After I had represented Donald's company for a time, an opportunity to acquire the Miss Universe pageant became available. There was to be an auction of the rights; and Donald and a longtime client of mine separately expressed their interest in acquiring the Miss Universe rights.
Rather than see the two bidding against each other, I suggested that they join together in acquiring the rights. Both seemed to like the idea, and we scheduled a breakfast meeting at my client's Park Avenue apartment.
During the first part of the meeting, we spoke of the two acquiring the rights together. Later, however, Donald began to say he might decide not to be involved with the pageant, but that he was sure the rights would never go for as much as $10 million and he would keep my client informed as to what he thought would be a winning bid.
Some time after that, my client got a call from Donald telling him that he had definitely decided not to participate in the bidding for the pageant. Naturally, my other client bid the amount Donald said would do the job. Sadly, he was informed that his was only the second highest bid. Someone had bid $10 million. Who was the successful bidder? Donald Trump! Not only that, his lawyers had apparently prepared the documents for Donald to buy the rights even before our breakfast meeting. Donald had simply lied from the beginning in order to keep my client from making a competitive bid.
I immediately wrote Donald a letter telling him that, in light of his deceitful behavior I would no longer represent him, or his company.
