Giuliani bankruptcy creditors fire off subpoenas to try to establish whether Trump owes him money

Creditors in disgraced former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy case have issued subpoenas to his associates to try to determine whether his former client Donald Trump owes him money, as the ex-mayor has previously claimed.

The Committee of Unsecured Creditors — individuals and entities that Mr Giuliani owes — served more than a dozen subpoenas on Friday in an effort to recover his assets. Mr Giuliani filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after being hit with a massive $148m verdict for defaming two election workers.

The former Trump lawyer listed a “possible claim for unpaid legal fees against Donald J Trump” in a January bankruptcy court filing. The following month, he elaborated in a hearing that he is owed $2m in unpaid wages for a spurious legal battle to overturn election results in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

However, Mr Giuliani underscored that the money is owed not by Mr Trump himself, but by either Trump’s campaign and/or the Republican National Committee. He also suggested that the arrangement was made verbally, calling it a “word-of-mouth situation.”

The Independent previously reported that the creditors’ committee is “discussing” taking legal action against Mr Trump to recover this $2m — a move that Mr Giuliani has said he does not want to take.

Now, the creditors’ committee has issued subpoenas to obtain documentation to substantiate the unpaid wages claim.

Robert Costello, Mr Giuliani’s former lawyer, was among those requested for information.

The subpoena to Mr Costello asks for information regarding any “negotiations, arrangements, or agreements” between Mr Giuliani, Mr Trump, his campaign, any legal defence fund for Mr Trump, and the Republican National Committee.

Mr Costello had reached out to at least six attorneys close to the former president regarding the collection of money allegedly owed to Mr Giuliani, the New York Times reported in 2023.

The committee also issued a subpoena to Maria Ryan, a Giuliani associate and his podcast cohost. The request asked for “all Documents and Communications concerning expenses, fees or other amounts” owed to the disgraced mayor by Mr Trump, his campaign or the Republican National Committee.

Ms Ryan sent an email, obtained by The New York Times in 2021, that was apparently sent to Trump campaign officials and suggested that Mr Giuliani was going to be paid $20,000 a day for his work. In the message, Ms Ryan also explained that Mr Giuliani had begun working on election litigation since one day after Election Day 2020.

This number is consistent with what former Giuliani associate and Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas previously told The Independent. Mr Parnas said that Mr Giuliani told him across “several conversations” that he and Mr Trump struck up a $20,000-per-day verbal agreement — consistent with the former mayor’s claim in the February hearing.

Mr Parnas also said that Noelle Dunphy, who sits on the creditors committee and filed a bombshell sexual assault lawsuit against Mr Giuliani, overheard a conversation in which Mr Giuliani put Mr Trump on speakerphone as he discussed the $20,000 daily rate.

In her own lawsuit, Ms Dunphy claimed that she has access to 23,000 emails from Mr Giuliani’s personal account. These emails include ”emails from, to, or concerning President Trump,” her suit states.

The subpoena to Ms Dunphy asked for “Documents and Communications concerning the nature of any legal services that Giuliani has performed, or continue to perform, for Donald J Trump.”

The list of those served also includes his son, Andrew Giuliani, who runs a legal defence fund for Mr Giuliani. His subpoena seeks “fees or other amounts” owed to Mr Giuliani or the legal fund by Mr Trump, his campaign or the Republican National Committee.

If Mr Giuliani worked as the former president’s personal attorney from November 2020 election, as Ms Ryan’s email stated, until February 2021, when Trump adviser Jason Miller said Mr Giuliani is “not currently representing President Trump in any legal matters,” that three-month span adds up to the $2m figure.

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