“I believe in playing to people's desires, where they want to rent an apartment or buy an apartment or rent office space. I've never seen anybody say, gee, my building's doing terribly, why don't you rent an apartment,” Donald Trump said. | Getty Newly released Trump testimony on Trump University could trigger video deposition battle

Lawyers suing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for fraud over his Trump University real estate seminar program are making public more of his testimony in the case, including how he batted away questions about whether instructors in the program intentionally lied to students.

Attorneys pressing a pair of class-action suits against Trump also made a move Friday that could increase the political pain for the candidate: They said they’re planning to file with a federal court in San Diego excerpts of videos of Trump’s two recent depositions in the case.


That’s likely to trigger a battle over whether the videos should be made public. With likely Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton blasting Trump and his self-styled university as a “fraud,” it seems a certainty that video of Trump being grilled about the venture will be featured in TV attack ads if the recordings are released.

The newly filed transcripts of portions of Trump’s testimony provide more fodder for Clinton and others charging that Trump University took advantage of people in financial straits looking to make quick cash.

Asked at a December deposition whether Trump University was designed to capitalize on people’s “fantasies” about making a fortune in real estate, the veteran developer said it was just common sense to paint a rosy scenario.

“I believe in playing to people’s desires, where they want to rent an apartment or buy an apartment or rent office space. I’ve never seen anybody say, gee, my building’s doing terribly, why don’t you rent an apartment,” Trump said.

Pressed on the “fantasy” issue, Trump conceded he didn’t have a problem with those kinds of sales techniques.

“I see nothing wrong,” the real estate mogul said. “Sure, you want to — life, you want to — you want to play to something that’s positive and beautiful. And you can use the word ‘fantasy’ if you want. Or I could use the word ‘fantasy,’ but, sure, you want to play to something that’s beautiful and good and successful.”

Deposition excerpts filed Friday also include Trump being questioned about his past praise for Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. Those sections of Trump’s testimony were made public in March, but the inclusion of them in Friday’s submission could be the first step in making video of that questioning public.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers also grilled Trump about statements in his books, including an endorsement of “truthful hyperbole” and “an innocent form of exaggeration.” The language appears in his 1987 memoir, “The Art of the Deal.”

Asked whether he still believes in “innocent exaggeration,” the all-but-certain GOP nominee replied: “Yeah. I mean, fine. Innocent exaggeration … I mean, I guess … I think everybody says the same thing.”

During the deposition last December, plaintiffs’ lawyer Jason Forge also put Trump on the spot about statements in a 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” in which he branded education reform efforts a failure and complained that a revised scale for SAT tests amounted to “fraud.”

“The education industry is delivering less for more money and claiming no ground has been lost. It’s fraud, pure and simple,” Trump wrote.

Under questioning at the December deposition, Trump backed away from the claim of fraud by the education industry, suggesting he’d taken some literary license.

“It’s just, I’m trying to make a point. And it’s not fraud, but it’s — I’m trying to make a point as strongly as possible,” Trump said.

Trump emphasized the value of information in books like “The Art of the Deal,” even though Trump University charged far more – in some cases, up to $35,000 – for instruction in Trump’s real estate secrets.

“I would always stress that, read my books. Because, frankly, if you read the books, how much more can I say?” Trump said.

“Is there anything that you’re aware of that any of the live events instructors presented to students that wasn’t in your books?” Forge asked.

“I think everything I know is in the books,” Trump replied.

A lawyer for disgruntled students also quizzed Trump on whether he was aware that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman prodded Trump University to change its name in 2005.

Trump said he remembered the incident from 2005 “very vaguely, but I thought [Trump University President Michael Sexton] had it all worked out.” The state of New York pushed for years for the name change because the real estate seminars bore little resemblance to a university – but Trump U resisted the change until 2010.

However, Trump also said he did “nothing” to verify that the dispute over Trump University’s name, which Schneiderman has now seized on in a lawsuit he filed against Trump University, was resolved. At the same time, he insisted the issue could have been easily taken care of.

“This is a thing that is not very difficult to work out one way or the other, and I would have assumed that Mr. Sexton would have been able to work that out,” Trump said.

The back-and-forth about Trump’s writings underlined a key claim the former-student plaintiffs are making about the Trump University seminars: that the information taught in them was widely and more cheaply available in Trump’s books.

“TU did not educate anyone,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in a court filing Friday opposing a motion by Trump’s lawyers to resolve one of the suits in his favor. “TU’s instructors and employees have also confirmed that TU did not teach Trump’s secrets to student-victims … Indeed, Trump himself confirmed that he has no secret or unique real estate techniques, as ‘everything I know is in the books.’”

Trump’s lawyers also submitted new filings late Friday in which an expert disputed the significance of any exaggerations. Economist DeForest McDuff, who holds a doctorate from Princeton, said actions like the use of the Trump University name had a minimal impact on students’ decisions to enroll in the program. (The program was later rebranded the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, because of complaints that, in New York, use of the term “university” was illegal for a seminar program.)

“Most members of the Class had an attribution to the alleged conduct of no more than 0% to 5% of the amount paid for the seminar products,” McDuff wrote in a February report.

U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who has been the target of a series of withering attacks from Trump in recent days, has set a trial for November in one of the two federal class-action suits pending over Trump University. The other case has not yet been set for trial. A hearing on Trump’s motion for judgment in his favor in that case is set to be heard by Curiel on July 22, one day after the end of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

