Trump hosts $100,000-per-person Bedminster fundraiser to help Giuliani pay legal bills

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump hosted a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser for disgraced former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club Thursday night as Giuliani struggles to pay his mounting legal bills.

Giuliani, a longtime Trump ally who also served as his lawyer, is facing a barrage of legal fees, fines, sanctions and damages related to his work helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election and other cases. He was indicted last month along with Trump and 17 others in Georgia for what Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has described as a wide-ranging conspiracy to subvert the will of the voters after Trump lost to Biden in 2020.

Giuliani’s son, Andrew, said in a radio interview Thursday morning that the event was expected to raise more than $1 million for his father and that Trump had committed to hosting a second event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida later in the fall or early winter.

“So that will be very helpful,” he said on WABC radio. Still, he said, “It won’t be enough to get through this."

He 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 Thursday night 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. He’s also joined Cameo, a service where celebrities record short videos for profit.

In July, he put his Manhattan apartment up for sale for $6.5 million.

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.

His lawyers have repeatedly cited his financial troubles in court filings.