Rudy Giuliani paid for recent international travel “with cash,” Georgia prosecutors said as part of an argument to prevent the Trump consigliere from wiggling out of testimony this week.
Giuliani purportedly paid cash for travel to Rome and Zurich during the week from July 22 to July 29.
It comes days after the New York Times reported that a company belonging to Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch tied to Russian attempts to muscle in on the European gas trade, paid for Giuliani’s travel three summers ago — in 2019. Then, Giuliani flew on Firtash’s dime to Spain and from the Dominican Republic to the U.S.
Both men said they were unaware of the arrangement.
Prosecutors with Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s office made the statement while trying to push back against an argument from Giuliani that, due to an unspecified recent medical procedure, he would be unable to fly to Atlanta for testimony before the grand jury.
“We will provide alternate transportation including bus or train if your client maintains that he is unable to fly,” wrote Deputy District Attorney Will Wooten in an email to Giuliani attorney Robert Costello.
Prosecutors also attached a tweet that Giuliani sent on Aug. 1, saying that he was “having fun” in the 603 — a New Hampshire area code.
Both the allegedly cash-paid travel and the tweet took place after Giuliani’s medical procedure, prosecutors say.
Giuliani’s spending habits have received prosecutorial attention, including over the payments from Firtash’s company. It’s not clear why Giuliani purportedly chose to pay in cash for the flights.
The Fulton County grand jury is examining Trump’s efforts to interfere with the election results in Georgia, focusing on pressure that the former President and those in his inner circle applied to state elections officials to flip the result away from the winner, Joe Biden, to Trump.
It’s also investigating the creation of slates of fake electors in the state, which saw the state Republican Party organize, at the Trump campaign’s direction, fake electors that could be called upon to replace the legitimate Biden electors.
Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney for Trump during the 2020 election subversion attempt, will appear before the Fulton County grand jury this month, he told TPM.
Poor Rudy.
Poor, poor Rudy.
I just hope he lives long enough to go to prison.
Oh no. This is too sad
“I can’t testify before the grand jury, because…because, uh…I just twisted my back! I’m telling ya I’m in serious pain. Doc says bed rest for…uh, an indeterminate number of days.”
Comedy gold.
Maybe Rudy thought that by paying cash his movements couldn’t be traced.
Has Rudy not heard of PASSPORTS???
But seriously, how sad is it – the man that broke the New York Mafia, mayor of New York, is now the SUBJECT of a grand jury investigation. Not to mention grifting off his connections to pay off ex-wife #3 (who really needs to downsize, IMHO).