Former President Donald Trump is hosting a fundraiser Thursday night to pump money into a legal defense fund forGeorgia co-defendant Rudy Giuliani, according to two sources close to the former New York City mayor.
The fundraiser at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., comes after Giuliani was indicted alongside the former president for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia and he was found liable for defaming two election workers while promoting Trump’s stolen election claims.
Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani, who worked in the Trump White House, touted the fundraiser during an interview on WABC radio earlier in the day.
“I am happy to say … we’ve raised over $1 million for this event alone,” Andrew Giuliani said, before adding that amount “won’t be enough to get through this.”
He said Trump had also committed to hold another fundraiser for his father in the fall or early winter at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
A Trump campaign spokesman referred questions about the event to Giuliani’s team.
Thursday’s fundraiser was first reported by the New York Times, and came about after unsuccessful appeals for direct financial assistance from the billionaire former president, the paper reported.
Andrew Giuliani said in Thursday’s radio interview that his father and Trump had lunch together earlier this week and “there is no wedge” between the two.
The big-spending former mayor was having financial problems even before he was hit with 13 counts in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ racketeering indictment that alleged Trump, Giuliani and 17 others schemed to illegally overturn Joe Biden’s election victory in the state.
Giuliani was Trump’s main lawyer in his charge to reverse the election outcome in numerous states, and repeatedly touted and promoted conspiracy theories and debunked stolen election claims in the media and at hearings in various battleground states.
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His efforts on Trump’s behalf have come with a professional cost — he’s had his law license suspended, been investigated by the FBI, been named in numerous lawsuits and is facing disciplinary proceedings.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., last week found Giuliani liable for defaming Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss after he’d failed to turn over documents and information he’d been ordered to provide to them.
In court filings, Giuliani said one issue was he couldn’t afford to pay for a service that does electronic document checks. The judge has said there will be a trial early next year to determine how much he owes Freeman and Moss in money damages for falsely accusing them of fraud.
Dareh Gregorian contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
