Questions arise about Rudy Giuliani's legal fund in bankruptcy case

Rudy Giuliani has been the target of questions from creditors about potential conflicts of interest related to how he will pay lawyers in his ongoing court battles, new court documents in his bankruptcy cases show.

Donald Trump's former lawyer and former New York City mayor plans to appeal a December court decision to pay him $148 million and is fighting to keep his New York and Washington, D.C., licenses.

To continue his legal wrangling, Giuliani pays three law firms through two separate legal funds, one of which, called Giuliani Defense, is controlled by his son Andrew.

That's according to a new filing by two Georgia election workers who were paid $148 million. Rudy Freeman and Vandria Moss claim that Giuliani "failed to disclose basic information" that would show his attorneys were not funded by his own estate.

"Given the totality of the circumstances, including the fact that Mr. Giuliani's son is president of Giuliani Defense, it is important to get clarity on the sources of funding for the Legal Defense Funds," the Feb. 15 statement said.

In a separate filing the same day, Giuliani's other creditors argued that Trump's former lawyer was refusing to provide sufficient information about his legal defense funds.

In his bankruptcy filing, Giuliani previously said he had just $50 in cash, $14,000 in a Citibank account and $351 in a Citibank savings account.

In response to the allegations, Giuliani's attorney Gary S.

Errors in the article

Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2023, shortly after he was ordered to pay $148 million in defamation damages to Freeman and Moss, two former Georgia election workers who were harassed by Donald Trump supporters after Giuliani and the former president circulated allegations that the 2020 election was rigged.

Giuliani faces a number of potential financial difficulties. In September, his former attorney Robert Costello sued him because Giuliani owes him more than $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees.

Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, also filed a lawsuit in September 2023 against Giuliani and Costello for data breach when they accessed information from his personal laptop that was left at a repair shop in Delaware.

In a previous statement before Giuliani's meeting with creditors in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Giuliani's representative Ted Goodman stated that the former mayor of New York is a victim of political persecution. "The only reason we are here today is that Mayor Rudy Giuliani has the courage to speak out and stand up against the ongoing political elite in Washington, and he refuses to be unjustly censored or intimidated into silence," Goodman said.