August 26, 2016

The Trump Files: Donald Couldn’t Name Any of His “Handpicked” Trump U Professors

Ivylise Simones

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Until the election, we’re bringing you “The Trump Files,” a daily dose of telling episodes, strange but true stories, or curious scenes from the life of GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“We’re going to have professors and adjunct professors that are absolutely terrific,” Donald Trump once promised potential students at the now-defunct Trump University in a marketing video. “Terrific people. Terrific brains. Successful.” And to reassure them, he made a promise: “These are all people that are handpicked by me.”

Not quite.

Trump University has been sued for illegal business practices, fraud, and racketeering three times, once by the state of New York and twice by former students in federal courts in California. The school was also investigated and then ceased operations in Texas, where a state regulator claims the probe was dropped for “political reasons”—Trump later gave $35,000 to the gubernatorial campaign of Greg Abbott, who was the Texas attorney general during the Trump University investigation. And it turned out that the “terrific” instructors at Trump University turned out to be mostly high-pressure salesmen who pushed attendees to purchase $35,000 Trump University courses, even if it meant calling their banks for a credit limit raise on the spot. The professorial ranks included people with no real estate experience and even a convicted felon. Donald Trump knew none of them.

As investigative reporter David Cay Johnston wrote in his new book, The Making of Donald Trump, Trump admitted during legal proceedings that his claims to have handpicked the faculty were false.

In 2012, when Trump was sued for civil fraud in California, attorney Rachel Jensen read the names of one faculty member after another, displayed photographs of them, and offered video footage of faculty at Trump University “live events.” Trump, who complained that this line of questioning was a waste of time, could not identify a single person. “Too many years ago…too many years ago…it’s ancient history,” he said. Some of these events had taken place fewer than two years earlier.

Jensen finally asked Trump if he could name a single Trump University “live events” instructor. “I don’t know the instructors,” he replied.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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