In the compendium of horrors that is Donald Trump, Trump University could be the defining meltdown - if there's any justice, which he is trying his best to elude.

Because not only will multiple lawsuits expose him as someone with the business ethic of a loan shark, he is threatening the independence of the judiciary by smearing a judge for, what else, his ethnicity.

Trump is facing three lawsuits over the defunct Trump University, which former employees describe as more of a get-rich scam than an institution of learning, one that plaintiffs and New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman say bilked desperate people out of $40 million during the depths of the recession.

The cases center around two issues: It isn't an accredited University, which means Trump engaged in fraud, as Schneiderman defines it; and Trump's up-front promise of "hand-picked experts" who would teach "my personal secrets" was a lie. Trump didn't pick the faculty, didn't know the curriculum, and never attended a seminar.

The sales playbook released by a judge showed that Trump U followed a singular business model: Identify prospects who have money to spend on seminars, then get them to spend as much of it as possible. Teaching attendees to raise their credit limit in order to pay for $35,000 seminars was common.

The California class-action suit will be illuminating. Testimony from former employees like sales manager Ronald Schnackenberg is scathing: Trump U "claimed it wanted to help consumers make money in real estate," he said, but in fact it was "only interested in selling every person the most expensive seminars they possibly could."

His affidavit concluded, "Trump University was a fraudulent scheme, that preyed upon the elderly and uneducated."

In the end, attendees got a useless diploma and a photo of themselves with a Trump cardboard cutout. That is not a joke.

These predatory methods provide a glimpse inside a black heart, which Trump prefers to keep hidden until after Election Day.

So using the campaign tool that works so well for him, he decided to stir ethnic hatred by going after the judge who ordered the documents unsealed in the California suit, Gonzalo Curiel.

For months, Trump has noted that Curiel is "Mexican" and "totally biased," that his court is "a rigged system." He added last week that his lawyers may ask for a recusal because of Curiel's "hostility" to the fact that Trump is "strong on the border."

By this logic, no Latino judge can oversee a Trump case. For what it's worth, Curiel is from Indiana, and he is former prosecutor whose life has been threatened by Mexican drug cartels.

The case in his court begins Nov. 28. That leaves six months for Trump to use harassment and threats to influence the federal judiciary. It is a frightening strategy for a man who is asking voters to grant him the power to appoint independent minds to the bench.

More: Recent Star-Ledger editorials.

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