Judge Neil Gorsuch on Tuesday rejected the idea that wealthy clients of his had an outsized role in his nomination to serve as a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals judge.

At Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on his Supreme Court nomination, Gorsuch said many of his clients supported his confirmation, not just the wealthy.

"With respect to my nomination … as I recall, all of my clients or an awful lot of them came out of the woodwork to say nice things," Gorsuch said.

Gorsuch played up the diversity of people who back him by noting that billionaire Phil Anschutz and the owner of a gravel pit both wrote in support of his confirmation as a federal appeals judge. [Anschutz is the owner of the Washington Examiner's parent company, MediaDC.]

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy spurned Gorsuch's answer. "Let's be realistic," he said.

Senator Lindsey Graham pressed Gorsuch on whether Trump ever asked Gorsuch to commit to overturning Roe v. Wade, and the judge replied that the president did not.

"What would you have done if he asked?" Graham asked.

"Senator, I would have walked out the door," Gorsuch responded. Gorsuch said repeatedly on Tuesday that judges should not get involved in politics.

When Leahy pressed Gorsuch on the issue of campaign finance regulations and the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, Gorsuch said he thought "there is a lot of room for legislation in this area."