WASHINGTON: Donald Trump on Friday again lambasted the judge handling a pair of lawsuits over his defunct online university, insisting that the jurist’s Mexican heritage makes him biased.
The Republican presidential frontrunner slammed Judge Gonzalo Curiel in a speech last week as a “hater” and a “total disgrace” whose Mexican parentage poses an “absolute conflict” in the cases.
He doubled down on those comments in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal, saying Curiel — a US-born native of Indiana — might be “biased” by Trump’s controversial campaign vow to build an anti-immigrant wall on America’s southern border with Mexico.
“I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest,” Trump told the daily, noting that Curiel also had belonged to an organization of Hispanic judges — another disqualifier in his eyes.
Reminded on CNN that Curiel is American, Trump doubled down: “he’s of Mexican heritage, and he’s very proud of it.”
The developer and reality television host has enthused supporters and enraged many others with his calls for building a wall on the US-Mexican border and alleging that Mexico sends its criminals to the United States.
