NEW YORK – The federal judge presiding over the Trump University class action lawsuit is a member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, a group that while not a branch of the National Council of La Raza, has ties to the controversial organization, which translates literally “The Race.”
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who has been criticized by Donald Trump as a “hater” appointed by President Obama who should be recused from the case, listed his membership in the “La Raza Lawyers of San Diego” on a judicial questionnaire he filled out when he was selected to be a federal judge. He was named in a brochure as a member of the selection committee for the organization’s 2014 Annual Scholarship Fund Dinner & Gala. Meanwhile, the San-Diego based law firm representing the plaintiffs in the Trump University case, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, was listed as a sponsor of the event.
WND reported the San Diego firm paid $675,000 to the Clintons for speeches, and the firm’s founder is a wealthy San Diego lawyer who served a two-year sentence in federal prison for his role in a kickback scheme to mobilize plaintiffs for class-action lawsuits.
While critics of Trump have argued that the San Diego La Raza Lawyers’ association is not affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, consider the following:
The San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is a member of the La Raza Lawyers of California, affiliated with the Chicano/Latino Bar Association of California.
On the website of the La Raza Lawyers Association of California, at the bottom of the “Links & Affiliates Page,” the National Council of La Raza is listed.
The website of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association is joint-listed as San Diego’s Latino/Latina Bar Association.
On the “endorsements” page, the combined website lists the National Council of La Raza as part of the “community,” along with the Hispanic National Bar Association,, a group that emerged with a changed name from the originally formed La Raza National Lawyers Association and the La Raza National Bar Association tracing its origin back to 1971.
Further, while the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association and the National Council of La Raza are legally separate incorporated entities, the two groups appear to have an affiliation that traces back to the emergence of MEChA, the Moviemento Estudiantil Chicanos de Atzlán.
MEChA is a 1960s radical separatist student movement in California that espoused the mythical Aztec idea of a “nation of Aztlán,” comprising much of the southwestern United States, including California.
As David Horowitz points out on his website Discover the Networks that La Raza, Spanish for “the race,” also has roots in the early 1960s with a “united front” organization, the National Organization for Mexican American Services, NOMAS. The group initially was funded by the Ford Foundation, and subsequently by George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
In 1968, the Southwest Council of La Raza was organized with Ford Foundation funding. In 1972, the group changed its name to the National Council of La Raza and opened an office in Washington, D.C.
Not defending Trump but I see his concern.... A Fed Judge should be more careful where he puts his name... And the Clinton thing doesn't look good either...
