If Bill Clinton can do it, so can Donald Trump. That's the argument that the Republican presidential front-runner debuted on Friday in a legal defense against allegations that his now-defunct Trump University committed fraud.
In a motion to dismiss a California lawsuit, Trump's lawyers argued that when Trump used the word "university" to market his real estate seminar program, it didn't actually mean anything concrete.
Trump's legal team cited how "The Clinton Global Initiative launched 'CGI University,' which is a 'network of global young leaders' that holds an annual meeting with the goal 'to create innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges."
The filing included an image of CGI University's logo, below.
That the Clintons' name and foundation should appear in Trump's legal defense against fraud allegations is hardly an accident.
Founded by former President Bill Clinton, the nonprofit Clinton Foundation and its Clinton Global Initiative have been criticized in recent years for accepting millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state. The CGI University program has also donated more than $3 million to fund university students' projects.
Trump University, on the other hand, was a for-profit entity, created by Trump to sell seminars and mentoring programs that promised to teach people how to become successful by investing in real estate. It folded in 2011, and thousands of former customers have claimed the seminars were deceptively marketed and failed to deliver what was promised.
As Trump seeks the Republican nomination for president this spring, the lingering fraud lawsuits against Trump University could cast a long shadow over his candidacy. Trump has been named as a witness in a separate California class action lawsuit that may be argued as early as next month.
By comparing Trump University's use of the word "university" to the Clinton Foundation's use of the term, Trump appears to be setting up a case that he can make to his supporters, that his actions as the founder of Trump University are no different than those of the spouse of his likely presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, in creating the Clinton Foundation.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign declined to say whether the candidate would cite the Clinton Foundation and its university on the campaign trail. Trump University dropped the word "University" from its name in 2010, under pressure from the New York State Department of Education, and rebranded itself as the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.
On Friday, Trump's lawyers argued that "university" is a word used by organizations "to market their products or services despite having no affiliation with a degree-granting university."
Along with "hand-picked" and "secrets," Trump's team claims that the terms are "classic examples of sales puffery common to advertising everywhere."
"Even Farmers Insurance runs a well-known series of commercials starring actor J.K. Simmons as 'Professor Nathaniel Burke; at University of Farmers," Trump's lawyers write, "where they aim to 'make you smarter' about insurance coverage."
The case, Cohen v. Trump, seeks to hold Trump liable for racketeering and for conspiring to defraud Trump University customers.
Read the defense motion below:
Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.