Rudy Giuliani admits Trump was billed $20K a day for post-election services but maintains he was unaware of it
After repeatedly denying that he sought $20,000 per day as legal fees from the Trump campaign, the ex POTUS' lawyer Rudy Giuliani has finally conceded. Giulini, however, maintains he personally never asked for the whopping amount, claiming an associate mailed the campaign seeking it, while he remained unaware of the request.
In an interview with The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, Giuliani shared that his associate Maria Ryan had sought the lumpsum daily pay. The NYT states Giuliani was unaware of the demands when the mail was sent. “Mr. Giuliani acknowledged in a brief phone interview that his associate, Maria Ryan, had sent the email shortly after Election Day. But he maintained that she consulted with another associate, Larry Levy, about what Mr. Giuliani should ask for from the campaign while Mr. Giuliani was out of town,” the NYT reported on Friday, January 22.
A copy of the email obtained by the NYT showed Ryan sent it from a Giuliani Partners email account. “Mr. Giuliani began working the case in the wee hours of the morning on November 4,” Ryan wrote in the email, adding: "He has a team in Washington working out of rented hotel rooms.” Citing the company was working on an engagement letter, she explained instead of $2,000 an hour, “we will contract for $20,000 a day which will include all of the expenses for Mr. Giuliani and his staff.” The request was reportedly made to three campaign officials through email, back when the Trump campaign was raising outrageous amounts of money to fight the legal battle against the November 3 election results.
After the NYT spoke with Giuliani's spokesperson about the mail, the former New York City mayor told the publication how he told both the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Mr. Trump, “It’s ridiculous, I don’t want to be paid.” He reportedly doesn't want any payment for his legal work for the former president after Election Day. This includes Giuliani joining the list of several Trump aides and allies who claimed election fraud and called for a recount insisting Trump's win even after Joe Biden won. Giuliani attempted to overturn the 2020 election in Trump's favor, but maintains he never expected 'a penny', saying it was all out of a 'sense of commitment'.
“I never had a single expectation of being paid a penny,” Giuliani told the NYT. “I feel extremely bad that I’m portrayed as some kind of money-grubbing ambulance chaser. I represented him out of my sense of commitment,” Giuliani continued. “I didn’t see anything about this that was going to lead to great wealth. I did see a lot about this that was going to lead to great torture.”
Giuliani's clarification comes two months after the NYT quoted him denying he ever sought that massive daily pay, in November 2020. “I never asked for $20,000,” Giuliani had told the NYT, adding: “The arrangement is, we’ll work it out at the end,” he added at the time.