Mark Herrmann, a lawyer and writer, shares suspicions in a new article for The Daily Beast that Trump ally Rudy Giuliani’s legal team will abandon him in a case the former mayor filed accusing the current president of defamation for critical comments that Joe Biden made during a debate before the 2020 presidential election.
There is already a precedent of Giuliani allegedly failing to pay massive legal fees that he owes, which led to the recent filing of a lawsuit from a firm that previously provided him with representation and was seeking a whopping $1.3 million. And he’s also been falling short of financial obligations in the defamation case from former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who a federal judge already directed have some of their legal expenses covered by Giuliani, who spurred a default judgment against him after failing to comply with the discovery process, in which he was expected to produce documentation about his personal financial state.
That case is now moving to a trial that will determine the level of financial damages to impose, meaning how much Giuliani will have to pay after being found liable for the claims from plaintiffs. The presiding judge has said the jury will be directed to make certain adverse (against Giuliani) inferences around the Trump ally’s failures to comply, including that he withheld certain documentation intentionally to obscure his finances — which carries the implicit suggestion he has more ability to pay than he might admit. There’s no apparent ground to make a case otherwise if he’s not even producing basic documentation!
The Giuliani case against Biden specifically challenges comments in which the now president supposedly characterized Giuliani as a pawn of the Russian government. Biden was discussing infamous attention on a laptop tied to his son, Hunter Biden, at the time.
“Giuliani is apparently not paying his current lawyers,” Herrmann wrote. “I’d guess he isn’t paying the lawyers in the New Hampshire case, either; they’re probably handling the case on a contingency fee. Over time, as civil liability or a criminal conviction likely rain down on Giuliani, and the costs of pursuing the New Hampshire defamation case rack up, the lawyers may choose not to pursue the case any further.” Read more at this link.
