Arnold Schwarzenegger Backs Up Trump University Judge Gonzalo Curiel

He may be our presumptive Republican presidential nominee, but Donald Trump is still getting a lot of flack for his comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel presiding over his Trump University case because he’s of Mexican descent. Former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called Trump’s comments “inexcusable,” while a Texas congressman defended Curiel and told Trump and his wall to shove it. Now former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger has come to Curiel’s defense, retweeting a New York Times article about the judge, and adding some compliments of his own.

The New York Times profile on Curiel focuses on his time as a federal prosecutor in southern California, when he went after a number of figures in the notorious Mexico-based Arellano-Felix cartel. In the 1990s, after he put away two suspected gunmen for the cartel, one of them was recorded in jail saying that his bosses gave him permission to have Curiel killed. As a result, the prosecutor went into hiding for a year, under guard by U.S. marshals. Small wonder that Curiel is likely not giving Trump’s words “a second thought.” Compared to a drug cartel, what harm can simple words do him?

But back to Curiel’s days as a prosecutor. The bravery he displayed in taking on Arellano-Felix was likely a factor in Schwarzenegger appointing Curiel to the bench in San Diego in 2007, before President Obama nominated him as a federal judge in 2011. It’s in this spirit that Schwarzenegger tweeted, “Judge Curiel is an American hero who stood up to the Mexican cartels. I was proud to appoint him when I was Gov.” . Ironically, Trump himself has trumpeted fighting the War On Drugs on the campaign trail, especially as illicit drugs flow from Mexico to the United States. This also disproves Trump’s claim that there’s a conflict of interest in Curiel presiding over the Trump University case because of what the candidate has said about Mexicans, when sharing an ethnic heritage with Mexican drug traffickers didn’t stop Curiel from going after them. Since Trump is a master deflector though, we’ll see how he spins this one.

(via New York Times)