Jacquelyn Martin/AP
- Rudy Giuliani said former President Donald Trump ordered him to represent his campaign for free, according to court documents.
- Giuliani had been called to testify in a defamation lawsuit brought by a former Dominion Voting Systems employee.
- Giuliani said in the deposition that Trump told him to "go over and take over the campaign, tell them you're in charge."
Rudy Giuliani testified that he represented former President Donald Trump for free after the 2020 election because Trump "ordered me to do it," newly released court documents show.
Giuliani had led the Trump campaign's effort to contest the 2020 election results by filing dozens of lawsuits that claimed there was widespread election fraud, all of which were thrown out by federal judges. An executive for Dominion Voting Systems, Eric Coomer, subsequently brought defamation lawsuits against Giuliani, former federal prosecutor Sydney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, alleging that they knowingly spread false information about his involvement in election fraud.
In a newly released deposition transcript, Coomer's attorney, Charles Cain, asked Giuliani if he was ever paid to represent the Trump campaign. Cain noted that Giuliani said in a sweaty, conspiracy-theory-filled November 19 press conference that he was representing both Trump personally and the Trump campaign.
Giuliani replied that he was not paid to represent the campaign and had only been reimbursed for his expenses, according to the transcript. Cain then asked Giuliani why he would represent the Trump campaign without compensation.
"The president – the president ordered me to do it," Giuliani replied.
Trump had previously cut off Giuliani and was refusing to pay his legal bills, according to Michael Wolff's book, "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency." The amount that Trump may owe Giuliani is unclear, but Maria Ryan, a Giuliani associate, told The New York Times that Giuliani gave a rate of $20,000-per-day to the Trump campaign for his work on the election lawsuits.
In the deposition transcript, Giuliani told Cain that Trump called him into the Oval Office on "either the 4th or the 5th" of November 2020 - after the presidential election - and told him to "go over and take over the campaign, tell them you're in charge."
Giuliani's attorney, Joe Sibley, immediately reminded the former New York City mayor not to disclose information about his conversation with Trump that could be protected by attorney-client privilege, according to the transcript.
"It doesn't matter if he made the statement. Don't disclose it if it's attorney/client privilege," Sibley said, to which Giuliani replied that he would be "very careful" not to disclose any privileged information.
"He said go over and tell them you're in charge, it's got to be straightened out," Giuliani said, noting that he wasn't sure if Trump wanted him to take over the entire campaign or only the campaign's legal representation.