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Popular Vote Loser Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch was a pretty typical knee-jerk conservative in college it would seem, with a bright mind and pointed pen. While at Columbia University, he helped start The Federalist Paper, a conservative student rag that railed against political correctness, equal opportunities for female students, criticism of the great leader Ronald Reagan—everything you'd expect from a young conservative in the 1980s.
Then he went to law school at Harvard, and from there his record seems to be a little muddy. One of Gorsuch's key résumé elements, highlighted in Trump's introduction of him, was his work with Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project and the Harvard Defenders, volunteer programs that "which offer law school students real-life legal experience representing prison inmates and the poor." Which is great, except that a lot of people who were in those programs at the same time have no memory of his involvement.
But roughly three dozen students who participated in the two programs while Mr. Gorsuch was at Harvard Law School from 1988 to 1991 said they have no recollection of his involvement.
“If he was active in PLAP I am sure I would remember him,” said Elizabeth Buckley Lewis, who attended Harvard at the same time as Mr. Gorsuch. Now a New York City tax lawyer who advises nonprofits, she said PLAP was her “most meaningful experience” at Harvard.
The White House gave The Wall Street Journal the name of one Harvard Law School graduate who said he could corroborate that Judge Gorsuch was in the Defenders, but declined to give any details of the judge’s participation. The White House also provided copies of a 2008 email exchange between the Defenders’ alumni director and Judge Gorsuch.
Two people who broadly oversaw the students during this period said they had no memory of Judge Gorsuch’s involvement, a third one declined to say, and a fourth died in 1998. Other Harvard classmates and friends of Mr. Gorsuch say they have no recollection of him discussing either program.
The WSJ talked to Chris Edel, a New York County prosecutor, to whom they were referred to by the White House. Edel says he attended training with Gorsuch, and that they "also lived together and were members of the Lincoln’s Inn Society, a social club." He says he will "corroborate that Neil Gorsuch was in the Harvard Defenders" and that he remembers talking with Gorsuch about a case, but won't say what case. The White House also provided an email thread from 2008 sent "to 124 alumni of the Defender program by Alicia Reed, then the alumni director of the Defenders" asking for volunteers to mentor current students. Gorsuch replied that he'd be happy to help, but probably couldn't because he was "far away from Cambridge."
That's pretty much the total of evidence of Gorsuch's good works in law school. None of the yearbook photos for either the Defenders or the PLAP include Gorsuch, and he's not included among the members who are listed as "not pictured." That he made the alumni email list for the Defenders suggests that he did at least sign up for the program. But whether he showed up seems to be a matter of debate. As Sarah Reed, the general counsel of a venture-capital firm who was active in the Defenders the same time Gorsuch claims to be, says "My answer is, 'Neil who?’'"