Donald Trump And Zero Plus Zero Is Zero

Donald Trump last week doubled down on questioning whether the judge overseeing a lawsuit against his now-defunct Trump University is able to be impartial because of his Mexican heritage. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel was “appointed by Barack Obama,” Trump said at a rally last week, and he “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump said Curiel’s “Mexican heritage” should disqualify him from the Trump University case because “I’m building a wall. It’s an inherent conflict of interest.” Writing for the Atlantic, constitutional law professor Garrett Epps recalls a 1998 judicial order levied by U.S. Second Circuit judge Denny Chin against lawyers who claimed he could not be impartial because of his ethnicity. In the order, Chin wrote, “This sentiment is absurd and demeans me individually and the Court as a whole.” He then forced the lawyers to withdraw from the case, banned them from ever appearing in Chin’s court on any matter ever again, and required them to show his opinion to any other judge in the district in any future case. When the Second Circuit affirmed that order on appeal, its chief judge, Ralph Winter, wrote that: “[A]ppointment by a particular administration and membership in a particular racial or ethnic group are in combination not grounds for questioning a judge’s impartiality. Zero plus zero is zero.” Epps says Trump should keep that precedent in mind, though he claims Trump takes it even farther: “The Trump side has nothing. No law. No logic. No facts. In 2016, zero plus zero plus zero is even less than zero.”