Whelan’s retort is here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/436284/stern-trump-curiel-walker
This argument only makes sense if the only thing wrong with Trump’s argument for recusal of a “Mexican” judge (e.g. a US federal judge of Mexican American heritage) is that the Trump University case did not specifically involve the rights of Mexicans or Mexican-Americans. If it had, under Whelan’s theory the judge presumably would have to recuse if the judge had an interest as a member of a demographic group that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the case. This argument would require judges to recuse from a wide range of civil rights and other cases simply because of their race, religion or sexual orientation. Such an approach probably would have required the entire Supreme Court to recuse from the recent UT affirmative action case (for whatever reason Whelan never called for that even though all the Justices are members of ethnic groups affected by affirmative action and presumably have family members applying to colleges and universities). Whelan’s position on recusal is as absurd as Trump's position from which Whelan now struggles to distance himself.
Whelan and Trump are not only illogical but highly selective in targeting judges from certain groups. The principal difference between the two is that one displays animosity toward the civil rights of gays (as illustrated by dozens of posts on National Review on-line over many years) and the other displays animosity toward persons of Mexican descent (as illustrated by dozens of comments made to the media and at campaign rallies). This type of animosity towards entire groups of people is not an intellectual argument. It is a dangerous mode of thinking that elsewhere has already proven its capacity to destroy the rule of law, and ultimately human civilization itself.
