Generally speaking, most folks who are in the midst of a high-stakes federal court case would go to great lengths to avoid publicly offending the Court. Then again, most folks aren’t Donald Trump. The presumptive Republican nominee is currently facing a number of civil suits regarding his defunct venture Trump University and he has been critical of the proceedings in general, alleging that the allegations are without merit and possibly politically motivated.
A self-described “counterpuncher,” Trump has even taken aim at the presiding judge in one of the cases, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a number of times during the past. Most recently, he unleashed his most blunt attacks on Curiel in an interview for The Wall Street Journal .
“I’m building a wall,” Trump said, referring to his desire to stem the tide of immigrants entering the Unites States illegally from Mexico. The endeavor is one of the cornerstones of his presidential campaign.
“It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Trump added during the interview. The real estate mogul also directly noted Judge Muriel’s “Mexican heritage” in the interview, complaining that Muriel’s ancestry and his membership in a Latino lawyers’ association constituted an “absolute conflict” when it came to presiding over Trump’s case.
The Wall Street Journal contacted the office of Judge Curiel for comment, but staff advised the media outlet that the Court was unable to comment on the matter.
Some of Trump’s renewed ire at Curiel appears to stem from the judge’s recent decision to release a number of “playbooks” associated with Trump University. The documents purportedly show Trump’s employees engaging in high-pressure sales tactics that resulted in many students amassing significant personal debt.
Donald Trump himself publicly criticized Curiel’s decision to release the aforementioned documents, referring to the judge as “hostile” and ” a hater of Donald Trump ,” as noted in a report by CBS News . Trump was more conciliatory regarding Curiel’s heritage at the time, though.
“The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine,” Trump said of U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel on Friday.
Compounding Donald Trump’s difficulties with regard to the Trump University controversy is Hillary Clinton’s use of the flap as material for political attacks. As previously noted by Inquisitr , the Democratic front-runner spoke on Trump’s legal woes and business practices earlier this week.
Clinton camp rips ‘unfit’ Trump on judge attack https://t.co/XZ0KP3ATEc
— POLITICO (@politico) June 3, 2016
“Trump and his employees took advantage of vulnerable Americans encouraging them to max out their credit cards, empty their retirement savings, destroy their financial futures, all while making promises they knew were false from the beginning,” Hillary Clinton said during a campaign event in New Jersey. “This is just more evidence that Donald Trump himself is a fraud. He is trying to scam America the way he scammed all those people at Trump University.”
In a profile of Judge Curiel , NBC News confirms that the federal judicial officer is of Mexican heritage, as he is the son of immigrants. But Curiel himself is a natural-born citizen of the United States, as he was born in East Chicago, Indiana. He was nominated to U.S. District Court in 2011 by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate the following year. Although the current case involving Trump University is both high-profile and extremely contentious, Curiel is no stranger to presiding over difficult situations. NBC News further noted that Curiel was once placed on the “hit list” of a Mexican drug cartel, ostensibly because of his work on a criminal case.
[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]