FAKE NEWS: So New York Magazine reports that a former students say that Judge Neil Gorsuch told them that women manipulate maternity benefits. Well, that’s hardly a shocking statement — people manipulate benefits of all kinds, and the argument that maternity benefits are somehow the only form of benefit not subject to that behavior is absurd.

But the quoted “former student,” identified by New York Magazine as one “Jennifer Sisk, who graduated from the University of Colorado Law School last year,” is not just any former student, but a former operative for Democrat Mark Udall. (“Sisk went to college in Massachusetts, at Wellesley, then worked as an aide in Mark Udall’s Senate office in Washington.”) New York Magazine leaves that rather important fact out.

UPDATE: According to another student, it’s even faker than that:

Another former student wrote to the committee to refute Sisk’s claims.

“Although Judge Gorsuch did discuss some of the topics mentioned in the letter, he did not do so in the manner described,” Will Hauptman wrote in the letter, which was sent on Sunday.

Hauptman wrote that Gorsuch often asked his students to consider the challenges they would face as new attorneys, including the tension between building a career and starting a family, especially for women.

“The seriousness with which the judge asked us to consider these realities reflected his desire to make us aware of them, not any animus against a career or group,” he wrote.

A response from the person aiding in the Gorsuch nomination process also said that Sisk’s claims were false and came from a misunderstanding of the hypothetical discussion question.

Lefties often have trouble with hypotheticals.