Trump You by Art Cohen
“The story of Trump University is a gripping tale of ego and deceit, and it exposes the con man who became president. And no one can tell it better than Cohen.” — David Corn
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Silicon Valley businessman and entrepreneur Art Cohen wasn’t involved in national politics when he sued Donald Trump. He certainly never expected to become a lead plaintiff or personally take on the former president in a class-action lawsuit. All he wanted was to right the wrong for thousands of scammed students and to get their money back — including his own.
To those unfamiliar with Trump University, it may sound like a joke. But it’s not, though the tale seems tall. Years before his White House run, the future president launched a for-profit education initiative — Trump University, or TrumpU for short — in which he promised to share his real estate secrets at seminars held in hotel ballrooms. As it turned out, TrumpU wasn’t an actual university and didn’t feature much input from Trump besides promotional materials and snazzy videos preaching “success.” Before it was shut down in 2010, TrumpU shattered the lives of thousands of student-victims, including Cohen.
Cohen’s stunning Trump You: Promises, Lies, and Corruption: My Battle with Donald Trump’s Fake University (Gatekeeper Press), co-written with investigative journalist Dan Good, vividly and accurately recounts the inside story of the TrumpU legal saga through the eyes of Cohen, who had a private view of Trump during the height of his presidential campaign. Cohen’s role as lead plaintiff in the RICO case Cohen v. Trump was a David and Goliath moment, a chance to help those who were harmed by fraud and deceit, including students who had lost their entire life savings on the scam.
THE UNDERDOG GETS HIS JUST DESERTS
Cohen knows he was taken in by Trump. Having enrolled in Trump University in 2009 to become a real estate developer, and after spending tens of thousands of dollars while getting nothing of value in return, Cohen joined a lawsuit against TrumpU in 2011 and became that lead plaintiff in 2013. He continued in this role until November 2016 and a $25 million settlement — the most expensive legal defeat of Donald Trump’s career — and the subsequent payouts for TrumpU’s thousands of victims.
At the time it all began, Trump’s oft-teased political ambitions seemed like a pipe dream. With the lawsuits still ongoing two years later, Trump switched gears and gunned for the oval office, leaving Cohen locked in a court battle against the potential leader of the free world. When the scandal threatened to derail his political goals, Trump defaulted to endless maneuvers to undermine the rule of law. Instead of negotiating a settlement in good faith, Trump prolonged litigation with a litany of motions, appeals and counter-suits, and used hostility and his national platform to get the trials pushed back.
Trump’s defense? Students weren’t dissatisfied with the services despite requests for refunds and complaints to the Better Business Bureau; in fact, he claimed that TrumpU had a 98 percent “approval rating.” Though that rating had nothing to do with the services rendered. Trump also blamed others for the poor performances of mentors and so-called professors for their lack of real estate experience. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Cohen witnessed a secret conversation in December 2015 between Trump and his attorney that reflected Trump’s intent to attack whomever and whatever he believed was a roadblock. During that hot-mic conversation, Trump also showed his tendency to speak in code. Directives were easy to miss to the untrained ear, but they represented subliminal calls to action to his supporters and enablers. It’s an unsettling and eye-opening moment for sure.
AFTERMATH AND FALLOUT
Trump vowed to never settle the cases with the line, “I’m not a settler,” but weeks ahead of trial he went back on his word by agreeing to the most expensive legal defeat of his career. All these years later, the TrumpU scandal may seem quaint and almost laughable, but in fact, it foreshadowed the direction and deceit that Trump’s presidency took, and the misuse of the court system to foment support from his base.
In this absolutely captivating recounting of his involvement with Trump University, Cohen has written a page-turner that reads like the best of fiction — but it’s not. With never-before-shared details of the legal saga that come from private conversations, notes and recollections, you will have a hard time putting the book down until the very last page.
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