Donald Trump speaks at a December campaign event. (AP photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Internal documents in a class-action lawsuit against Trump University, the now-defunct real estate school owned by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, will be publicly released by Thursday, under a federal judge’s order issued last week.
The order by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego came Friday in response to a request by the Washington Post. The Post reported on the order Saturday.
Trump University has been cited in anti-Trump political ads during the primary campaign as evidence that Trump doesn’t fulfill his promises. Trump’s lawyers deny any wrongdoing in the case before Curiel as well as another class-action suit in San Diego and a $40 million lawsuit filed in 2013 by the state of New York alleging that more than 5,000 people had been defrauded.
The New York billionaire has claimed that Curiel is a “hater of Donald Trump” and should be ashamed of how he has handled the case. Trump also has questioned whether Curiel, who is Hispanic, is biased against him because of his call for deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Trump has also attacked the Post for stories it has produced about his past actions, including impersonating a public relations man to promote himself to news outlets.
The lawsuit overseen by Curiel states that Trump University’s nationwide seminars and classes were like infomercials and pressured students to buy more but didn’t deliver as promised in spite of students paying as much as $35,000 for seminars. Curiel already has set a Nov. 28 trial date.
The Post reported that Curiel’s order to release an estimated 1,000 pages of documents cites heightened public interest in Trump and that he had “placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.” The judge appeared to reject the argument by Trump’s lawyers that the information had commercial value, saying that there was no support for the assertion that Trump University may resume operations.
Donald Trump speaks at a December campaign event. (AP photo/Susan Walsh) 
