Trump University taught ‘housing crash’ plan

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s eponymous business seminar programme created a class to teach students how to cash in on US mortgage foreclosures during the housing crisis.

Trump University promised in 2009 that its “Fast Track to Foreclosure Inves-ting” would teach students how to take advantage of the crisis, according to university documents unsealed last week in a lawsuit agai-nst the now-defunct programme. The release will likely stoke criticism from the campaign of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who last week accused her likely rival in the No-vember 8 presidential election of having cheered on the 2008 housing crash as an investment opportunity.

A spokeswoman for Mr Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, although Mr Trump reacted to Ms Clinton’s criticism last week, saying: “What am I going to do I’m in business.”

A Trump University ad released in the case said one of its free investor wor-kshops would explain how to “Cash in on one of the greatest property liquidations in history!” Trump University instructors were to teach students how to “c-apitalise without harm” and find ways for “sellers to move on without shame,” according to a summary of the seminar.

An earlier 2007 memo to enrollment counsellors stated that about 1.5 million US homeowners would face foreclosure that year and laid out how they should advise students to seize the “tremendous opportunity” to purchase properties at “major discounts” in “hot markets” such as Arizona, Florida and Texas.

Meanwhile, New York's attorney-general, who has filed a lawsuit against Mr Trump’s education venture slammed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee on Tuesday for his attack on a US district judge’s ethnicity.

“This was a fraud from top to bottom. He’s using every trick he can to delay the release of documents, to delay the trials, attacking the judge for his ethnicity, attacking me and accusing me of conspiring with the President of the United States,” NewYork attorney-general Eric Schneiderman said.