Rudy Giuliani Can’t Pay His Bills After Hitching His Wagon to Trump’s Failed Election Coup

 

Rudy Giuliani Can’t Pay His Bills After Hitching His Wagon to Trump’s Failed Election Coup

 

The ex-mayor’s lawyer shed some light on his financial situation in court this week.

 

BY BESS LEVIN

AUGUST 16, 2023

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/08/rudy-giuliani-cant-pay-his-bills

 

As reasonable people can probably all agree, plotting to overturn the results of a free and fair election is an extremely bad idea from a moral, reputational, and legal perspective. (Have you heard? You might actually go to jail for it!) On a practical level, it also turns out to be a really bad idea to try and overturn an election if you don‘t have the deep pockets of, say, a former reality-TV show host whose supporters seem all too happy to foot legal bills. Like if you’re a former New York City mayor turned national embarrassment now best known for confusing a five-star hotel with a landscaping business of the same name and having no choice but to see it through, shaving in the middle of a restaurant, and accidentally appearing in a Sacha Baron Cohen movie with your hand down your pants, you should take a cold hard look at your finances, realize they probably can’t withstand the risks of an attempted coup, and call it a day. Rudy Giuliani, for one, knows what we’re talking about.

 

CNN reports that the mayor turned Trump attorney is “staring down hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills and sanctions amid numerous lawsuits in addition to the new criminal charges—related to his work for Donald Trump after the 2020 election.” How bad is the situation? So bad that in court on Monday, Giuliani said his legal situation has basically left him with no cash. So bad that in court on Wednesday, Adam Katz, at attorney for Giuliani said there “are a lot of bills that he’s not paying” as a result. So bad that he’s listed his Manhattan apartment for sale.* Is it so bad that he’s going to have to film more cigar and gold coin ads? That remains to be seen, but it’s probably getting close! Speaking about Giuliani’s financial situation, this week Katz said the former mayor does not have the funds to produce records in voting technology company Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News and others, including Giuliani. Katz added that the apparent cash crunch is “very humbling for Mr. Giuliani.” On Wednesday, a judge gave Giuliani two weeks to come up with the money necessary to generate the records for Smartmatic; if he can’t, he’ll be forced to pay some of the company’s legal fees (which he presumably does not have the money to cover, either.)

 

Of course, the lawsuit from Smartmatic is not the only legal issue facing Giuliani. He’s also being sued for defamation by, among others, Dominion Voting Systems and Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, who he has conceded he made false statements about concerning the 2020 election. Also, there are those pesky criminal charges, per CNN:

 

The criminal charges that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought against Trump, Giuliani and 17 others will undoubtedly add to the former mayor’s legal bills.

 

That prosecution is separate from the federal election subversion investigation that looms over Giuliani. He is “Co-conspirator 1” in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. While he has not been indicted, prosecutors continue to investigate, including speaking with Giuliani’s ally, Bernie Kerik, about what Giuliani did to prove that Trump actually won the election, among other things, Kerik’s attorney told CNN.

 

Giuliani is also being sued by former employee Noelle Dunphy, who has accused him of “sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct,” and is seeking $10 million in damages. (Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, disputed Dunphy’s claims to CBS News and insisted that “This was a consensual relationship.”)

 

Robert Costello, an attorney for Giuliani, declined CNN’s request for comment. After he was indicted in Georgia, the former mayor said, “This is a completely unjustified and disgusting act of retribution, as I had the temerity to unveil the biggest scandal in American history—and for that, my parents are proud of me, and I don’t give a damn about the rest.”

 

*Giuliani has obviously not publicly stated that he’s trying to sell the apartment because he needs money ASAP, and it’s possible he’s just looking for a change of scenery—but it also seems quite-to-very possible he’s doing it for the cash, given his financial situation. Maybe he’ll appear on an episode of Million Dollar Listing and let us know.

 

Jack Smith has more than just Trump’s tweets

 

The special counsel has the ex-president’s DMs and drafts too—no thanks to Elon Musk. Per Politico:

 

Special counsel Jack Smith obtained an extraordinary array of data from Twitter about Donald Trump’s account—from direct messages to draft tweets to location data—newly unsealed court filings reveal. But it took a bruising battle with Twitter’s attorneys in January and February—punctuated by a blistering analysis by a federal judge, who wondered whether Elon Musk was attempting to “cozy up” to the former president by resisting the special counsel’s demands—before prosecutors got the goods.

 

Ultimately, US district judge Beryl Howell held Twitter (now known as X) in contempt of court in February, fining the company $350,000 for missing a court-ordered deadline to comply with Smith’s search warrant. But the newly unsealed transcripts of the proceedings in her courtroom show that the fine was the least of the punishment. Howell lit into Twitter for taking “extraordinary” and apparently unprecedented steps to give Trump advance notice about the search warrant—despite prosecutors’ warnings, backed by unspecified evidence, that notifying Trump could cause grave damage to their investigation.

 

“Is this to make Donald Trump feel like he is a particularly welcomed new renewed user of Twitter?” Howell asked during a hearing in February. While lawyers for the company insisted that was not the case, it does not appear that Howell bought what they were selling, asking if the social media network was taking “momentous” steps to protect Trump not afforded to other users “because the new CEO wants to cozy up with the former president?”