When Donald Trump offered to pay $10,000 from his personal charitable foundation for a six-foot oil portrait of himself, the future president only meant to "get the bidding started" during a 2014 auction at his Mar-a-Lago resort, his lawyer told a New York judge.
"No one else bid," attorney Alan Futerfas said in a packed Manhattan courtroom on Thursday, so "he's stuck with the painting."
Trump's lawyer offered the account as one of several reasons why New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood's lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation should be tossed out, arguing that the transactions at the center of the case have innocent explanations or were corrected by the charity.