Rudy Giuliani testified that he represented Trump's 2020 campaign for free because the president 'ordered me to do it'
Giuliani said Trump ordered him to represent his campaign for free, according to court documents.
He was called to testify in a defamation suit brought by a former Dominion Voting Systems employee.
Giuliani said Trump told him to "go over and take over the campaign, tell them you're in charge."
Rudy Giuliani testified that he represented President Donald Trump for free after the 2020 election because Trump "ordered me to do it," newly released court documents showed.
Giuliani had led the Trump campaign's effort to contest the 2020 election results by filing dozens of lawsuits that alleged 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, the former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, alleging that they knowingly spread false information about his involvement in election fraud.
According to a newly released deposition transcript, Coomer's attorney Charles Cain asked Giuliani whether he was ever paid to represent the Trump campaign. Cain noted that Giuliani said in a 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 been reimbursed for only 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 said.
Trump had previously cut off Giuliani and was refusing to pay his legal bills, Michael Wolff says in his 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 Giuliani gave a rate of $20,000 a day to the Trump campaign for his work on the election lawsuits.
According to the deposition transcript, Giuliani told Cain Trump called him into the Oval Office on "either the 4th or the 5th" of November - 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, adding that he wasn't sure if Trump wanted him to take over the entire campaign or only the campaign's legal representation.
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