LA Times biz columnist: Trump threatened to sue me

David Lazarus, a business columnist for the Los Angeles Times, writes Thursday about how president-elect Donald Trump threatened to sue him after he wrote critically about Trump University.

Lazarus writes, “I got a distinctly different impression when I attended a Trump University seminar at the Pasadena Hilton in 2007 and spoke with prospective and former students.

The event turned out to be nothing more than a two-hour sales pitch for a three-day workshop costing nearly $1,500. The ‘priceless information’ on making millions from real estate promised in an ad could be boiled down to this: Buy low, sell high.

“After I wrote about my seminar experience, Trump called to say he was going to sue me for the ‘inaccurate and libelous’ things I’d written. He also contacted my editor to say that I’m a ‘nasty guy’ and that the Los Angeles Times should fire me.

“He never sued. I’m still employed.

“If Trump had gone to trial, he’d have to explain hundreds of pages of Trump University ‘playbooks’ that had been introduced by plaintiffs’ lawyers as evidence in the case.”

Read more here. Lazarus was listed as a potential witness in Trump University litigation that was recently settled. Trump’s lawyers filed a motion to block him from taking the witness stand.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.