Giuliani cuts down his entourage
It’s the latest sign that the former New York mayor’s legal woes are taking their toll on his lifestyle.
Rudy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for ex-president Donald Trump, has reduced the size of his personal entourage, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Giuliani laid off several staffers and independent contractors in the last few weeks, according to one of the people, who said the ousted employees had been told that the former New York mayor was seeking to cut costs.
Giuliani has enlisted a part-time driver, Eric Ryan, the son of his friend Maria Ryan, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But he no longer moves around Manhattan with the full complement of as many as five people he has kept around him in recent years. (Ryan didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
The news of Giuliani’s shrinking entourage comes after years of stories suggesting he might be having financial difficulties — or is at least seeking creative ways to make money as he manages his growing legal woes.
The Trump confidant, recently raided by the FBI as he faces an intensifying criminal probe, has reportedly faced a cash crunch before, with multiple divorces said to be taking a toll on his balance sheet. In October 2019, the Washington Post reported that Giuliani was giving his ex-wife Judith $42,000 a month in alimony; a sum amounting to more than half a million dollars a year. The Post also reported that Giuliani had made between $7 and $9 million in both 2016 and 2017.
That same month, Giuliani accidentally left a voicemail for a reporter in which he said, “The problem is we need some money.”
The remark, while cryptic, nonetheless reinforced the idea that the high-flying Giuliani — a frequent habitué of pricey outlets like the Trump International Hotel in D.C., where room rates can run in the high hundreds of dollars a night and a spoonful of wine can cost up to $140, and the Grand Havana Room, a members-only cigar bar in New York — was in need of cash. A lawyer for Giuliani’s wife also alleged in court documents that he dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a private jet subscription service, $40,000 for a friend’s son’s dental work, $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars.
Since leaving public office, Giuliani’s sources of income have been somewhat opaque. He has served as an attorney for Greenberg Traurig, a powerhouse international law firm whose largest office is in New York. In 2018, he left the firm amid a dispute over his public defense of Trump, according to the New York Times.
Giuliani has also done security and legal consulting for numerous entities, including foreign governments like Qatar and other high-profile clients ranging fromIranian opposition group MEK to a Ukrainian oligarch and a Turkish-Iranian gold trader wanted by the U.S. government.
In mid-November of last year, the New York Times reported that Giuliani had demanded $20,000 a day in legal fees in exchange for representing the ex-president as he contested the 2020 election. Though Giuliani had denied it, according to the Washington Post, Trump reportedly balked at the figure and told aides not to pay it. Giuliani allies, led by his son Andrew, also made a push this week to get Trump to pay for Giuliani’s mounting legal fees.
A lawyer for Giuliani declined to comment. Giuliani didn’t respond to requests for comment, and a spokesperson didn’t provide a comment.
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.