Trump University Settles Fraud Claims for $25M | Hacker News Reader

Trump University Settles Fraud Claims for $25M

bloomberg.com

65 pointsspuiszis36 comments

“Donald Trump fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeals and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Today, that all changes. Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”

That's not even 5k a head. A pittance, really.

"Trump, 70, was accused of conning thousands of students, [...], into paying as much as $35,000 [...]"

Any idea how much money a student on average lost? If that number is close to the 35k, receiving a little less than 5k is an utter travesty.

It probably won't even end up costing them the headline amount. Much of the settlement will likely be tax deductible similar to other government deals [1][2].

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2016/01/19/goldman-sa...

[2] http://www.newsweek.com/2014/11/07/giant-penalties-are-giant...

You forgot to take the attorney's fees off the top first. Even at the low end of the scale ~30%, that brings the individual payouts to less than $3K.

"Lawyers for the students agreed to forgo legal fees as part of the settlement."

You're right. That detail was left out of another article I read about the case, which must have been what I used as my source. It seems strange that attorneys would waive fees in a suit against a billionaire that has dragged out for nearly 4 years now. That's a lot of goodwill.

Everything seems like a win to Donald Trump. Great (?) watch http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/

Weren't the defendants in a position of greater leverage once he was elected president? From what I'd read, it would have been the first time a sitting president was forced to defend himself in a criminal trial. So if you've endured this legal battle for so long, why settle for a relatively small amount just when your leverage has started to climb?

No, he had less leverage. Ongoing lawsuits are embarrassing. Being deposed as the sitting President is really embarrassing. Settling the case was the smart thing.

Pretty sure that OP was wondering why the plaintiffs agreed to settle, not the other way around.

Of course that was my point.

A few years ago Silvio Berlusconi used his position as prime minister of Italy to get laws enacted that granted his person immunity in various ongoing bribery and corruption cases, which then had to be dropped.

I can only wonder what effect this would have on voters if it settled prior the the election.

None. The people who opposed Trump would still have opposed him, and the people who supported him would have brought up the Clinton email scandal and accused the media of slander and propaganda for even trying to equivocate him with "crooked Hillary."

Trump quipped during the election that he could shoot somebody and not lose voters, and I kind of suspect he wasn't wrong. His support was a matter of reactionist ideology - it didn't matter if he was honest, competent, or sincere, only that he served as the vessel for the right wing zeitgeist.

Your absurd reductionism is so simple and nice. Shame it has no grounding in reality and only makes the whole shithole we live in worse.

Sure, we can spew bs how its racists misoginists haters and worst of all white men

Or we could have a discussion about facts and issues

People are tired of rampant "social justice" that is vindictive and spiteful

People are tired of being called racists wholesale

Clinton gave some random dude highest clearance, he stepped down right after the press found it out

She took bribes not to declare tourism area dangerous even though she was advised to do so by pretty much everybody

She is mixed in so many scandals, sure, Trump is a scumbag, but what was her message in the race?

The worst possible identity politics - vote for me, otherwise you are racist deplorable trash.

I MEAN WHAT

Well, someone's jimmies are rustled.

>Sure, we can spew bs how its racists misoginists haters and worst of all white men

We can, as you apparently are, but I never did. I'm guessing this is where you try to set me up as some kind of SJW strawman, tell me what I really believe and then proceed to tear down the arguments I never actually made?

>People are tired of rampant "social justice" that is vindictive and spiteful >People are tired of being called racists wholesale

Sure, some people are. But Trump can't outlaw "social justice" and can't force people not to accept political correctness, so I have to ask, whether these complaints are relevant in the context of this particular discussion?

>She is mixed in so many scandals, sure, Trump is a scumbag, but what was her message in the race?

>The worst possible identity politics - vote for me, otherwise you are racist deplorable trash.

That wasn't her message, and you probably know perfectly well that it wasn't.

Your comment provides an example of exactly the reactionist ideology I was talking about. You want to discuss "facts and issues" but provide little more than an emotionally charged and intellectually vacant polemic, appealing to anti-left stereotypes and hyperbole. You accuse me of absurd reductionism while apparently blind to the degree to which you're engaging in it yourself, thereby proving my point.

You see, I'm actually proper leftist.

I'm from Europe and I laugh my ass off watching your failing healthcare, your nuclear student debt, your crime, the like

I'm a proper leftist - I want taxes for the rich, singlepayer healthcare, free education, worker rights, real environment protection, etc etc

I'm just outraged at what the fuck is happening. The "left" is so laughable that in Poland we have an upcoming dictator that just took over supreme court, is building a second, volounteer "defence army" that the ruling party just struck down regulation prohibiting it from being used against polish citizens and is on the record saying "we must hold onto power no matter what"

You've got brexit, you've got Trump. In Sweden you got SD, France is looking more and more that Le Pen will win.

And you know why? It's your own fault. The "left" is not able to deal in reality no more and it was busy alienating and radicalising the right

The "clinton email" scandal you put into sweet quotation marks has emails that nicely explain it all as it was happening.

She is THE "devil". She is the epitome of what's wrong with your politics. She is a sellout, she fucked Bernie with a giant cactus (A man who I was so rooting for). She is so despicable that she was unable to beat Trump, who you could tell after 15 minutes of the debate has no fucking clue.

At least he looked genuine, he was uncomfortable and pissed during the debate I watched. She just pandered and pandered and slinged shit at him.

Yes, my jimmies are rustled.

Not because Trump won, I'm not happy Clinton lost, as it was pyrrhic victory.

I'm pissed because the response (from the media) to the "end times" (as I see it) is more bullshit and idiocy, more "ZOMG RACISM, ZOMG WHITELASH"

What the fuck?!

>The "clinton email" scandal you put into sweet quotation marks has emails that nicely explain it all as it was happening.

I never actually put that into "sweet quotation marks."

What you're describing is a systemic problem affecting both the right and the left in the US - each is alienating and radicalizing the other.

>She is THE "devil". She is the epitome of what's wrong with your politics. She is a sellout, she fucked Bernie with a giant cactus (A man who I was so rooting for). She is so despicable that she was unable to beat Trump, who you could tell after 15 minutes of the debate has no fucking clue.

The problem is that Hillary Clinton was the only possible choice out of two valid choices - I wanted to vote for Bernie but I didn't have the option because, among other reasons, the DNC decided a Jew wouldn't be able to carry the south. The problem is also that many Trump supporters don't seem to care that he has no clue. It's as if the right wing is Caligula and they elected a horse President just to see the look on the faces of the Washington elites when he takes a shit on the oval office floor.

You want to talk about being disassociated from reality? I'm from a predominantly Republican and right-wing state that took the conspiracy theories about Jade Helm seriously enough that they mobilized the national guard just in case Obama really was massing globalist shock troops ready to take over the state and start killing Christians and patriots.

I spent the entire election cycle listening to arguments about Hillary's kill count, how Hillary dealt arms to terrorists, how Hillary ran a child sex ring, how Hillary secretly had a brain disease, how Hillary kidnapped a guy and had him tied up in her basement, how Hillary engaged in macabre satanic rituals, how Hillary controlled the media, literally the entire media, but almost nothing about her actual policies and why they were wrong from a political point of view.

No one is willing to concede that reasonable people can disagree anymore - that is the problem with our politics. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are just symptoms - the tumors, but not the cancer.

The American left may be condescending and pandering but the American right has become utterly unhinged, and if Trump is really the best answer they can come up with to address their grievances then as far as I'm concerned they deserve to be marginalized.

It shouldn't be DNC's choice who wins the nomination...why even bother with voting if apparently it doesn't matter?

And my point is the left is so pathetic right now that it lost to Trump and looks like it will loose to similar unhinged people in entirety of Europe

Go on youtube and look for "trump voters getting attacked"

There are genuine scandals with Clinton, yet all we hear is just the retarded flat-earth grade ones

My point is, when you loose to somebody like Trump, did the DNC, the media, the establishment go "hold on a sec, wth just happened?"

Nope, they just doubled down on their nonsense

You've got people burning the US flag now, immigrants being called racists, thugs attacking people in the street

Go watch Hyperreality by Adam Curtis. Then watch "Only the dead know the end of war"

You know, a tiny part of me died during those movies. (however kitsch and melodramatic it sounds) People lived in good times, during the cold war. All they had to worry about was thermonuclear death.

I grew up watching people getting beheaded, murdered, blown to fucking shreds, watched entire middle east murderfuck itself into some sick and twisted kind of hell (all thanks to west's glorious incompetence).

And it's slowly happening in the west too. The west created a monster, and now the monster is past our door, living among us.

I suggest you go to France, to regions where the islamists ("refugees") are concentrating, before you come out with all the "racist" and other "ists" and "isms"

>if Trump is really the best answer they can come up with to address their grievances then as far as I'm concerned they deserve to be marginalized

As that stupid prick Milo said "social justice is dead". The left is learning it cannot shut down discourse with "-ism" spam anymore, but they managed to build up a tide.

You know who made fucking Faux News? It was CNN and ABC and the like, with their horrible propaganda - for a LOOOOONG time their coverage was biased and one had to cross-reference it against a lot of other sources. Now you've got two completely biased bs news (make no mistake, as an European US CNN is fucking disgusting Goebbels-level shit)

Now one had to look through dozen of fringe news sources, having a court proceeding in ones head to try to decide which one is the least bs

And now thanks to lack of credibility you've got fucking cretins rioting (and screaming "peaceful protest" and assauting people in the day. Fuck it all

If it looks like I'm cheering for that, it is somewhat nihilistic

Maybe the non-reality will come crashing down before it's too late.

Judging from the left's reaction, there is no fucking hope

It makes you wonder how many people consider politics to be like sport - you have your team and stick with them. Even if a player on a team is accused of a crime (usually sexual) fans often stick with them and blame the victim instead.

All the people on the other team. My side only supports decent people, though.

Its all.belief and tribalism. Just like religion and sports. Fundamental lizard brain stuff.

Scary to see where thats led us throughout history.

knee-jerk tribalism a difficult trap to avoid. Even on HN, which is supposed to self-select for high intellect and curiosity, politics seems to short-circuit otherwise reasonable and intelligent people's rational thinking. I've fallen prey to it a number of times without even realizing it.

Agreed. Forums do have one advantage: you have the opportunity to review what you wrote before you submit. And if we can note politely when we see it in others, maybe we can build better habits. Who knows? We manage to shape our speech in different contexts.

Maybe I could have a little js script (that I run myself) that detects language I'd rather not use. Kind of like a spell checker. I could choose to turn it on, and I could choose to ignore its suggestions. Or maybe more like an ignition interlock, but one I can override :)

Judging from other disclosures (p__sy grabbing, etc.)nothing was going to stop voters for voting for him.

None. Had it he would have. He didn't because had he lost he'd be fighting on - but as president elect he has to clean house, so expect to see many if not all suits against him and his entities settled imminently. It'll make him look generous, gracious, glorious, statesmanlike and all that jazz, and will probably buy a number of new supporters. No, now is the time that maximal political capital can be yielded - turn those liabilities into assets before they become toxic. I bet the total cost per "PR point" is less than a conventional advertising/PR campaign.

He's going to be wildly popular - I wouldn't be surprised if his second term sees an 80% majority. Read that however you will.

That is quite a claim. Not sure if you mean popular or electoral but that does not seem to be the trend and it would pretty much have to be electoral. Last time someone won by 80% was Bush #1 in 1988.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...

Yeah, and you're one of the guys who I'm sure called me a wingnut when I said brexit then trump would happen.

Do you think nazarbayev has a 95% approval rating? Because he does. Do you think 95% of people like him? Hint: no. Will he be president until death? Yes.

Why would trump do differently?

You're either naive, a lackey in waiting, or both.

He also knows this kind of money is a pittance for him now. Just by his new relationship with Putin alone he should have no problem racking up another few billion after his term. He's headed for a different tier of wealth now.

After? During you mean.. think of all those deals his kids could be making around the world with foreign jurisdictions to steer US legislation and policies in the right direction.

Let history books show: I dare bet, with almost absolute certainty, this was the best deal Donald Trump ever made. In 10-20 years, his empire will be worth many (more) billions.

Already in the works:

https://thinkprogress.org/this-isnt-just-a-photo-of-ivanka-t...

No! The Donald is a good man! Always a good man! He didn't say anything if those things on the campaign. What campaign? What's a twitter? He doesn't use twitter.

No he I'll be proud dignified statesman president no looting USA good Russia bad.

What part of that don't you understand? Of course trump won't be elected. Of course brexit won't happen. What kind of idiot are you?

I wonder if Donald Trump of 2012 would let a President Elect who was found to have conned thousands without making a big deal of it. "Worst abuse of power ever" or something like that.

The thing with a settlement. He now wont be found to have conned thousands.

If you are curious like I was why this wasn't a bigger issue during the election, turns out the other candidate wasn't in a position to take the moral high ground on this either.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/bill-clinton-laureate-...

One big difference is that Laureate's schools are generally legitimate, with proper accreditation and whose degrees actually have some value. Generally about the worst you can say for most of the programs and schools is that you may have been able to get a better deal financial at a non-profit school.

Trump University, on the other hand, was pretty much a straight up rip off.

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