Giuliani Tries to Protect Trump, Despite Unpaid $2 Million Legal Bill

Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg/Getty Images

During his now-dismissed bankruptcy case, Rudy Giuliani claimed the 2020 Donald Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee still owe him around $2 million, as he “never got a salary” for his spurious efforts to overturn the election results. And if you believe a CNN report from last year, Trump refused to pay Giuliani even after he went to Mar-a-Lago with his lawyer and begged:

Giuliani and [Robert] Costello traveled to Florida in late April where they had two meetings with Trump to discuss Giuliani’s seven-figure legal fees, making several pitches about how paying Giuliani’s bills was ultimately in Trump’s best interest.

But the former president, who is notoriously strict about dipping into his own coffers, didn’t seem very interested. 

But despite Trump’s apparent unwillingness to pay Giuliani what he’s owed — let alone help him out of his dire financial predicament — the former New York mayor said he’s still worried about tarnishing Trump’s image.

Giuliani was already in significant financial trouble when a jury ordered him to pay $148 million in damages for defaming Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in December 2023. Now Freeman and Moss are attempting to make Giuliani pay up, asking a federal judge in New York to force Giuliani to turn over various assets. But in a court filing this week, Giuliani’s attorneys argued that Freeman and Moss should not be allowed to pursue the money Trump allegedly owes Giuliani — at least until after the election. Giuliani’s team said this would create a “media frenzy” by making it appear that he is suing Trump right before the November election:

The Court, in its discretion, should postpone a turnover of this claim until November 6, 2024, the day after Election Day. Otherwise, Plaintiffs will or may use this assignment for an improper, political (or, at least, collateral) purpose, creating the confusing, and inaccurate, appearance that Defendant is now somehow suing candidate Trump, thereby generating an accompanying, and unnecessary, media frenzy. Plainly, the value of this claim will not depreciate between now and November 6, 2024.

In the same filing, Giuliani’s team objected to Freeman and Moss’s efforts to seize various other assets, including his properties in New York and Florida, a watch gifted to him by the president of France, and a 1980 Mercedes previously owned by Lauren Bacall. And in a separate filing this week, Andrew Giuliani argued that three of his dad’s Yankees World Series rings shouldn’t be seized because Giuliani gifted them to him years ago. So this could be another delay tactic, or Giuliani may truly be concerned about dragging the former president deeper into his own legal troubles — though it really seems like Trump has been a stingy boss and a terrible friend.