Ann Coulter, in her typical mince no words fashion, penned an opinion piece in defense of Donald Trump’s racially motivated attacks on federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel. With pretty much everyone in the media, most legal experts (except sort of Alberto Gonzalez) and all of the GOP turned against Trump on this, Coulter decided it was time to weigh in.
“Has anyone ever complained about the ethnicity of white judges or white juries? I’ve done some research and it turns out … THAT’S ALL WE’VE HEARD FOR THE PAST 40 YEARS,” she writes (capitalization all hers). She then goes through some court cases that involve racial bias by all-white juries and white judges. In fact, Coulter says, she has more than 1 million examples of the media going “mental” on white judges and juries.
She concludes:
The effrontery of this double standard is so blinding, that the only way liberals can bluff their way through it is with indignation. DO I HEAR YOU RIGHT? ARE YOU SAYING A JUDGE’S ETHNICITY COULD INFLUENCE HIS DECISIONS? (Please, please, please don’t bring up everything we’ve said about white judges and juries for the past four decades.)
So there are a couple differences between the cases that she brings up and Trump’s attack on Judge Gonzalo Curiel, but we will save that for another post. What is clear from a legal perspective is if Trump filed a motion for recusal, based solely on Curiel’s ‘Mexican’ heritage, he would probably lose, and his attorneys might even be sanctioned.