A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, JULY 28 , 2020
case proceeded to trial.”
The White House did not re-
spond to requests for comment.
The questionable tactics used
by Trump University did not di-
minish some former students’
opinions of him, any more than
political setbacks have upset his
base. Some interviewed for this
report said Trump’s political re-
cord was good enough to out-
weigh their bad experience at
Trump University.
“Trump 2020!” said Michael
Sheehan of New York state.
In 2009, Sheehan paid $1,
to attend a three-day Trump
U niversity seminar at a Marriott
in Albany, N.Y. — then discovered
it was one long sales pitch
f or more-expensive programs.
“Trump was a big sham,” Sheehan
wrote in 2012, summing up his
experience in a court affidavit.
Now, Sheehan said, he doesn’t
blame Trump for Trump Univer-
sity. The instructors were proba-
bly at fault, he said: “I don’t think
he sat there and said, ‘Hey, I want
you to rip everybody off.’ ”
This year, he doesn’t blame
Trump for the worsening of the
coronavirus crisis. Trump’s ene-
mies are probably at fault, he
said. “You don’t think it’s very
convenient,” he said, that the
pandemic arrived in an election
year?
But others said they felt the
experience showed Trump was
willing to use his reputation as a
tough, heart-of-gold billionaire
against them — and to ask them
to believe him over their own
instincts.
Stephen Gilpin was one of
Trump University’s instructors.
He recalled sitting in on another
instructor’s class shortly after
joining the school in 2007. It was
nothing more than an up-sell, he
said, laden with false promises.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re
all going to be arrested,’ ” Gilpin
said.
Now, he and others said, the
Trump administration is trying a
similar tactic again, by asking
people to believe Trump’s rosy
predictions about the pandemic
— in the face of an increasingly
grim reality.
“It’s the same thing he does
today,” said Gilpin, who left theschool in 2011. “His behavior has
now become our norm.”
Trump University began in
2005, when Trump was at the
height of his fame from televi-
sion’s “The Apprentice.” Trump
invested about $2 million and
took near-complete control over
the school, according to court
filings by the New York attorney
general’s office. One executive
said in his deposition that Trump
personally approved all the ads.
The basic sales pitch of Trump
University was one that Trump
would reuse in his 2016 cam-
paign.
The billionaire had made
enough money for himself.
Now, he would put his famous
brain to work for the little guy.
“Come on America, pull your-
self up!” Trump said in one news-
paper ad, in the aftermath of the
2008 financial crisis. In the ad,
Trump said real estate was where
millionaires were made, “and
now I’m ready to teach you how
to do it.”
But Trump, the billionaire, still
wanted them to pay.
The costs ranged from $1,
for a three-day seminar to
$35,000 for a “Gold Elite” men-
toring program. One instructor,
James Harris, justified the charg-
es this way, according to a 2008
transcript of a class held in Atlan-
ta that was later filed as an
exhibit in a lawsuit: The money
wasn’t for Trump’s benefit. It was
for the students’ benefit. They
had to pay Trump, he said, to
show they were investing in
themselves.
“He is doing this so you assume
personal responsibility for doing
the work,” Harris said, according
to the transcript.
Harris did not respond to ques-
tions sent via email for this re-
port. In 2016, he told The Post
that “I was told to do one thing”
as a Trump University instructor:
“Make sure everybody bought”
more Trump University semi-
nars. “That is it.”
Vallie Dean, a retired teacher
who lives in Upper Marlboro,
Md., went to a free seminar in- The instructors told her
she should take another three-
day Trump University seminar in
Richmond. It cost $1,500.
At Trump University, saying
yes didn’t stop the pressure. As
Republican leaders would later
learn when dealing with Trump
himself, saying yes once wasn’t
the end. It was the beginning.
“I’m like a sheep led to slaugh-
ter,” Dean said.
In Richmond, Dean said, she
was told she should take another
class, in Houston, on tax liens. It
cost $9, 997. She paid. In Houston,
they told her Trump University
had a great investment opportu-
nity for her in Biloxi, Miss., which
required a $23, 980 payment. She
paid again.
In the end, Dean said, she
wound up with no property in
Mississippi, no valid tax liens and
not enough skills to become a real
estate investor. She had paid
more than $30,000, borrowing
from her tax-sheltered annuity.
“It was a bitter thing for me.
Here I am, I am a lowly school-
teacher, public school teacher.
Donald Trump is, according to
him, a very rich man,” Dean said.
“Now here I am, having to pay
money back for enriching some-
one that’s already rich.” She com-
plained in a letter to the Justice
Department that was submitted
as evidence in the New York
attorney general’s lawsuit.
Trump University attracted
more than 5,000 paying custom-
ers, according to court papers,
and took in more than $42 mil-
lion in revenue. Trump himself
got back his $2 million invest-
ment and got $5 million in profits
on top of that, according to filings
from the New York attorney gen-
eral.
But there was a problem —
disgruntled students.
At best, many former students
said, their thousands of dollars in
payments to Trump University
bought them rudimentary
knowledge of real estate, basic
lessons they could learn any-
where. At worst, they said, they
found their classes useless and
their high-dollar personal “men-
tors” unhelpful and hard to
reach.
Their complaints had begun to
bring scrutiny from state regula-
tors.
In Texas, Trump University
pulled out of the state after aninvestigation by the office of
then-Attorney General Greg Ab-
bott (R) — now the state’s gover-
nor — concluded that the compa-
ny was “engaging in false, mis-
leading and deceptive practices”
and had defrauded Te xas out of
$2.6 million. The school had
disputed that its classes were
deceptive, according to corre-
spondence later obtained by the
Dallas Morning News.
An estimated 267 Te xans spent
more than $425,000 on the three-
day seminars, and 39 purchased
the $35,000 packages, according
to John Owens, who was the
Te xas attorney general’s deputy
chief of consumer protection.
In public, Trump defended his
school. “The vast majority of
people love us,” Trump told the
New York Daily News in May- “Thousands and thousands
of people have taken our courses,
and very few have complained.”
But soon after, he shuttered
Trump University. In its offices on
the 32nd floor of a Trump-owned
office building, employees were
fired so fast that they left desks
still covered in work papers, said
one former Trump Organization
employee who spoke on the con-
dition of anonymity to preserve
relationships with the company.
“It was like a horror movie
where everyone just died and
their bodies disappeared,” the
person said.
In California, former students
filed two class-action suits
against Trump University, i n 2010
and 2013. In New York, then-At-
torney General Eric Schneider-
man (D) filed another in 2013,
alleging Trump University had
deceived its students.
What happened next will
sound familiar.
Trump attacked.
In New York, Trump filed a
formal ethics complaint against
Schneiderman, saying the attor-
ney general had pressured him
for campaign donations. The
state ethics board investigated
but decided not to pursue the
case, according to news reports.
Then there were the personal
attacks on Schneiderman, whom
Trump publicly called “dopey”
and a “loser.” On Twitter, Trump
also accused Schneiderman of
BIZ HERMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Tristan Snell, a former assistant attorney general in New York, said
the school “ had a fulfillment problem,” n ot unlike the virus battle.GABRIELLA DEMCZUK FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Vallie Dean, a retired teacher in Maryland, spent over $30,0 00 on
the school’s products. “It was a bitter thing for me,” Dean said.BY DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD,
JOSHUA PARTLOW
AND JONATHAN O’CONNELLThe judge was out to get him,
he said. So was that prosecutor in
New York, whom he called a
dopey loser on a witch hunt. So
were his critics, who he said were
all liars. Even some of his own
underlings had failed him — bad
people, it turned out. He said he
didn’t know them.
Donald Trump was in trouble.
Now, he was trying to attack
his way out, breaking all the
unwritten rules about the way a
man of his position should be-
have. The secret to his tactic: “I
don’t care” about breaking the
rules, Trump said at a news
conference. “Why antagonize?
Because I don’t care.”
That was 2016. He was talking
about a real estate school called
Trump University.
Trump University, which shut
down in 2011 after multiple inves-
tigations and student com-
plaints, was treated as a joke by
many of Trump’s political oppo-
nents — much as they treated
Trump Steaks or Trump Vodka.
But to those who knew the school
well, it wasn’t a joke.
It was a premonition.
The saga of Trump University
showed how far Trump would go
to deny, rather than fix, a prob-
lem, they said — a tactic they have
now seen him reuse as president
many times, including now, in
the face of a worsening pandem-
ic. For months, President Trump
promised something wonderful
but extremely unlikely — that the
virus would soon disappear.
John Brown, a former Trump
University student from New
York, said he understands why
some people believed him.
“This is how people get sucked
[in]. Because they want it,” Brown
said. “That’s what happened to
me.” He wanted to succeed so
badly that he paid $25,000 for a
Trump University “mentorship”
program, which left him deeply
disappointed.
Another former student, Bob
Guillo, said he felt a deep frustra-
tion at being unable to prevent
Trump University’s saga from
playing out again on a far larger
stage.
“ I tried to warn the American
people that if Donald Trump was
doing this to me, he’s going to do
the same thing if he’s ever elected
president,” Guillo said, referring
to interviews and TV appearanc-
es he did during the 2016 elec-
tion. “Unfortunately, people be-
lieved Trump. And they didn’t
believe Bob.”
Now, many former students,
instructors and lawyers who sued
Trump wonder whether, as he
faces a worsening pandemic, they
see parallels to another chapter
of Trump University’s story. Its
end.
Eventually, they said, Trump’s
attacks could not conceal the
huge gap between Trump Univer-
sity’s promises and its results. He
began to lash out, attacking his
antagonists as conspirators and
fools.
“It’s something I think about
all the time,” said Tristan Snell,
who was the lead attorney for the
New York state attorney general’s
office in a lawsuit against Trump
University. Snell said the school
“had a fulfillment problem”: It
could not deliver on the enrich-
ing real estate secrets it prom-
ised.
“Maybe that’s a good metaphor
for what’s happening in America
is that we have a fulfillment
problem,” he said. “You’ve sold X
and Y and Z and you can’t actual-
ly fulfill the order.”
In this case, Snell said, what
Trump promised but cannot pro-
vide is not real estate secrets. It is
something even harder to deliver
— victory against a deadly dis-
ease.
“The difference this time is the
fact that he’s r unning his game on
a virus,” Snell said. “A nd the virus
doesn’t care.”
Trump settled three lawsuits
against Trump University in
2016, after his election. Trump
University paid a total of $25 mil-
lion but did not admit fault on
claims that customers were de-
frauded by the school. When The
Washington Post asked about
Trump University recently, the
Trump Organization sent a state-
ment that focused on the law-
suits.
“A fter several years of litiga-
tion, Trump University was ami-
cably resolved and settled by the
parties with no admission of any
liability,” Kimberly Benza, a
Trump Organization spokes-
woman said in an email. “We
remain confident that we would
have absolutely prevailed had the
wearing makeup.
“It’s Tuesday. @AGSchneider-
man is wearing Revlon eyeliner
today,” Trump wrote in 2014.
Schneiderman, who resigned his
office in 2018 after allegations he
had abused women, declined to
comment for this report. He has
said his long eyelashes are a side
effect of glaucoma medication.
As the class-action lawsuits
proceeded in California in 2016,
Trump used Twitter to criticize
Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge
hearing those cases, as un-Ameri-
can. Curiel was born in Indiana to
parents who were Mexican immi-
grants. Trump called him “Mexi-
can,” saying he was biased be-
cause of Trump’s hard line on
illegal immigration.
Those attacks paralleled the
bitterest moments of Trump’s po-
litical career — his attacks on
GOP primary rival Te d Cruz’s
father and wife, his insults aimed
at s pecial counsel Robert S. Muel-
ler III and then at witnesses
during Trump’s impeachment tri-
al. All aimed to cast doubt on an
authority — or authority figures
— that might turn against Trump.
In the Trump University case,
opposing lawyers said, they
learned how to deal with Trump’s
eruptions. Ignore them. Keep dig-
ging. Let Trump talk to himself.
“A s difficult as it is, you can’t
get distracted with the mudsling-
ing or name-calling,” said Rachel
Jensen, one of the attorneys in
the California class-action cases.
“You have to remain disciplined
and focused on the substance.
Over time, it pays off.”
In Texas, after a months-long
investigation relying on under-
cover agents attending seminars,
the attorney general’s office
drafted a lawsuit in 2010 seeking
$5.4 million in restitution and
penalties. “We had the goods on
them,” Owens said.
But Owens’s bosses did not file
the suit. David Morales, then
deputy attorney general, said that
he spiked the suit without Ab-
bott’s input. “I approved an inves-
tigation into this company in Fall
2009 and did not file suit in
Spring 2010 due to lack of con-
sumer complaints,” he said in a
recent email.
In Florida, staffers for then-At-
torney General Pamela Bondi (R)
also pondered whether to pursue
an investigation of Trump Uni-
versity. Bondi’s office chose not
to. Around the same time, Bondi
received a $25,000 political do-
nation from Trump, made via
Trump’s charitable foundation.
Bondi’s staff said the donation
did not affect its decision.
Since then, Bondi and Morales
have risen to greater prominence.
In 2018, Trump nominated Mo-
rales to be a federal judge. And
Trump chose Bondi — now out of
office — to be one of his attorneys
during his impeachment trial
earlier this year.
In late 2016, Trump settled the
California and New York cases,
agreeing to payouts available to
more than 5,000 former Trump
University students.
But it was hardly a moment of
loss for Trump.
He had just been elected presi-
dent, having beaten a slew of
rivals who had tried to use Trump
University’s problems against
him.
“Donald Trump’s election ben-
efited Trump University students
around the country,” Jensen said.
“For everyone else, all I could say
was ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
Now, former students and
staffers at Trump University say
there is something familiar about
the present moment.
Trump is again struggling to
fulfill a promise and again facing
a growing backlash. His pre-
sumptive opponent in the 2020
election, Democrat Joe Biden,
seems to have learned the law-
yers’ lesson, ignoring many of
Trump’s attacks instead of ampli-
fying them with tit-for-tat re-
sponses.
But some former Trump Uni-
versity students say it’s too early
to believe that the covid- 19 crisis
will doom Trump’s presidency
after one term. They say they
learned in 2016 that there were
enough people who believed in
Trump the way they used to.
There might be enough in
2020, too.
“I think there are many people
who are saying — they’ve pulled
the curtain back, and they’re
saying, ‘Who’s this person behind
the curtain?’ ” said Brown, the
former Trump University student
who spent $25,000 on classes.
“Others are still under the spell,
this magical spell.”
“My father’s one of them,”
Brown said. He told his father, a
Trump supporter, about his expe-
riences with Trump University.
“He just said, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ That
was it.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Alice Crites contributed to this
report.Many in Trump U. fight now see it presaging a presidency
Spin, deflect, attack:
E x-students, lawyers
note pattern in pandemicTHOS ROBINSON/GETTY IMAGES
The unveiling of Trump University in 200 5 in New York. The real estate school, s hut in 2011, led to lawsuits and a $25 million settlement.