When Donald Trump tried to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014, investment bankers doubted the NFL would allow it but encouraged him to stay in the running, according to internal emails aired Tuesday at the former president's civil fraud trial. “Trump has little chance of being approved by the NFL,' given that he had owned casinos and had a role in the rival USFL's 1980s antitrust suit against the NFL, then-Morgan Stanley executive K. Don Cornwell wrote to colleagues in April 2014.
In offering to buy the Bills, Trump cited his net worth as $8 billion in an initial offer letter but never provided his financial statements. His then-lawyer Michael Cohen told the bankers that Trump wouldn't release his financial records until told he was “the final bidder,” according to an email shown in court Tuesday. Instead, at a presentation to the bankers, Trump handed out copies of one of Forbes magazine's lists of wealthy celebrities, former Morgan Stanley Managing Director K.