[Republicans questioned Gorsuch about judicial independence and whether he would have any trouble ruling against Trump, who nominated him to the high court.]
That's a ridiculous softball question and I'm surprised WaPo and ADN decided to make it the central point in this article.  That's like making a point about someone staying out of jail.  That's what a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to be, independent from political shenanigans.  The problem might be that it was only those things he gave any definitive answer to.  It seems any question asked of him by the Democrats were either unanswered, "I'm not going to say anything here," or given ambiguous boilerplate responses, "I certainly never would have counseled anyone not to obey the law."