Matias J. Ocner/ZUMA
Having raised more money than anyone else in the Republican Party so far this year, new filings show Donald Trump is flush with cash. Absolutely swimming in it. But even as the money flows in, the former president is reportedly stiffing one of his fiercest allies and loyal political surrogates, Rudy Giuliani, as the former New York mayor becomes increasingly ensnared in a federal investigation that’s reportedly costing him millions in legal fees.
Here’s the latest on the apparent fallout between the two men:
Trump aides have been clear they see no mechanism for paying Giuliani’s legal bills that isn’t problematic for Trump, and they think Giuliani took actions a lawyer should have known were problematic, even if the client wanted it.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 1, 2021
That’s particularly worrisome for Giuliani, whose legal defense fund has effectively failed to raise anything in his fight against the federal probe into whether he worked as an unregistered lobbyist for Ukrainian officials. Giuliani, who was recently suspended from practicing law in New York, is also facing a separate lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over his relentless election lies. And despite his penchant for conspiracy theories and misinformation, it appears, as Haberman notes, that Giuliani does seem to understand the gravity of his precarious legal situation.
“I’m more than willing to go to jail if they want to put me in jail,” he told NBC New York’s Melissa Russo in an interview last week. “And if they do, they’re going to suffer the consequences in heaven, I’m not. Because I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Those remarks came despite the fact that the interview, as Russo explained in the segment, was supposed to focus on the upcoming 20th anniversary of September 11th. That Giuliani instead nervously discussed his legal jeopardy doesn’t exactly exude confidence in his chances of escaping jail time—or how he’s going to pay for all of this. But that’s what happens when you go to bat for Donald Trump, isn’t it?
