Let The Donald Trump Political Show Trial Begin!

New York is putting a Donald Trump business venture on trial for "improprieties" that law schools get away with every day.

onApril 27, 2016 at 10:08 AM

Donald Trump Wikipedia In what we’re supposed to dismiss as a complete coincidence, Democrat and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is pushing forward with a lawsuit against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s now-defunct business venture, Trump University.

For the unfamiliar, Donald Trump lent his name to a series of real estate seminars that did what just every real estate seminar ever has done: charge people a ton of money for vague advice about getting rich quick. In Trump’s case, students paid up to $35,000 each for the privilege of learning the art of the deal from real estate gurus hand-picked by Trump. Or… probably not hand-picked by Trump, but at least waved at once, in a crowd, from across the street, by Trump.

Yesterday afternoon, Justice Cynthia Kern of the New York County Supreme Court ruled that the Attorney General office’s case against Trump should go to trial. It’s yet another setback for the bloviating billionaire, who faces a class-action suit in California over these same seminars.

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While not nearly as hypocritical as suing smartphone-based daily fantasy leagues while New York state continues to bilk orders of magnitude more cash out of poor people cashing paychecks at liquor stores for Daily 4 tickets, Schneiderman’s effort to crackdown on Republican Trump comes across flat on the day after we were reminded that most law schools are cynically pumping ill-prepared students for way more than Trump University took and sending their graduates into the maw of a bar exam they cannot hope to pass.

The worst allegations in Schneiderman’s suit revolve around calling the entity a “university” when it wasn’t a college-credit granting institution — which fooled exactly no reasonable person — and requiring students to fill out reviews before getting their “diploma.” Hell, I’ve attended CLEs that do that. He also alleges that the program failed to actually teach someone to be a real estate mogul. Are you telling me that wannabe real estate moguls and asset managers were worse served by Trump U. than a New York bar applicant who went to Ave Maria Law School? They didn’t teach most of their students to be lawyers either, and that’s much, much worse.

For-profit colleges (and law schools) are a serious pox on the educational landscape, taking money to cut corners and kick students out the other side with a degree that falls short of what society expects that degree to stand for. Trump University was not that. It was a get rich quick spiel with a loosely involved celebrity spokeshairpiece and it marketed itself pretty much exactly as such.

If any of its advertisements crossed the line from mere puffery into false advertising that could dupe a reasonable person, then by all means negotiate a slap on the wrist, but in a world where law schools can play fast and loose with employment statistics without crossing into liability, it’s hard to see “implying that Mr. Trump would personally appear” as a fraudulent ad.