Gonzalo Curiel, the most famous and perhaps consequential district court judge in the country, reached another decision yesterday in one of the two class-action lawsuits against “Trump University.” You’ll recall Trump’s denunciation of Curiel, declaring on CNN, “He’s a Mexican,” and his statement the Wall Street Journal, “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.” (Curiel is in fact an American citizen born in Indiana to Mexican-immigrant parents.)
Yesterday Curiel denied a request from media groups that his videotaped deposition be released to the public. Trump’s lawyers argued that releasing the deposition videos would pose a “threat to the integrity and fairness of the trial proceedings.” Curiel agreed.
“Given the context of the case and the timing of [the media’s] request, it is nigh-inevitable that “cut” and “splic[ed]”segments of defendant’s deposition videos would appear in both media reports and in political advertisements aired nationwide prior to the trial date in November, increasing the likelihood that prospective jurors would be exposed to information about the case,” Curiel wrote.
“The core question is whether the public’s interest in viewing the demeanor of defendant in the deposition videos outweighs the impairment to judicial efficiency likely to result,” he wrote in his order. “The court concludes that it does not.”
In a normal world, Curiel’s rulings in Trump’s favor would at least partially dispel the charge that he’s a partisan hack who is incapable of fairly presiding over this case because of strident ethno-nationalism. Alas, we don’t live in a normal world.