A federal judge in San Diego ignored criticism from presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and ordered a batch of Trump University documents unsealed.
At his rally in San Diego on Friday, Trump called U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel a “very hostile judge” and described him as “Mexican.”
“I am getting railroaded by a legal system that frankly they should be ashamed of,” Trump told a crowd of between 7,000 and 10,000 at the San Diego Convention Center.
The order to unseal the documents came after the rally, and the judge wrote that the defendant — Trump — “has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue.” A copy of the order was obtained by the national political news website Politico.
Curiel was appointed to the federal bench by President Obama in 2012. Prior to that he was a Superior Court judge in San Diego. He was born and raised in Indiana.
The trial on the merits of the case is set for Nov. 28 in San Diego, and Trump said he plans to be in court to win it, even if he is the President-elect.
Attorneys for the former students argue that Trump failed to disclose that the now-defunct university was not accredited, nor did he disclose that he was not personally involved in hiring the professors.
The court documents, which Trump’s lawyers claim constitute trade secrets, are from the former university’s “playbooks.” The Washington Post filed a motion to make the documents public.
