So is every white judge is on notice that they can’t fairly judge minority defendants?
by digby
Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter on Tuesday likened the federal judge overseeing the civil fraud case against Trump University to an Iraqi-American presiding over a case involving “American Sniper” Chris Kyle.
The California congressman told Sean Hannity on his radio program that he thought it was a mistake for Trump to bring up Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s “Mexican heritage,” arguing that Trump should keep his business matters separate from his presidential campaign. Hunter said it was “bigger deal” that the law firm in the class action case paid the Clintons to give a speech in 2009. Still, Hunter decided to try out a thought experiment.
“What I like to do is take these arguments out to there logical extremes,” Hunter said on Sean Hannity’s radio program. “So let’s say that Chris Kyle, the American sniper, is still alive and he was on trial for something, and his judge was a Muslim-American of Iraqi descent. Here you have Chris Kyle, who’s killed a whole bunch of bad guys in Iraq. Would that be a fair trial for Chris Kyle? If you had that judge there? Probably not. And Chris Kyle could probably say, ‘this guy’s not gonna like me.’”
“You could look at the O.J. trial too, was that fair?” asked Hunter.
I don’t know if I’m going to be able to take this fatuous, racist nonsense for another six months. (I don’t even know what he’s talking about with the OJ trial … black jurors, maybe?)
This is what it comes to. An American Muslim of Iraqi descent cannot be impartial when judging a soldier who killed Iraqis in the war? He must not be aware that we have actual Muslims in the armed services, many of whom killed Iraqis during the war or his tiny little brains would burst out of his thick head.
But I will note that he’s out there blabbering the Trump talking points about the law firm who brought the case being contributors to Clinton. I would suggest that everyone put them at the top of their list if they ever get into legal trouble because they are clearly clairvoyant — they must have known Trump was going to run for president back in 2010 when they took the case.
Trump is working very hard to make these cases look like some kind of political hack jobs, but they aren’t. He’s obviously very worried his phony “business” success (as opposed to inherited fortune) is going to be exposed. We’ll see if the press has enough fortitude to resist the he said/she said he’s offering them.
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