Pat Buchanan is defending Donald Trump for launching a racist attack on the judge overseeing one of the court cases involving his Trump University, writing in a column today that Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage is likely to play a role in the case involving whether Trump’s fake school used fraudulent practices.
Buchanan, whose record on race issues is so bad that even Trump himself once called his writings “disgusting” and “sick,” said that Trump’s criticism of Judge Curiel is part of a long and proud American tradition, comparing it to the time President Obama criticized the Citizens United decision during a State of the Union address.
Those critical of Trump, he said, simply support “the lynching of The Donald.”
Before the lynching of The Donald proceeds, what exactly was it he said about that Hispanic judge?
Stated succinctly, Donald Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a class-action suit against Trump University, is sticking it to him. And the judge’s bias is likely rooted in the fact that he is of Mexican descent.
Can there be any defense of a statement so horrific?
Just this. First, Trump has a perfect right to be angry about the judge’s rulings and to question his motives. Second, there are grounds for believing Trump is right.
On May 27, Curiel, at the request of the Washington Post, made public plaintiff accusations against Trump University – that the whole thing was a scam. The Post, which Bob Woodward tells us has 20 reporters digging for dirt in Trump’s past, had a field day.
And who is Curiel?
An appointee of President Obama, he has for years been associated with the La Raza Lawyers Association of San Diego, which supports pro-illegal immigrant organizations.
Set aside the folly of letting Clinton surrogates like the Post distract him from the message he should be delivering, what did Trump do to be smeared by a bipartisan media mob as a “racist”?
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Obama himself attacked the Citizens United decision in a State of the Union address, with the justices sitting right in front of him.
But Trump’s real hanging offense was that he brought up the judge’s ancestry, as the son of Mexican immigrants, implying that he was something of a judicial version of Univision’s Jorge Ramos.
Apparently, it is now not only politically incorrect but, in Newt Gingrich’s term, “inexcusable” to bring up the religious, racial or ethnic background of a judge, or suggest this might influence his actions on the bench.
But these things matter.
