The saga of Trump University is not something that has recently burst upon the national scene, much as the veterans' charity story involving Donald Trump grabbed the nation's and maybe the world's attention late in May 2016. Trump University has been in the news for years because of those attending the real estate seminars bringing to public attention claims that they had been fleeced out of their money and their bringing lawsuits to recover their tuition fees. In 2011, the designation of "university" was stripped away, due to the enterprise not having the attributes of a university. Subsequently, the name was changed to the "Trump Entrepreneurial Enterprise."
Trump University emerged as an issue in a February Republican presidential debate, when Marco Rubio used it as a means of characterizing Trump as a con artist; however, the issue exploded into the public arena when the judge presiding over a class action lawsuit ordered the release of documents that had been sealed. A "playbook" became a particular focus of attention, as it gave detailed instructions as to how instructors should react if a journalist should appear at a seminar, or designating the person to contact if a prosecutor showed up.
More importantly, there were designated levels of course payments, culminating in the gold standard of nearly $35,000, which would get a person face time with Donald Trump. Instructors were strongly urged to tell seminar attendees to max out their credit cards, or even get more cards to max out. Retirement savings should be tapped if need be. Although the Trump organization produced three individuals who were very satisfied with what they had learned from the courses they took, reporters later discovered that the three were employees of Trump enterprises.
Although the released documents state that Donald Trump personally hired the instructors and was closely involved in how the university was run, in a court disposition that Trump signed, he said he was not involved in hiring instructors and was not involved in how the university was run.
Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that he will triumph in the class action lawsuit scheduled to take place after the November election, and he has recently said he will restart the university after he wins the lawsuit.
What seems to have bothered GOP political heavy hitters more than the fleecing of attendees at the Trump instructional seminars is Trump's verbal assaults on the presiding judge in the class action lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Trump made his first reported comments about Judge Curiel in February 2016, linking Curiel's Mexican heritage with what Trump described as the judge's "tremendous hostility" toward him, over Trump's plan to build a wall along the Mexican border. Trump has variously referred to Curiel as Spanish, Mexican and Hispanic, and has called the judge "a hater of Donald Trump." Trump also told the Wall Street Journal that Curiel has "an absolute conflict of interest," because of his heritage, as well as having "an inherent conflict of interest" because Trump wants to build the border wall.
For the record, Curiel was born in Indiana of emigrant parents from Mexico. He has served as a federal prosecutor, a state judge in California and on the federal bench since 2011.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said of Trump's statements about the judge: "It's reasoning I don't relate to. I completely disagree with the thinking behind that." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has said that Trump's statements about Curiel are the "worst mistakes" Trump has yet made. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has condemned Trump's statements but resisted a reporter's repeated attempts to get him to label the statements racist.
In an interview this past week with CBS's chief political adviser John Dickerson, Trump was asked if he might say much the same things that he has said about Judge Curiel, about a judge with a Muslim heritage. Trump said he might, but it would not be racist, but just "common sense."
On June 4th the Associated Press broke a Texas-based story on Trump University. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a cease and desist order to former Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection, John Owens, after Owens made copies public of a 14-page internal summary of the state's case against Trump for scamming millions of students at his real estate seminars. Owens said he was told to drop the case in 2010, after Trump's company agreed to cease operations in Texas.. Owens told the Associated Press that the decision left bilked students on their own to recover their tuition money.
John Owens' boss at the time was then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, now the state's governor. Three years after the decision was made to drop the case, Abbott received a $35,000 donation from Donald Trump for his, Abbott's, political campaign. Abbott has disavowed any connection between the decision to drop the case against Trump University and the $35,000 donation, citing the three-year interval between the two events and his contention that the decision was made at a lower level than him.
Donald Trump has recently released a written statement that he will no longer be making statements about Judge Curiel; however, he did not apologize for his prior statements and he argued that his several very specific derogatory statements about Judge Curiel had been "misconstrued." Also, in an interview with Fox personality Bill O'Reilly after the release of Trump's written statement, Trump did, in fact, discuss his characterizations of Judge Curiel.
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