Donald Trump said that the federal judge presiding over a lawsuit brought by former Trump University students has an “absolute conflict” in handling the case because he is “of Mexican heritage.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee told The Wall Street Journal, in an interview in Friday’s edition, that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel has “an inherent conflict of interest” because Trump is “building a wall,” a reference to Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
Trump University is the target of two lawsuits in San Diego and one in New York that accuse the business of fleecing students with unfulfilled promises to teach secrets of success in real estate. Trump has maintained that customers were overwhelmingly satisfied with the offerings.
Trump has brought up Curiel’s ethnicity several times this year, including last week at a rally in San Diego. Curiel was born in Indiana and served as a federal prosecutor and a judge in the California state judicial system before being nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2011.
On Wednesday, Curiel ordered some records that were released in the class action lawsuit against Trump University be yanked from public view. Late Tuesday, Curiel ordered some released documents to be resealed and resubmitted with sections blacked-out. He said some records had “mistakenly” been released last week, when he ordered some documents made public.
Lorella Praeli, director of Latino outreach for Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign, said Friday that Curiel and his family “epitomize the American dream.”
“The fact that Donald Trump doesn’t see Judge Curiel and his family as Americans makes him unfit to be president of this great nation, a nation of immigrants,” Praeli said in a statement.
(AP)
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3 Responses
Maybe if the judge was an illegal alien it could be construed as a conflict, but obviously he’s not. The only conflict is in daffy Donald’s brain which apparently isn’t as great as he claims
The judge is the children of immigrants and was born and raised in Indiana. He became a judge after being known for prosecuting of drug dealers. Is Trump arguing that second generations Americans can’t be judges (considering Trump is third generation, sounds funny).
Its statements like these that give Clinton and Johnson (of the Libertarians), hope.
Trump didn’t say that Judge Curiel is Mexican. He said he’s “of Mexican heritage.” As nutty as Trump is, he could be right that Judge Curiel identifies with Mexican illegal immigrants, but there’s nothing wrong with identifying with them. Any liberal would feel that way, no matter where s/he’s from.