Donald Trump said Friday he wouldn’t accuse Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor of being unable to rule fairly in a case on immigration, even though he charged a federal judge was incapable of presiding over a case involving Trump University because of his Mexican heritage.
“No, it wouldn’t,” Trump said when asked by NBC if he’s push for Sotomayor’s recusal in an immigration if he were the president. “I’d want people that can vote on [inaudible]. I’d want people without conflict and you’d have to assume they don’t have a conflict.”
Sotomayor reportedly recused herself 141 times over the course of her career before she was appointed to the high court in 2009. Despite her involvement with immigrant rights groups, she did not recuse herself from a case involving President Obama’s executive actions on immigration that were blocked by a 4-4 tie on Thursday.
Trump’s response follows weeks of criticism from both Republican and Democrats over what many saw as his “racist attacks” against the judge in the Trump University case, Gonzalo Curiel.
A former adviser to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said Friday that the candidate’s recent firing of his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski had much to do with the blowback over the judge controversy.
Nevertheless, Trump said he hadn’t changed his mind about Curiel’s handling of the civil fraud lawsuit against his now-defunct online college.
“I don’t want to walk anything [back],” he said. “We’re going to win the case. It’s very successful, that’s all there is to it.”
