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.