Allies of Rudy Giuliani are reportedly pressing Team Trump to help the former mayor and Donald Trump’s former personal attorney with his mounting legal bills.
According to the New York Times, Giuliani’s advisers have been pressing aides to former President Donald J. Trump to reach into a $250 million war chest to pay Giuliani for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who was appointed by Giuliani when he served as mayor wrote on Twitter: “I want to know what the @GOP did with the quarter of $1 billion they collected for the election legal fight. Lawyers and law firms that didn’t do shit were paid lots of money and the people that worked their ass off, got nothing.”
Giuliani led the effort to challenge the results of the election in a series of battleground states, but he was not paid for the work, people close to Giuliani and Trump told the Times.
Now, Giuliani’s pals want the Trump campaign to pay him for his services from the money it raised in the weeks after the election and to absorb costs he has incurred in the defamation suits.
Guiliani’s team increased pressure on Team Trump after federal prosecutors executed a search warrant at his Manhattan apartment and seized electronic devices as part of an investigation into his dealings with Ukraine.
Authorities are investigating whether Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs, who were allegedly helping him to dig up dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden.
Giuliani has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.
Giuliani is also being sued for defamation by two voting machines companies, Dominion and Smartmatic for spreading the false claim that the companies were involved in a conspiracy to steal the election from Trump by flipping his votes to Biden.
While some aides to the former mayor are blaming those around Trump for Giuliani not receiving payment, the Times notes that Trump is actually the one refusing to pay Giuliani.
Even though Trump agreed to reimburse Giuliani for more than 200k before he left the White House, he did not do so. He reportedly told his advisers that he did not want Giuliani to receive any payment.
