according to court sources, Sotomayor did not feel safe in close proximity to people who were unmasked. Chief Justice John Roberts, understanding that, in some form asked the other justices to mask up.

They all did. Except Gorsuch, who, as it happens, sits next to Sotomayor on the bench. His continued refusal since then has also meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices' weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone.

Well, that was fake news. Justice Sotomayor said the story was false along with the mask request in a statement:

Reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends

Indeed. And now, Chief Justice Roberts has also weighed in by saying what NPR reported was simply not true.

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

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And the liberal media wonders why they’re hated and not trusted. Who were the sources? Liberal media figures have CTE at this point after how many times they’ve been whacked in the head for being totally wrong. Some were even saying that the NPR story, which was reported by Nina Totenberg, was right, even though it was wrong. Some took insane takes like insinuating that the justices were lying, and these statements were not written by them. 

The best tweet summarizing this fiasco was by Jay Lampert who said that NPR’s Totenberg “did the impossible…she got Sotomayor and Gorsuch to join together to write an opinion with Roberts writing a concurring one.”

Defund NPR and enjoy the meltdown, everyone.