Could a Muslim Judge Be Trump Neutral? Trump Thinks Not

New York Times ^ | June 5, 2016 | MAGGIE HABERMAN

[reaganaut1]

Donald J. Trump said Sunday that a Muslim judge might have trouble remaining neutral in a lawsuit against him, extending his race-based criticism of the jurist overseeing the case to include religion and opening another path for Democrats who have criticized him sharply for his remarks.

The comments, in an interview with John Dickerson, the host of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” come amid growing disapproval from fellow Republicans over his attacks on Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, a federal judge in California overseeing a suit against the defunct Trump University, whose impartiality Mr. Trump questioned based on the judge’s Mexican heritage.

And they came as Republicans, concerned about how his remarks could harm their ability to retain control of the United States Senate and have a detrimental effect in races further down the ballot, continue to grapple with how to distance themselves from Mr. Trump’s rhetoric without alienating his die-hard voters.

Mr. Trump has called Judge Curiel, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, a “Mexican” and said he has a “conflict of interest” in the case because of Mr. Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico. The case that Judge Curiel is overseeing is a class-action suit in which students of the for-profit operation say they were defrauded.

Mr. Dickerson asked Mr. Trump if, in his view, a Muslim judge would be similarly biased because of the Republican presumptive nominee’s call for a ban on Muslim immigrants. “It’s possible, yes,” Mr. Trump said. “Yeah. That would be possible. Absolutely.”

[AndyTheBear]

Muslim...race-based

If one can't figure out that "Muslim" is a religion rather than a race, one is too stupid to have their opinion attended to.

[deoetdoctrinae]

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[goldstategop]

Islam is an ideology, not a race.

[DesertRhino]

And we are always told how a minority defendant has a right to have minorities on the jury because a white jury cannot be fair.

[Oldexpat]

Sodamachine wasn’t put on the Supreme Court to be racially neutral.

[Altura Ct.]

Good for Trump. He is right. All this one way race crap is coming to an end. He is finally bring to light the huge double standard and blatant hypocrisy of it all. This pretending that members of race groups i.e. The Black or Hispanic Caucus or LaRaza or NAACP or any of the hundreds of other race based groups are not motivated by race is BS.

[joshua c]

This is not about race. It is about national loyalty. Trump’s policies will be detrimental to Mexico and the Mexican citizens in the US.

The judge is of Mexican heritage and belongs to a group that sides with Mexico.

[Son House]

Trump used the word “possible” and never implied it is definite as this New York Times headline sensationalizes it.

[iontheball]

He’s right.
________________________________
Trump has more common sense than all the politically correct worshipers out there. Judges need to abide by ethical rules of behavior. A professional conflict of interest can be actual or created by an appearance. Both must be avoided in order to promote public confidence in the judicial system. While only the judge knows if he harbors an actual bias toward Trump, there clearly exists an appearance of a conflict, not only by his Mexican heritage and pro-Mexican associations but by the way he has been conducting himself in the case. The ethical thing to do would be to recuse himself from deciding the case but these days it is whatever you can get away with that matters.

[odawg]

I watched that interview. John Dickerson, you could tell, was wounded to the bottom of his righteous, race-sensitive heart over what Trump said about the objectivity of the Mexican judge. He kept bringing it up, just could not get it resolved to ease his inner anguish.

Or did he think he had a landed on a racist remark by Trump and was trying to highlight it as much as possible? Trump said it was just common sense, and gave reasons why.

[Timpanagos1]

“The judge is of Mexican heritage and belongs to a group that sides with Mexico.”

Spot on.

Think about it, if this can happen to Trump, his being put on trial in front of a judge who is not of his own ethnicity, it could happen to any of us.

More precisely, a person should not have the additional burden of being put on trial before a judge that does not share the defendent's race, religion and ethnicity.

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[Vendome]

I know some who are whiter than me...

[Ray76]

> a person should not have the additional burden of being put on trial before a judge that does not share the defendent’s race, religion and ethnicity.

That’s ridiculous.

[Yardstick]

Typical dishonest NYT piece. The writer knows full well that the judge is biased. It’s just that she kinda likes it that way. She and the judge both want Trump to lose his case.

[Excellence]

Or the Muslim Brotherhood, or any of its 90 affiliate groups.

[vette6387]

Leave it to a Secular Progressive Jewish Reporter to “tell us” about Muslims, not!

[Timpanagos1]

No it is not.

If you were to be put on trial before a judge who does not share your race, religion or ethnicity, you would be at risk of the judge’s biases, whether due to his race, religion or ethnicity or his affiliation with groups that advocate for the judge’s race, religion or ethnicity.

Would you want to be a Jew on trial in front of an Islamic judge?

Would you want a white cop on trial in front of a black judge who might be a BLM sympathizer?

Trump is right on this one.

[NelsonEddyFan]

“La Raza” came up well after Trump mouthed off. His attack was on a Mexican-American jurist.

[Ray76]

That’s un-American nonsense.

The problem with Curiel is his association with racist organizations, additionally those organizations directly oppose Trump’s politics. If Curiel was not associated with these organizations there would be no conflict.