Author: Nafisa Hoodbhoy

SAN DIEGO, Nov 19—President-elect Donald Trump has reached a $25 million settlement to resolve litigation in New York and California involving allegations of fraud at the now-defunct Trump University, an agreement that resolves a major litigation headache before he enters the White House.

Attorneys for the parties announced the settlement, which is still subject to court approval, during a Friday court hearing.

Mr. Trump has been battling cases brought in California by consumers who alleged the New York businessman’s for-profit real-estate school falsely promised that its seminars would teach them Mr. Trump’s strategies for success. New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman also brought similar claims in separate litigation and will be allocated $4 million of the settlement proceeds.

Mr. Trump has denied the allegations, saying students got their money’s worth from the seminars and that many students gave positive reviews.

Mr. Trump, who announced senior administration appointments on Friday, addressed the settlement on Twitter Saturday morning, saying he agreed to settle because of his election as president.

“I settled the Trump University lawsuit for a small fraction of the potential award because as President I have to focus on our country,” he said in one tweet. “The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!,” he wrote in another.

The settlement could benefit thousands of consumers who enrolled in Trump University courses, which cost between roughly $1,500 and $35,000.

Mr. Trump won’t admit any wrongdoing as part of the agreement. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said: “While we have no doubt that Trump University would have prevailed at trial based on the merits of this case, resolution of these matters allows President-elect Trump to devote his full attention to the important issues facing our great nation.”

Daniel Petrocelli, an attorney for Mr. Trump, said outside the courthouse that while Mr. Trump “can fight, as we all know,” he put aside his personal beliefs to forge the agreement and avoid trial.

Mr. Schneiderman in a statement said the settlement “is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers will forego taking a percentage of the settlement for attorney fees, an attorney for the students said in court, though $1 million of the funds has been allocated for expenses.

“Plaintiffs are very pleased to be able to pay off their credit cards and move on with their lives,” Rachel Jensen, an attorney for the ex-students, said in court.

The settlement comes as Mr. Trump’s team had been seeking to postpone trial proceedings in one of the California cases, which was scheduled to get under way Nov. 28.

During the Friday hearing, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego said he would review the deal to see if it is “fair, adequate and reasonable.”

He added that “with respect to this country,” he hopes the settlement is the “beginning of a healing process that this country sorely needs.” At a hearing last week, the judge urged the parties to settle the case.

Trial proceedings already had been postponed during the presidential campaign so the case wouldn’t interfere with the election. After he won the White House, Mr. Trump sought another delay, saying he needed to be preparing for his new administration, not the litigation. He also sought permission to testify remotely in the case instead of having to appear in person in front of jurors and Judge Curiel.

While the GOP presidential nominee, Mr. Trump criticized Judge Curiel for not dismissing the case before trial, alleging the judge was biased, given his “Mexican heritage” and Mr. Trump’s tough stance on illegal immigrants from Mexico. Those comments were widely criticized. Judge Curiel, whose parents are from Mexico, was born in Indiana.

The case is one of several that threatened to intrude on Mr. Trump’s early tenure as president.
Other cases include litigation between Mr. Trump and two prominent chefs who withdrew from plans to open restaurants in a new Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., citing incendiary remarks by the New York businessman on the campaign trail.

Millions of Americans registered a protest vote on Tuesday, expressing their fierce opposition to an economic and political system that puts wealthy and corporate interests over their own. I strongly supported Hillary Clinton, campaigned hard on her behalf, and believed she was the right choice on Election Day. But Donald J. Trump won the White House because his campaign rhetoric successfully tapped into a very real and justified anger, an anger that many traditional Democrats feel.

I am saddened, but not surprised, by the outcome. It is no shock to me that millions of people who voted for Mr. Trump did so because they are sick and tired of the economic, political and media status quo.
Working families watch as politicians get campaign financial support from billionaires and corporate interests — and then ignore the needs of ordinary Americans. Over the last 30 years, too many Americans were sold out by their corporate bosses. They work longer hours for lower wages as they see decent paying jobs go to China, Mexico or some other low-wage country. They are tired of having chief executives make 300 times what they do, while 52 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. Many of their once beautiful rural towns have depopulated, their downtown stores are shuttered, and their kids are leaving home because there are no jobs — all while corporations suck the wealth out of their communities and stuff them into offshore accounts.

Working Americans can’t afford decent, quality child care for their children. They can’t send their kids to college, and they have nothing in the bank as they head into retirement. In many parts of the country they can’t find affordable housing, and they find the cost of health insurance much too high. Too many families exist in despair as drugs, alcohol and suicide cut life short for a growing number of people.
President-elect Trump is right: The American people want change. But what kind of change will he be offering them? Will he have the courage to stand up to the most powerful people in this country who are responsible for the economic pain that so many working families feel, or will he turn the anger of the majority against minorities, immigrants, the poor and the helpless?

Will he have the courage to stand up to Wall Street, work to break up the “too big to fail” financial institutions and demand that big banks invest in small businesses and create jobs in rural America and inner cities? Or, will he appoint another Wall Street banker to run the Treasury Department and continue business as usual? Will he, as he promised during the campaign, really take on the pharmaceutical industry and lower the price of prescription drugs?

I am deeply distressed to hear stories of Americans being intimidated and harassed in the wake of Mr. Trump’s victory, and I hear the cries of families who are living in fear of being torn apart. We have come too far as a country in combating discrimination. We are not going back. Rest assured, there is no compromise on racism, bigotry, xenophobia and sexism. We will fight it in all its forms, whenever and wherever it re-emerges.

I will keep an open mind to see what ideas Mr. Trump offers and when and how we can work together. Having lost the nationwide popular vote, however, he would do well to heed the views of progressives. If the president-elect is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families, I’m going to present some very real opportunities for him to earn my support.

Let’s rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and create millions of well-paying jobs. Let’s raise the minimum wage to a living wage, help students afford to go to college, provide paid family and medical leave and expand Social Security. Let’s reform an economic system that enables billionaires like Mr. Trump not to pay a nickel in federal income taxes. And most important, let’s end the ability of wealthy campaign contributors to buy elections.

In the coming days, I will also provide a series of reforms to reinvigorate the Democratic Party. I believe strongly that the party must break loose from its corporate establishment ties and, once again, become a grass-roots party of working people, the elderly and the poor. We must open the doors of the party to welcome in the idealism and energy of young people and all Americans who are fighting for economic, social, racial and environmental justice. We must have the courage to take on the greed and power of Wall Street, the drug companies, the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry.

When my presidential campaign came to an end, I pledged to my supporters that the political revolution would continue. And now, more than ever, that must happen. We are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. When we stand together and don’t let demagogues divide us up by race, gender or national origin, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. We must go forward, not backward.

Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont, was a candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.