Trump has been telling us that the judge in his Trump University fraud case, Gonzalo Curiel, is a Mexican and thereby should not be allowed to judge his case. He points out how the judge has repeatedly ruled against him and that he's building a wall to keep Mexicans out. He won't quite be explicit why that would somehow disqualify him, but he's insistent.
This is obviously racist but it's something much worse. It's an attempt to intimidate the judge and tamper with the jury pool.
First, about the judge. Curiel was born in a suburb of Chicago, just across the state line in Indiana, and has a solid record as a judge. He was involved in several cases against Mexican drug cartels and was repeatedly threatened, at least one time that the FBI took pretty seriously and put him under protection for a while. His parents were from Mexico but he's shown no evidence at all of judicial bias or impropriety, and is by any reasonable standard something of a hero.
It occurs to me that the fraud case may be the explanation of Trump's inexplicable run. Trump knows virtually nothing about politics or the obligations of the office he's running for, and shows no real interest in it, other than wanting to have it. But he's a gifted pitchman and is able to get lots of naifs to eat up his every word. Nearly every day he says something that would end the career of any ordinary politician. But Trump is a TV star and has his name on a lot of real estate, which apparently is sufficient for a lot of voters.
It was probably a little over a year ago that it became obvious to Trump that the government's case that he'd committed fraud was pretty solid and that he was facing dozens or even hundreds of counts of fraud, each one of which could earn him up to a year in prison. He turns 70 next week and and is unlikely to be out of prison until he's well into his 80s. His only real chance is to undermine the process somehow--intimidate the judge or contaminate the jury pool or something. Maybe he can get a mistrial. But an ordinary hyper-rich person trying to screw with the judiciary in this way would not go over well and would probably earn him extra prison time. But by an interesting coincidence, more than a dozen people had declared that they were running for the republican presidential nomination. What if Donald joined them and made a lot of noise, especially horrible things about Mexican immigrants. What better pulpit to do things that would trigger a mistrial?
I doubt he ever thought his candidacy would get as far as it has. He knows he doesn't have the aptitude to be president and has said there are lots of parts of the job that he doesn't want to do. Since he was self funding and got a lot of free media, he knew he could stay in until the convention when his anti-Curiel schtick would be most effective, but he wouldn't have to actually run in the national. So he set about submarining his candidacy by saying horrible things. Bizarrely, his fans loved it. Maybe he could actually win. Then, they couldn't try him before impeaching him first, and he could make a deal with his VP to pardon him as soon as he left office, which would end the case. It's not quite clear how Judge Curiel is going to be able to try one of the candidates during the election.
This is obviously speculation...I have no evidence. But it fits the facts at hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment