Democrats tried conjuring a boogeyman in the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday morning when Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., tried casting the Federalist Society as the shadowy players pushing President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch. But if legal societies are known by the company they keep, then the group isn't part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. In fact, every single sitting Supreme Court justice has addressed the Federalist Society.

Long before Democrats learned to loathe the group, conservative and liberal justices were singing their praises. Before donning the black robes of a Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan even said as much. At Harvard in 2005, the former Clinton White House official addressed the group's national jamboree literally declaring, "I love the Federalist Society."

Desperate for a winning line of attack, Democrats have conveniently skipped over those facts. On Meet the Press last Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., even stooped so far as to accuse the Federalist Society of hawking "right-wing special interest." But nothing could be farther from the truth.

While Schumer and company would like to paint them as the judicial equivalent of the Illuminati, the Federalist Society doesn't meet in smoke-filled backrooms. Since 1981, they've preferred the airy campuses of the nation's most liberal law schools. Their goal is pretty simple: expose law students to conservative and libertarian judicial principles they might miss in class.

More intellectual than partisan, that mission explains why legal students, scholars, and jurists flock to their events. Back at Harvard Law, that's why Kagan could tell the room that she loved the Federalist Society but then quip in her New York drawl that "you know, you are not my people."

Much of the sudden current controversy has nothing to do with the group's real reputation. Instead, it's been ginned up about their Executive Vice President Leonard Leo. Currently, the plump bespectacled lawyer is on loan at the White House helping the administration with the Gorsuch confirmation. He's one of the legal Sherpas helping the nominee get to the high court. But does that mean he's plotting a purge? Not at all.

No one can doubt that the group is playing an outsized political role currently. It's one that their liberal counterparts would definitely fill had the roles been reversed. But this role is only temporary and hardly shady. But as soon as the Gorsuch takes his seat, the Federalist Society will get back to hosting dinners for legal scholars and students. Perhaps Democrats should attend one before blowing smoke.

After all, each of their favorite Supreme Court justices has already.

Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.