Donald J. Trump has gained an interesting ally in his dispute with a federal judge hearing a case involving a “university” that Trump founded some years ago.
The ally is former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who says the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is right to question whether U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel can judge his case fairly and impartially.
I’ll give Gonzales his due in one regard: the Texan argues his point with clarity and nuance, which is something that Trump is incapable of doing.
At issue, according to Gonzales, is Curiel’s association with a group called La Raza of San Diego, which Trump says is affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, a group formed to advocate for Latino issues. The Washington Post, though, has reported that NCLR and the San Diego outfit are unaffiliated.
That hasn’t stopped Trump, who has said that Curiel is “a Mexican,” which makes him unfit to hear the case. Curiel, of course, is an Indiana-born American citizen born to immigrants from Mexico. Trump’s alleged “reasoning” is that Curiel “hates” him because Trump wants to “build a wall, OK?” along our nation’s border with Mexico.
Gonzales, who served as AG during the George W. Bush administration, has said that Curiel’s association even with the San Diego La Raza group should cause questions about his fairness in hearing the Trump University case. Curiel is presiding over three lawsuits brought by former students of the for-profit educational program who contend they were bilked out of money they spent to take courses.
It’s important to note what Gonzales wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post: “As someone whose own ancestors came to the United States from Mexico, I know ethnicity alone cannot pose a conflict of interests. But there may be other factors to consider in determining whether Trump’s concerns about getting an impartial trial are reasonable.”
Here’s Gonzales’ essay:
You see, that is what Trump did when he challenged Judge Curiel’s ability to adjudicate this matter. He laid it solely on the man’s ethnicity. What’s more, he did so with utter disregard for the fact that the judge is no more “a Mexican” than Trump himself is “a Scotsman,” given that Trump’s mother emigrated to the United States from Scotland.
So, let’s have this discussion about whether a judge can preside with impartiality and fairness over a controversial case … but let’s leave the judge’s ethnicity out of it.