President Donald Trump, left, and Justice Neil Gorsuch, right, before the investiture ceremony.

The buzz surrounding Michael Wolff's forthcoming book taking readers inside the Trump White House includes one item that suggests the president questioned why he couldn't appoint a friend to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shortly after becoming president, Trump was faced with nominating someone to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

“Before appointing Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court—widely viewed as one of his early successes—Trump wondered why the job wasn't going to a friend and loyalist,” according to a Washington Post report on Wednesday about Wolff's book, ”Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” Wolff wrote in the book, according to the Post account: “In the Trump view, it was rather a waste to give the job to someone he didn't even know.”

Among those considered, according to a CNN report Thursday night: Rudy Giuliani. ”The one unlikely, peculiar, and nonstarter choice that he kept returning to was Rudy Giuliani,” Wolff wrote, according to CNN.

The conservative Federalist Society played a lead role in fashioning an initial list of 11 potential nominees for the Scalia vacancy for Trump, which he released while a candidate in May 2016. Gorsuch, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, wasn't on the original list. Trump added 10 names in September of that year, and Gorsuch made the cut. Giuliani was not on any of the lists Trump published.

“Our opponents of judicial nominees frequently claim the president has outsourced his selection of judges. That is completely false,” White House Counsel Donald McGahn said in November 2017. “I've been a member of the Federalist Society since law school—still am. So, frankly, it seems like it's been insourced.”

Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society and an adviser to Trump on the Supreme Court, wasn't reached for comment Thursday. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, on Thursday said Wolff's book is full of “fake” and “false” information.

Last month, the Washington Post reported that soon after nominating Gorsuch, the president considered rescinding the nomination because of Gorsuch's criticism of Trump's attacks on federal judges. Trump, according to the Post, was worried that Gorsuch would not be “loyal.”

The president also felt that Gorsuch had been insufficiently grateful for the nomination, the Post reported. Gorsuch did send a handwritten note to Trump dated March 2 in which he thanked and praised the president.

“Your address to Congress was magnificent,” wrote Gorsuch, referring to the State of the Union address. “And you were so kind to recognize Mrs. Scalia, remember the justice, and mention me. My teenage daughters were cheering the TV!”

Trump later denounced the Post story on Twitter as “FAKE NEWS.” The president tweeted: “I never even wavered and am very proud of him and the job he is doing as a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The unnamed sources don't exist!”

At his confirmation hearings in March, Gorsuch stressed the independence of federal judges. “Judges are not politicians in robes,” Gorsuch told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “If I thought that I'd hang up my robe.”

Gorsuch, as expected, has proved thus far to be a solid conservative justice who emphasizes textualism and aligns most often with the high court's most conservative members—Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr.

This post was updated with additional information from “Fire and Fury.”

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