Former AG Alberto Gonzales: Everyone Is Entitled To A Fair Trial
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales clarified his thoughts on a column he wrote in Washington Post defending Donald Trump's right to a fair trial after the presumptive Republican nominee for President said a Hispanic judge could not treat him fairly after his promises to build a wall along the Mexican border.
Gonzales told Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that everyone, including Donald Trump is entitled to an unbaised trial.
"I wrote the column not to be in support of Donald Trump's statements, but to be in support of Donald Trump's right to a fair trial before an impartial judge, which is a right that belongs to every American citizen. I'm not saying that those issues alone are enough to disqualify this judge because I don't know the facts. That's the thing. There are questions that I think that have to be answered. I was very clear in the article that ethnicity alone should never disqualify a judge."
He insisted the trial would still be fair and not slanted toward Trump if the judge hearing the case regarding allegations of fraud at Trump University did step aside.
"As a Hispanic who has worked very hard to get qualified Hispanics on the bench, it makes me angry when I hear someone talk and say things that are disparaging about a judge, but this isn't about the judge. At the end of the day, the judge is either qualified to sit on this case or he's not. It's the litigant. The litigants are entitled to a fair trial. If there's an issue, a problem, a bias with the judge, then he recuses himself and we get another judge. It's not like if this judge is recused that Donald Trump gets away with doing something. No. There will still be a trial. There will still be an examination of whether or not he did something improper."
Gonzales said he's been frustrated by the reception the article has received and believes people are misconstruing what he is trying to convey.
"The reaction, I've got to tell you, was really somewhat surprising and disappointing. I think it's a reflection of the alarm that exists in certain segments of our society about a Trump presidency because if the notion that people would be upset that I might suggest that Donald Trump, like everyone else, is entitled to a fair trial, before an impartial judge to me has been somewhat surprising."
https://tunein.com/embed/player/s21950/
