Trump’s charity purchased $10K portrait of him at auction after no one else bid

President Trump’s charitable foundation paid $10,000 for an oil portrait of Trump at a 2014 auction after no other bids were received, according to an attorney for the president.

Alan Futerfas offered the account Thursday as one of several reasons for dismissing a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood (D) against the Donald J. Trump Foundation over transactions made the by charity, Bloomberg News reported.

{mosads}The lawyer told a packed courtroom in New York that when the president’s personal charitable foundation placed the bid, it was only intended to “get the bidding started.”

“No one else bid,” Futerfas said, adding that the foundation was then “stuck with the painting.” 

Some of the other transactions cited in the state’s lawsuit include a $25,000 payment in 2013 to a political organization working to reelect Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and a $100,000 payment in 2007 to cover a Mar-a-Lago legal settlement.

During the hearing, Futerfas reportedly said Underwood’s suit was politically biased, and he called it part of a larger effort by Democrats to undermine his client’s presidency.

Yael Fuchs, a lawyer for the state attorney general, reportedly contended that it “is beyond dispute that these were improper self-dealing transactions.”

New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla dismissed Futerfas’s claims of political bias, according to Bloomberg.

Scarpulla reportedly said she can’t decide on the case until an appellate court rules in a separate case on whether the president has immunity from litigation in state courts.