Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that Trump University, the candidate’s defunct for-profit school that charged some students tens of thousands of dollars, broke state law in part by operating as an “illegal, unlicensed university”.
Advertisement
“But he was clearly in charge of pitching this scam university to people, convincing them that it was his personal secrets and saying things like ‘come to the weekend seminar.’ ‘Learn what it took me a whole lifetime to learn in real estate.’ ‘You can get rich, too.’ That was his role”.
Some consumers, including thousands in a California class-action lawsuit, have complained that the courses were a ripoff.
Wednesday night, the Trump campaign shared a video on Trump’s social media accounts featuring testimonials from former Trump University students speaking positively about their experiences. Critics say the program was really a vehicle for separating the gullible from their money, but Trump has strongly denied that.
“He doesn’t have immunity from civil fraud trials”, he said.
‘Even if some people say, “Well, I actually kind of like the Volkswagen”, it’s still fraud because it’s not a Mercedes’.
A Trump representative disputed Schneiderman’s characterization of the talks.
Once-confidential manuals for Donald Trump’s one-time real estate business show the business encouraged high-pressure sales tactics and recognized it faced legal risks.
Schneiderman has endorsed Clinton in the presidential race, and holds a post on her campaign’s NY ‘leadership council’.
The “playbooks” contain rules and procedures for Trump University events, scripts for engaging with customers and employee policies and procedures.
Trump is now facing three separate lawsuits – two class action suits filed in California and one in ny by Schneiderman – which argue the program that took in an estimated $40 million, but was mired in fraud and deception.
But he insisted on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that politics had nothing to do with the decision to go to court in 2013, before the words “Trump” and “White House” were commonly linked in news coverage.
Judge Gonazalo Curiel said he chose to release the previously sealed testimony from one of the cases because of public interest since Trump “became the front-runner in the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race, and has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue”.
Advertisement
“It’s fraud. This is just straight up fraud”.
