"Hater" Judge Attacked by Trump Orders Trump University Records Unsealed
Just days after Donald Trump went on a 10-minute rant calling federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel “negative,” a “hater” and a “Mexican, which is great,” the judge overseeing the class-action lawsuit against Trump University unsealed hundreds of internal documents related to the case, Reuters reports.
Since February, the presidential candidate has suggested Curiel’s ethnic background has caused him to be “extremely hostile” towards Trump and asked the judge to recuse himself from the case.
“I have a judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater. His name is Gonzalo Curiel,” said Trump at a campaign event on Friday. “The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great, I think that’s fine.”
Curiel (who was born in Indiana) ruled against Trump’s lawyers on Sunday, who, citing trade secrets, sought to keep Trump University documents requested by The Washington Post sealed. From The Wall Street Journal:
Among the documents to be unsealed are two sets of Trump University “playbooks,” outlining rules and procedures for running Trump University events and employee scripts for engaging with customers.
Some of the documents have already surfaced online. Online political website Politico in March posted a 2010 Trump University playbook, which instructed employees to rank students by liquid assets to help determine what kind of course packages they could afford to buy.
Other documents would be made public for the first time, including a sales playbook the judge said contained marketing techniques for selling Trump University programs. The unsealed versions will redact phone numbers and noncorporate email addresses.
In his order, Curiel acknowledged that Trump had questioned “the integrity of these court proceedings” but ruled that the public interest clearly outweighed the alleged commercial value of the largely “very routine and commonplace information.”
“Defendant’s assertion that the information retains any commercial value is speculative given the lack of any support for the statement that [Trump University] ‘may’ resume operations after six years,” wrote Curiel. “At the same time, the Post makes a strong argument that the public interest is heightened in this case.”
CORRECTION 6/6: An earlier version of this post linked to the incorrect Wall Street Journal article. It has since been updated.