Tag Archives: curiel

Trump Is Too Busy for His Fraud Trial—But Apparently He Has Time for a Victory Tour

by WesleyHeim Posted on November 17, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is a busy man these days. So busy, his lawyer argues, that he can’t reasonably be expected to testify in a civil lawsuit against him that’s set to begin later this month. But Trump apparently does have time for a multi-state “victory tour” to celebrate his surprise electoral win.

Pool reporters covering the presidential transition transition revealed Thursday that beginning sometime after Thanksgiving, Trump is planning to visit states he won in the election. Doing so would allow Trump to continue holding the huge rallies he enjoyed so much during the campaign, something he has reportedly expressed interest in doing.

But Trump’s victory lap would seem to run contrary to what his own lawyers will be arguing in front of a San Diego judge Friday morning. The president-elect still faces three outstanding civil fraud lawsuits related to his Trump University business. Besides a suit filed by New York state’s attorney general, two cases are being brought in federal court by former students who felt Trump’s marketing of his “university” was dishonest. They claim they didn’t receive the insightful, personalized attention that Trump promised them in promotional materials. In fact, jury selection in the first of the trials is scheduled to start November 28. Last Friday, Trump’s lawyer submitted a filing to the judge in the case asking for a delay in the trial.

“President-Elect Trump and his transition team have only 69 days to prepare to lead the country,” Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli wrote in his brief to Gonzalo Curiel, the American-born judge of Mexican descent whom Trump attacked over his ancestry during the campaign. “The task is momentous, exceedingly complex, and requires careful coordination involving the respective staffs and teams of both President Obama and President-Elect Trump. In fewer than three months, the President-Elect must be prepared to manage 15 executive departments, more than 100 federal agencies, 2 million civilian employees, and a budget of almost $4 trillion.”

Trump will not be required to be in the courtroom for most of the trial and will only have to attend court when he testifies. (Thanks to the precedent set by the Paula Jones case, Trump will likely have to testify.) But even that small requirement would be problematic, Petrocelli said.

Petrocelli went so far as to argue that the distractions created by Trump having to testify during the presidential transition might actually pose a threat to national security. “The transition period also has significant security implications, particularly because foreign enemies may perceive the United States to be more vulnerable during a Presidential transition,” Petrocelli wrote. “Requiring the President-Elect to defend himself in a civil trial while ‘preparing for the vast challenges a political novice will face in assuming the presidency’ threatens the effectiveness of this transition.”

Curiel will hold a hearing Friday at 9 a.m. PST to determine just how packed Trump’s transition schedule will be.

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Trump Is Too Busy for His Fraud Trial—But Apparently He Has Time for a Victory Tour

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Donald Trump Doesn’t Want a Muslim Judge Either

by GeorginaDownie2 Posted on June 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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We already know that Donald Trump thinks Judge Gonzalo Curiel is biased against him because he’s “Mexican.” But what about other judges with non-white backgrounds? John Dickerson asked him about this on Face the Nation today:

Later, when asked if he believed a Muslim judge would treat him unfairly because of another controversial proposal to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the U.S., Trump replied: “It’s possible, yes. Yeah. That would be possible, absolutely.”

“Isn’t there sort of a tradition though in America that we don’t judge people by who their parents were and where they came from?” Dickerson asked. “I’m not talking about tradition,” Trump replied. “I’m talking about common sense, okay? He’s somebody, he’s proud of his heritage.”

OK then. No Hispanics and no Muslims. I wonder which non-white ethnicities are allowed to pass judgment on Trump? He’s been pretty rough on China and Japan, after all. And Trump was king of the birthers a few years ago, so blacks probably don’t think much of him. This brings up an obvious question:

When questioned on whether he would instruct his lawyers to ask that Judge Curiel get thrown out of the Trump University case, Trump said: “Well, I may do that now—We’re finding things out now that we didn’t know before.”

“Because of his Mexican heritage though?” Dickerson pressed. “No, but because of other things,” Trump responded. “I mean because of other things.”

Hmmm. He wants Curiel tossed off the case, but not because of his Mexican heritage. Why is that? A reader points me toward a piece by Garrett Epps in the Atlantic this morning about a 1998 case overseen by federal judge Denny Chin:

Eventually, Chin dismissed Klayman’s client’s case….Not long after, the judge got a letter from Klayman and his co-counsel, Paul Orfanedes, asking a few “questions” about the judge’s Asian American background….In a written response, Chin…lowered the boom. Klayman and Orfanedes were required to withdraw as counsel from the case and would not be permitted to appear in Chin’s court on any matter ever again. They would be required to show his opinion to any other judge in the district in any future case. The court clerk would also report the sanctions to every court where they held bar membership.

….The Second Circuit briskly affirmed Chin’s order. “Courts have repeatedly held that matters such as race or ethnicity are improper bases for challenging a judge’s impartiality,” wrote the chief judge, Ralph Winter, a Reagan appointee.

In public, Trump can rant about anything he wants. But in court, if his lawyers so much as mention Curiel’s Mexican heritage in a recusal motion they risk nuclear sanctions. Even for Trump, they aren’t willing to do that.

Still, there are always those “other things.” My own guess is that this is a blustery Trumpian fiction, just like all the evidence of Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth that Trump insisted his private investigators had been digging up back in 2011. We’ll see.

Bottom line: Donald Trump apparently believes that the only judge qualified to try his case is a white Christian. I guess this is the new, more presidential Trump that his backers keep insisting will show up any day now for the general election.

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Donald Trump Doesn’t Want a Muslim Judge Either

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Trump to the Media: Stop Scrutinizing Me!

by AngelPQKQbialro Posted on May 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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A press conference called by Donald Trump to discuss his donations to veterans’ groups devolved into a lengthy bout of bickering between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and members of the press over media treatment of his campaign.

While Trump has fought with the press throughout the campaign, repeatedly impugning individual reporters and banning many outlets, including Mother Jones, from his rallies, the press conference at Trump Tower on Tuesday was one of the sharpest clashes yet, as Trump insulted reporters to their faces and several journalists attempted to fight back. He again called the press corps “dishonest” and potentially libelous before singling out ABC’s Tom Llamas as a “sleaze” and mocking the looks of CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Reporters at the event returned fire, arguing with Trump that he seemed to be trying to dodge scrutiny of his donations and mistook questions for criticism. “Is this what it is going to be like covering you if you are president?” one exasperated reporter asked.

In January, Trump pledged to donate $1 million to unnamed veterans’ organizations. But that donation appeared not to have been made until after the Washington Post started asking questions about the money last week, prompting Trump to give $1 million to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. (Trump responded to that story by calling the reporter “a nasty guy.”) At Tuesday’s press conference, Trump came prepared with a long list of organizations he said received a total of $5.6 million thanks to a fundraising event he held in January.

Trump also continued his attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, a federal judge in California who has ordered documents unsealed in a lawsuit against Trump University, a school that charged students as much as $35,000 for real estate courses that promised Trump-like success and wealth. The lawsuit alleges that the school defrauded its students. Trump called Curiel an “unfair judge” on Tuesday after having attacked him on Friday as a “Trump hater” and bringing up his Latino heritage as a reason for his alleged anti-Trump bias. The documents are due to be released today.

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Trump to the Media: Stop Scrutinizing Me!

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