A judge ruled against Donald Trump over his attempt to keep certain Trump University internal documents from public view.
A judge who was the target of an angry Donald Trump tirade at a recent campaign rally turned around just a few hours later and ordered sealed files on Trump University to be opened for public scrutiny.
It’s not clear if U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel gave the order, which came in response to a media request for access, based on statements Trump made at his San Diego convention center speech. But the timing is coincidental.
Trump during his speech called Curiel a “hater” abd spoke of his ethnic background, Politico reported.
Specifically, Trump said, the news outlet reported: “I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel … I think Judge Curiel should be ashamed of himself. I’m telling you, this court system, judges in this court system, federal court, they ought to look into Judge Curiel. Because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace, OK?”
And it was just a few hours laters, from a court room in the same city, that Curiel’s ruling was made public.
On top of that, Curiel referenced a couple of previous media stories that quoted Trump as characterizing him as an unfair judge, one entited “Trump: Judge’s ethnicity matters in Trump University suit,” Politico said.
Trump University has emerged as a thorn in the billionaire businessman’s side as he campaigns for president. Some have come forward to accuse the university of fraud and of Trump of fraudulently promising to deliver on certain benefits to graduates that never materialized.
Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing. But some internal university documents have been kept from public viewing. The documents, from 2009 and 2010, include information specific to running the enterprise and selling programs to customers. Trump attorneys say these documents, or “Playbooks,” contain trade and operational secrets and should therefore be exempt from open records’ requests.
But Curiel found otherwise.
“Defendant became the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race and has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue,” he wrote in his order to unseal the internal documents, Politico reported.
The order from Curiel came in direct response to the Washington Post’s request for records’ access. But students who attended the university between 2005 and 2010, and took its real estate offerings with hope to make big money post-graduation, have filed two class action lawsuits in San Diego, alleging fraud. The New York attorney general has also filed a separate suit on the same charges.
One attorney for Trump, Alan Garten, told CNN in a previous interview about the allegations that plenty of students were satisfied with their course offerings, which ranged in price from $1,495 for three-day seminars to $35,000 for “Gold” programs that provided one-on-one mentoring, real estate trips and access to those with financial expertise.
“All we can do is provide the tools for people to go out there and apply these things,” Garten said, in the previous interview. “I can’t control what happens out in the real world. If someone goes and takes our classes and decides to sit on their couch and not apply them, I can’t help that, OK?”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/trump-university-playbook-files-ordered-unsealed/
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