Trump University: No 'Trump,' No 'University,' Lawsuit Says

This may shock you, but new court documents show that Donald Trump maybe wasn’t telling the whole truth about a past business venture of his.

Trump University, a Donald education program, promised “hand-picked instructors” who would teach students Trump’s real estate tricks and have them making money in no time.

But the “university,” according to two lawsuits still wending through the courts:

1. was not an actual university;
2. did not include instructors that Trump picked or vetted;
3. probably involved little to no oversight from Trump himself; and
4. actually caused students to go into thousands of dollars of debt with no real skills learned or deals completed.

Trump faces at least two lawsuits — one from the New York Attorney General’s Office in 2013 and a class-action lawsuit filed in San Diego federal court in 2010 — saying that he defrauded students out of millions of dollars.

And a deposition as part of the civil suit released last week shows he apparently knew that everything wasn’t so above board.

Here’s what to know.

Experts Who?

Advertisements promised that students would “learn from my hand-picked experts,” New York Attorney General A.G. Schneiderman said. His investigation found that “Trump did not handpick even a single instructor at these seminars” after all.

In the deposition as part of the civil suit, released last week, Trump asked an interviewer to “give me a list” of instructors, then said it was so long ago that he couldn’t remember who any of them were.

“Johnny Harris?”

“Too many years.”

“Tim Gorsline?”

“Too many years.”

And on and on it went.

Trump was also shown pictures, videos and audio recordings of people and asked to identify them as students, instructors or neither. No dice on those, either.

So much for that “world's greatest memory.”

Not A “University”

“Trump University” was also not, in fact, a real university, something New York education officials did not take lightly, according to Schneiderman.

It was not licensed or chartered to call itself such, Schneiderman said. But it still used a “University-like seal” on advertisements and gave out “diploma-like Certificates of Completion” to people who made it through, Schneiderman said.

The New York State Education Department told Trump to change the name in 2005, but he didn’t do so until 2010, when it became the “Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.”

Free Can Be Pretty Expensive

Trump’s not-actually-a-university still cost as much as a real one, according to the lawsuits.

First, people were lured to a “free” workshop, usually at a hotel ballroom, where prospective students were offered a $1,495, three-day seminar. Then, students were persuaded to join “expensive Trump Elite mentorship programs costing $10,000 to $35,000,” Schneiderman said.

Not So “Trump,” Either

While Trump’s name, face and branding were all over everything (as they are with many of Trump’s business ventures), it’s unclear how much of a hand he actually had in developing and running the thing.

Schneiderman said he “had little or no role in developing any of the Trump University curricula, or seminar content.” In the deposition, Trump said that he never reviewed any resumes or transcripts of students who attended his “school.”

And Trump apparently didn’t do too much quality control on the classes themselves, either.

“I would go and just walk in and just stand in the back of the room on occasion just to see how they were doing,” he said in the deposition.

What Education?

After attending the three-day seminar, students were encouraged to call their credit card companies to raise their credit limit so they could pay for the costly elite mentorship program, Schneiderman said.

“Despite diligent efforts, many consumers were unable to conclude even a single real estate deal and were left worse off than they had been before enrolling in the Trump University programs,” Schneiderman said.

“Some consumers faced thousands of dollars of debt due to the expensive cost of the Elite Programs. Many felt they had been victims of an elaborate scam.”

What Has Trump Said?

This may shock you, but Trump and his representatives have responded with brash, over-the-top statements about the lawsuits. They say that students should have known what they were getting themselves in to.

“We’re completely winning this case,” Alan Garten, a Trump attorney, told the Washington Post. “People who say, ‘I thought it was a university with a football team and a bookstore,’ it’s laughable.”

At the last Republican debate, Trump said, “This is a case I could have settled very easily, but I don’t settle cases very easily when I’m right.”

Will This Be Trump’s Doom In The Election?

Let's check the record.

He proposed banning all Muslims from the country, called Megyn Kelly a “bimbo,” called Mexicans rapists, encouraged violence at his rallies, bragged about the size of his penis during a debate and only reluctantly denounced a KKK leader’s endorsement.

Care to guess whether this "university" thing will doom him?

Image via Gage Skidmore, Flickr, used under Creative Commons