By NICK GASS 05/31/16
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ripped into Donald Trump on Tuesday, days after the presumptive Republican nominee criticized a federal judge in a separate lawsuit against Trump University and prompted the judge to unseal a series of documents related to the case.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to keep the so-called “Playbooks” describing the operation under wraps, though U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel noted in his order that POLITICO published one such version in March. The candidate himself accused Curiel of being “biased” against him, sending multiple tweets over the weekend to that effect. Trump’s legal team has so far not brought a motion to have Curiel recuse himself.
“You are not allowed to protect the trade secrets of a three card Monte game,” said Schneiderman, who has brought his own lawsuit against Trump and his now-defunct real estate seminar operation. “Sections of the playbooks have been laid out in our papers that we’ve submitted in the New York court. It is clearly just a motivational speech to try to sell people at their weekend seminar that you can’t possibly learn everything about real estate in three days. You got to spend $10,000, $20,000 on what were called the Trump Elite program, so the playbook just shows it was a pitch up to try to dupe these people into spending more money.”
No judge in any of the three cases has dismissed the claims against Trump, Schneiderman said. “Every judge has said these are valid fraud claims. You defrauded people out of money. They’re entitled to their day in court. He keeps saying it’s an easy case to win but he keeps losing. All he’s doing is delaying.”
Trump has largely tried to deflect the public attention on the case with respect to his general election race with Hillary Clinton by noting that the cases are civil and not criminal in nature.
“If you look at the facts of this case, this shows someone who was absolutely shameless in his willingness to lie to people, to say whatever it took to induce them into his phony seminars,” Schneiderman said. “It was shameless. It was heartless. It’s important information to get out there and I think that between the judge releasing these records and other things, I hope all the facts will get out that can between now and the election. I think it’s important public policy.”
