Trump University will come under new scrutiny Tuesday as a federal court is expected to release documents that Donald Trump’s attorney fought to keep private.
The documents include “playbooks” that detail scripts for enrolling prospective students in real estate investing classes.
Most of the documents are expected to be released at noon ET, although some may not be released until Thursday to give time to remove phone numbers and email addresses listed in them.
The documents were submitted as evidence in a California class action suit seeking damages for Trump University attendees who in some cases paid tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.
Trump had promised in ads that he had personally selected instructors to teach his secrets for making money on real estate. In depositions, Trump did not recognize the name of the instructors and admitted that others selected the staff.
Trump University began operations in 2005. In 2010, the New York Department of Education demanded that the name Trump University be changed because it violated state education laws. It was renamed the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative and shut down in 2011.
The order to release the documents was granted after a request by the Washington Post. Trump’s lawyers lost their argument that the documents constituted trade secrets that should be kept private.
U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel said in his ruling last week that there is public interest in the documents. Since the proceedings first began, Trump “became the front-runner in the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race, and has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue,” Curiel wrote.
Trump has cited Curiel’s Mexican heritage in complaining about his treatment in the case. “There should be no trial. This should have been dismissed on summary judgment easily, everybody says it,” Trump said on Friday. “But I have judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He’s a hater.” Later in the rally, Trump added: “The judge, who happens to be, we believe, Mexican, which is great.”
In all, there are three lawsuits against Trump University: Two class action suits in California and a civil suit brought by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
“If you tell people we’re going to teach you Donald Trump’s secrets, and he never had any part in writing the curriculum, that’s fraud,” Schneiderman told CNN in March.
— CNN’s Kevin Bohn contributed to this report