DONALD Trump's lawyers have accused New York's Attorney General of trying to extort money out of him in a legal case over the property mogul's Trump University,
Eric Schneiderman has raised a £26 million lawsuit alleging students were given expensive and mostly useless seminars and Trump University failed to deliver promised apprenticeships.
Lawyers for Mr Trump, who owns a luxury golf course in Aberdeenshire, said the claims were false and politically motivated.
Mr Schneiderman says 5000 students who paid up to $35,000 for courses to learn about property dealing thought they would meet Mr Trump. Instead, he says, their photographs were taken with a life-sized picture of the businessman.
He said: "Trump University engaged in deception at every stage of consumers' advancement through costly programs and caused real financial harm."
It is being alleged students were urged to extend the limit on their credit cards for property deals, but then used the credit to pay for the Trump Elite programs.
Mr Schneiderman said the programme also failed to promptly cancel memberships when it promised to.
It is claimed many of the students were unable to land even one real estate deal and ended up worse off than before the lessons, facing thousands of dollars of debt.
But Mr Trump's side said Mr Schneiderman was trying to extort campaign contributions from the real estate mogul through his investigation.
Mr Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen also said the lawsuit filed at the weekend is filled with falsehoods, and Mr Trump and his university defrauded no-one.
The lawyer said Trump will not be extorted by anyone, including the attorney general.
Mr Cohen said: "The attorney general has been angry because he felt Mr Trump and his various companies should have done much more for him in terms of fundraising. This entire investigation is politically motivated and it is a tremendous waste of taxpayers' money."
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