Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor say they’re ‘warm colleagues and friends’ but don’t deny reporting about Gorsuch’s mask defiance

• Sotomayor and Gorsuch called each other “warm colleagues” after reporting about the two came out on Tuesday.
• NPR reported that Chief Justice Roberts asked the justices to wear masks on behalf of Sotomayor but Gorsuch refused.
• The justices’ statement doesn’t directly refute the reporting.

Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch on Wednesday issued a rare joint statement following an NPR report that Gorsuch has refused to wear a mask at the Supreme Court, leading Sotomayor, who has diabetes and is at risk of severe illness from COVID-19, to participate in oral arguments and conferences remotely from her chambers. 

“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,” the justices said in the statement.

The statement doesn’t directly address NPR’s reporting that Chief Justice John Roberts had asked the justices to wear masks on behalf of Sotomayor, and all of them did, except for Gorsuch. The report did not state that Sotomayor had asked Gorsuch to wear a mask. The statement also did not address Sotomayor’s remote participation.

NPR emphatically stood behind Nina Totenberg’s reporting, pointing out that the justices’ comments do not contradict her story.

“Totenberg never reported that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask, nor did she report that anyone admonished him,” NPR spokesman Ben Fischel said in a statement to Insider.

Sotomayor hasn’t taken the bench this year amid the nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says either type of diabetes could make a person more susceptible to severe illness from COVID-19. The court has previously said that all of the justices are fully vaccinated and have received their booster shots.

Based on the court’s tradition, Sotomayor and Gorsuch sit next to each other on the bench. Sotomayor doesn’t feel safe around unmasked people, so she has been participating remotely, NPR reported.

A spokesperson for the Supreme Court did not immediately return Insider’s request for comment.