Donald Trump Fires Back At New York Attorney General Over Fraud Lawsuit [Video]
Donald Trump vs. Eric Schneiderman: It’s on.
Trump blasted New York Attorney General Schneiderman as a political hack for filing the Trump University fraud lawsuit and suggested the elected official might be doing the bidding of President Obama. The pushback against the charges includes a new website.
The $40 million lawsuit lawsuit alleges that Trump ran a phony university that promised to make its students rich. Instead, it enrolled them in overpriced and mostly useless seminars.
The real estate mogul and Celebrity Apprentice host made his feelings clear about the Trump University lawsuit on ABC News yesterday. See embed above.
“Anybody that that knows anything about Eric Schneiderman, we know he’s a political hack. I know him very well. He comes up to my office looking for campaign contributions. He tells me lots of unflattering things about Obama; he tells me lots of unflattering things about Gov. Cuomo. He was very upset that with the fact we didn’t help him; he thought we should have helped him much more. This guy is a political hack from beginning to end.”
As far as the allegations against Trump University are concerned, The Donald insisted that it is a “terrific school… that had a 98 percent approval rating from students… the school is terrific and did a great job.”
Trump then questioned whether Obama involved in the lawsuit: “By the way, [Schneiderman] meets with President Obama on Thursday evening in Syracuse. On Saturday at 1:00 he files a suit… Who ever heard of a government agency bringing a lawsuit on Saturday afternoon. He’s been looking into this thing for two years. He brings a lawsuit on Saturday afternoon, right after he meets with President Obama… Maybe it’s a mini IRS.”
The IRS reference likely refers to the ongoing IRS scandal in which the tax collecting agency improperly targeted political opponents of the Obama administration.
Trump added the AG expected him to settle to avoid the controversy going public, which Trump rejected. “Guess what, I don’t mind the bad publicity. Who gets more bad publicity than me anyway?”
The tycoon has launched a website called 98percentapproval.com in which he further slams the attorney general for “gross incompetence.”
Trump has a tendency to promote all of his ventures with over-the-top language. Whether this rises to the level of fraud remains to be proven. On the other hand, this wouldn’t be the first politically motivated lawsuit filed by a grandstanding state attorney general or U.S. attorney.
In a June New York Post column, prominent business reporter Charlie Gasparino suggested that Schneiderman, a Democrat, only investigates Obama critics when it comes to alleged financial improprieties “but hasn’t lifted an investigative finger when it comes to the sleaze involving fat cats in his own party.”
