Did you know that the Associated Press was writing comedy these days? Indeed they are. It’s virtually impossible to report simple facts about the denizens of Trump world without waxing waggish whether you intend to or not. It comes with the territory. Donald Trump’s fortunes have taken a sharp downward turn and even though he claims “to be wired differently” and not worry about jail, the other inhabitants of his particular circle of Hell can’t make the same comment.
They’re worrying non stop about incarceration, although in Rudy Giuliani’s case it may be a relief to get government housing and three meals a day. He’s got the townhouse on the market for $6.5 million but he’s gotten no offers. Maybe he’s gotten a come on from the whores on 7th Avenue? Nah. They want to make money, not give it away to has beens like America’s Mayor. Rudy may start selling pencils in a cup, though, because he is desperate.
[Andrew] Giuliani has created a committee, the Giuliani Defense PAC, to raise funds for his father. Allies have also been soliciting checks for what they have called the Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund. Brian Tevis, who is representing Giuliani in Georgia, said on CNN…that he assumed the former mayor was trying to raise “as much as possible,” adding, “And I think that they’re going to need it.”
Giuliani was held liable last month by a federal judge in a defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers who say they were falsely accused of fraud. A trial could result in Giuliani being ordered to pay significant damages to the women, in addition to the tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees he’s already being directed to pay. To generate cash, he’s hawked autographed 9/11 shirts and pitched sandals sold by election denier Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow. He’s also joined Cameo, a service through which celebrities record short videos for profit…. Last year a judge threatened Giuliani with jail in a dispute over money owed to his third ex-wife. Giuliani said he was making progress paying the debt, which she said totaled more than $260,000. In May, a woman who says she worked for Giuliani sued him, alleging that he owed her nearly $2 million in unpaid wages and that he had coerced her into sex. Giuliani denied the allegations.
Bess Levin, Vanity Fair puts Rudy’s plight in context and she does write comedy:
To put things in perspective, in order to just pay off the lawyers suing him for $1,360,196.10, Giuliani would have to film 4,186 personalized Cameo videos, based on the $325-a-pop he is currently charging. Or sell a f–k ton more sandals!
If he did sell that many more sandals, Lindell would probably stiff him because Lindell is now down to selling fabric shears, cutting tables, and the antennae off the warehouse cockroaches, anything to make a buck. So Rudy will have to save himself somehow from the downward spiral he’s been in for many years now,
accelerated by his decision to start representing Donald Trump during the Mueller investigation and continue his work through the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Among other things, hitching his wagon to Trump has led Giuliani to: cement his legacy as a total joke; have his ass indicted by the Fulton County district attorney’s office; be recommended for disbarment; and literally have to beg for money. And in light of the lawsuit just filed against him by his former attorney, he’s gonna need to beg for some more!
Beg, borrow, steal, sell his body, he’s going to have to do something. He just ran out of credit with Bob Costello, his lawyer of longstanding, who has represented him in many cases, most recently the Georgia RICO election racketeering suit. Costello has been a patient man but four years of broken promises and unpaid bills would try the patience of a saint.
On Monday, Robert Costello—who says he provided legal services to Giuliani from approximately November 2019 through July 2023—filed a suit against the ex-mayor for $1,360,196.10 in allegedly unpaid legal bills. (Giuliani is also being sued by Costello’s law firm, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, where Costello is a partner.) According to Costello and the firm—which represented Giuliani on numerous occasions, including during the investigations by Fulton County DA Fani Willis and special counsel Jack Smith—Giuliani agreed to pay more than $1.5 million in fees but to date has only forked over $214,000, leaving, obviously, an extremely large balance.
Giuliani’s crowd funding efforts have been for naught. Somehow the average person doesn’t see a former mayor of New York City with fancy digs, who flies into cities in private jets, to be arrested and booked, as being a particularly needy case. Little do they know. Why, Rudy’s had to cut down on his cigar smoking. You think those Havanas come cheap? Even when you smoke them at home and not at a private club designed for that very activity?
The ex-wife wants over a quarter of a million dollars, the election racketeering lawyer wants almost a million and a half, that’s going on two million and that’s chump change to his buddy the real estate developer from Queens, but you think he’ll write his old pal a check? Fuck, no. He’s hoarding every dime he gets. Trump did throw a $100,000 a plate bash at Bedminster. That was apparently what Costello was holding out for, the $1.3 million owed him to come from that. After all, that’s a paltry 13 tickets, how difficult could that be to sell, for a high roller like Trump, right? And no, we don’t know how much of it Trump pocketed for himself.
We don’t know that, but we do know that the soiree was September 7 and Costello filed suit on September 18, so I think we can safely conjecture that raising one point three million bucks was a tad more difficult than anticipated — or at least leaving Bedminster with it in your pocket, was more difficult than thought. The money might have been raised. And Trump even threw in a Trump cookie for dessert, you believe these cheapskates? I mean, really. If that’s not an inducement to lay down 100 large, a chocolate chip cookie with Trump’s mark on it, then I don’t know what would be. And I venture to say that anybody who wanted two scoops of ice cream got them. And maybe the whole gallon and the scoop, at those prices.
And this is the tip of the financial iceberg for Rudy. There’s the aforementioned defamation suit by the two Georgia election workers where he was found liable, and his former assistant suing him for $10 million bucks, Sweet Jesus, where is he going to come up with that kind of money? But he might have a judgment against him there, too, if he can’t hire a defense lawyer. And with Costello bailing, in such a publicly embarrassing manner, suing him and all, what are the odds of that?
So, friends, it looks like sandals and Cameo gigs are all Rudy’s got left. Trump may have held Rudy close at one time but now things are getting desperate. Now he may find out he’s got to hold Rudy closer. If you know what I mean.
Not to worry Rudy. I realize you got spoiled, thinking you’ve escaped all that time as the Crypt Keeper for fancier living and the trappings of wealth but what the hell, you can adjust back to your old self before you know it!
I wonder why Andrew Giuliani is calling his committee the “Giuliani Defense PAC” when a “PAC” is a Political Action Committee?
There are laws, at both state and federal level, that regulate the operation of PACs and the first point is that a PAC is intended to influence elections, not raise funds for legal troubles. Calling it the “Giuliani Defense Fund” would probably be fine but using “PAC” in this sense . . . well, the younger Giuliani may be needing to raise funds to keep his own butt out of prison.
rudy’s gonna have a major sad when he’s rotting in prison. Would that it was in a prison he put all those other folks into but I guess you can’t have everything.
There were stories about that very thing, about Rudy going to the same joint where he had put others. Ought to be an interesting reunion, eh what?
he could sell the private jet?
I don’t think he owns a private jet. I think he just gets rides from people who do own them. But that may stop soon.