Debts appear to be mounting for Rudy Giuliani, as two judges over recent weeks have heard claims that the Trump attorney can’t pay his bills.
Giuliani argued this week, for instance, that he can’t afford to conduct some document searches as part of a defamation suit filed against him by Georgia polls worker Ruby Freeman.
In a declaration submitted in the case, Giuliani said that he would have to pay more than $320,000 “to become current on my arrearage” with legal document host TrustPoint One and to “have access to the documents as well costs incurred in searching the documents again for additional files requested by Plaintiffs.”
“I do not have the funds to pay this amount at this time,” he said in the declaration.
Attorneys for Giuliani said that they want Freeman, who the former NYC mayor falsely accused of being involved in an extensive voter fraud scheme, to cover the costs of the search.
The documents that Giuliani says he can’t afford to sift through encompass electronic records seized by the FBI in April 2021 searches of his apartment and offices. Giuliani unconvincingly argued in the court filing that he had “no recollection of texting or messaging prior to April of 2021 regarding Plaintiffs or the 2020 Election controversy in Fulton County, Georgia.”
Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss have faced a torrent of abuse from the MAGA right after Giuliani and President Donald Trump alleged without any basis that a video showed the pair carrying out a scheme to mess with Georgia’s vote.
Giuliani attempted to have the defamation suit dismissed, but U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell for the District of Columbia allowed the case to proceed to the discovery phase last year.
In her ruling, Howell found that Giuliani had used Freeman as part of a “strategic plan” to sow doubt in the election, which allegedly included the former mayor lying about Freeman having been arrested in connection with the vote-tampering charges. Howell wrote that the lawsuit’s claims “at least plausibly suggest that Giuliani fabricated Freeman’s arrest and criminal record out of whole cloth.”
Giuliani said in the Freeman defamation lawsuit that he has “endured substantial
fees and costs in connection with multiple litigations and investigations,” which led him into “arrearage” with TrustPoint.
In a separate case, first reported last month by the Daily Beast, Georgia telecom provider Momentum sued Giuliani’s firm for $30,396.77 over an allegedly unpaid phone bill. Giuliani Partners LLC is named as the defendant in that suit.
After Trump’s effort to reverse his loss in the 2020 election failed, Giuliani reportedly asked for the former President to help cover his legal fees — and was rebuffed.
But Giuliani and those close to him have instead largely trained their rage and spittle on the Republican Party, saying that the institutional GOP declined to use money raised to support Trump to help them reverse the 2020 loss and then to defend them.
In an interview last week with Trump fundraiser Caroline Wren, Giuliani and Wren complained about the lack of money that had gone to their efforts.
“We have no access to this legal fund, we have no support or help, it was like, by design, they left us to hang and die out there,” Wren said, referring to the Trump campaign’s efforts to reverse its loss in Nevada.
“They were hiding under the desk,” Giuliani replied, referring to Republican attorneys. “I walked into the campaign office and couldn’t find any lawyers.”
Wren was interviewed by the House January 6 Committee last year after reports emerged saying that she bragged about raising $3 million to support the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse, which preceded the Capitol insurrection.
“We all get investigated endlessly,” Wren remarked in the appearance on Giuliani’s show. “The only person who has been subpoenaed more than me is you!”
