Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch was not commenting on President Donald Trump's tweets when he told a senator that attacks on the judiciary were demoralising, but rather making a "generalisation".
"The judge was very clear that he was not commenting on any specific matter," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters. "You can't then take that and equate it back to the specific."
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Wednesday that Gorsuch had told him Trump's comments on Twitter criticising the judiciary were "disheartening and demoralising".
Blumenthal on Thursday urged Gorsuch to condemn Trump's attacks "publicly, unequivocally and clearly".
Trump on Thursday said Gorsuch's comments had been misrepresented.
Trump in a Twitter post disputed Blumenthal's account and sought to revive a years-old controversy over the senator's military service during the Vietnam War era.
"Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who never fought in Vietnam when he said for years he had (major lie), now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?" Trump wrote, without providing any evidence of a misrepresentation.
Blumenthal's account of the comments has been backed up by a spokesman for the nominee and by Kelly Ayotte, a Republican former senator from New Hampshire who has accompanied the judge during meetings with lawmakers to build support for his Senate confirmation.
Other senators, including Republican Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York, have said Gorsuch made similar comments to them.
Gorsuch, a conservative federal appeals court judge from Colorado who Trump nominated for a lifetime post on the Supreme Court, might be hoping to help win Democratic support in the US Senate for his confirmation by demonstrating independence from the Republican president.
Trump on Saturday lashed out at a federal judge in Seattle who put on hold his temporary ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries and all refugees entering the United States. The case is now before a federal appeals court.
Trump called US District Judge James Robart a "so-called judge" whose "ridiculous" ruling "essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country".
Trump on Wednesday stepped his criticism of the judiciary, calling courts "so political" and describing the judicial proceedings on his appeal of Robart's ruling "disgraceful".
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