The Old Post Office building in Washington, DC, on March 10, 2016 which will become Trump International Hotel Washington.

A judge late Thursday denied efforts by Donald Trump’s lawyers to withhold testimony suggesting that one of his companies kept at least two sets of financial projections — one for internal use, according to court records, and a “heightened” or “more aggressive” set whose function has so far been withheld from public view.

The order, issued late Thursday, followed a legal action filed by BuzzFeed News arguing that the testimony should not be withheld because Trump’s business record is particularly important to the public because he is the Republican Party nominee for president — and that his lawyers failed to meet the legal standard of showing the remarks were “trade secrets.”

The testimony concerns Trump’s $200 million project to transform the Old Post Office building — a taxpayer-owned landmark just five blocks from White House — into a luxury hotel. If Trump’s hotel company, owned by the candidate and three of his children, made decisions based on conservative expectations but presented more positive numbers to stakeholders such as bankers or government officials, that could raise serious ethical and even legal questions.

Trump Organization General Counsel Alan Garten said, “We respectfully disagree with the judge’s ruling,” and called it “unprecedented.”

“I thought it was a basic principle of the legal system that all litigants should be treated equally,” Garten said in an interview late Thursday. He said it appears Trump is being treated differently because he is running for President of the United States.

About the testimony that could show Trump’s hotel company kept two sets of financial projections, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization emailed BuzzFeed News the following statement: “Because no one can predict the future, it is standard practice in virtually every industry for businesses to run multiple financial models analyzing projected performance based on varying outcomes. Once again, this is yet another example of the media attempting to make something out of nothing.”

In the order, Judge Brian Holeman of DC Superior Court said that both sides — Trump and the defendant in the case, celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian — but particularly Trump’s, had “undertaken great efforts to prevent the public from accessing records normally made available to the public.” He said “the public’s interest is heightened in an action involving a candidate seeking public office.”



Trump’s side “apparently expects this Court to ‘rubber stamp’” its requested redactions “even in the absence of required support materials,” the judge wrote.

The judge denied requests by Trump’s lawyers to withhold large sections of testimony, including a statement by Donald Trump and large parts of depositions given by a financial analyst for the project, as well as videotaped depositions of Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

Because the judge denied the request for secrecy by Trump’s lawyers, he did not address BuzzFeed News’ motion in his order.

The testimony about financial projections arose in a lawsuit Trump has brought against Zakarian, known for his appearances as an “Iron Chef” on the Food Network. The chef had contracted to open "a first-class, high quality modern French/American Bistro” on the ground floor of the hotel, with windows and sidewalk seating right on Pennsylvania Avenue.

But then Trump announced his bid for the presidency and made incendiary remarks about Mexican immigrants, saying: “They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Zakarian pulled out, and Trump sued him, demanding $14 million.

As part of that suit, financial analyst Raymond Flores, who worked for Trump’s hotel company, was deposed in May. Excerpts from his deposition were released last month, but key passages were redacted at the request of Trump’s lawyers. Still, those excerpts contain passages that suggest the Trump team had more than one set of financial projections.