At a rally in San Diego last Friday, Trump called the judge a “hater” and “biased” during a 12 minute rant about the court’s ruling and the judge, who he mentioned was “Mexican” which was “great” and “fine”. Trump says the judge’s Mexican heritage is an inherent conflict of interest.
Advertisement
Donald Trump did his part yesterday to further America’s purity-politics renaissance, when he declared that a Mexican-American judge hearing a legal case against him couldn’t be unbiased because Trump has been critical of Mexican immigrants.
Judge Gonzalo Curiel is presiding over two civil fraud lawsuits against Trump University in which the real estate mogul is accused of swindling thousands of dollars from students.
Trump and campaign aides have repeatedly brought up Curiel’s heritage while questioning his ability to judge the case, and has also criticized Curiel for his membership in the former La Raza Lawyer’s Association, which is a leading Latino lawyers group in California.
And what happens when you kick a gay judge off a trial – who do you replace them with?
In addition to questioning Curiel’s impartiality, Trump said that if elected president, he would consider changing free speech laws to make it easier to sue journalists.
If Curiel’s guilty of a conflict of interest by dint of ethnicity, so is any judge sitting in judgment of a defendant from a different race who’s engaged in political agitation.
Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead”, Trump repeatedly referenced his plans to build a wall between the US and Mexico and renegotiate trade agreements between the two countries.
“I’m building a wall” on the U.S. “But I think he could recuse himself”.
Tapper: But he’s not from Mexico.
At a rally in San Diego last week, Trump characterized the judge as “a hater of Donald Trump, a hater”. I’m building a wall.
“I have had disgusting rulings, I’ve been treated very unfairly by this judge”.
Trump continued to insist that the only reason the case against Trump U hasn’t been dismissed is because of the judge’s Mexican heritage. So if anything, you’d think he’d be liking this judge, but how risky is this for those Republicans who are on the fence right now when they hear that he’s just calling this judge a Mexican and saying he’s conflicted? Curiel was born in the United States.
“If you are saying he can not do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism?”
Advertisement
In March, Hillary Clinton, while trying to explain her $30 billion plan to aid coalfield communities said “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business”.
