Rudy Giuliani has overdrawn his checking account by almost $10,000, according to recent filings in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
There is, however, a bright side to his situation — when he owes approximately $148 million in judgments against him in two lawsuits, the negative $10,000 can seem like the least of his worries.
Because it is nothing but a mere drop in the bucket compared to what Giuliani owes and will come to owe once all his debts are set out and finished, if ever. And the $151 million total in debt still doesn’t include possible debts to Smartmatic, Noelle Dunphy (for an alleged sexual harassment/assault claim), and Hunter Biden.
One suspects that the total debt may double.
The information about his checking account and debts comes directly from his latest bankruptcy filing, and the key number you’re looking for is the negative $9,531.00 to Citigold as a creditor on page 11 if you are the schadenfreude-type. Yes, we rounded up.
Giuliani even owes money to Trump International at Doral in Miami. The amount owed is under $700, but they aren’t waiving it.
The counter to all this debt is that the former New York mayor may have between seven and eight figures in assets, and the document doesn’t list the positive value of his holdings because it hasn’t been determined yet. Everyone talks about his great apartment in Manhattan, and that will certainly fetch some decent coinage. Giuliani listed it at $6.5 million – it better be really nice.
So, it won’t bring in the $151 million that Giuliani owes so far, but it might ensure that Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss get some money for the radical, life-changing accusations that the Trump attorney made against the two Georgia election workers.
It is conceivable that Giuliani was prescient and conniving enough to stuff money in impossible-to-trace overseas accounts. That’s something that we cannot know for sure. We aren’t making any allegations, simply speculating. But it is speculation based on the peculiar friends he made while doing some very peculiar work.
Rudy Giuliani continues to live a pretty good life — by outward appearances — and he did do a lot of work for Trump in some notoriously corrupt parts of Eastern Europe. If Donald Trump had paid for that work, it would look awfully bad. Luckily for Trump, he doesn’t like to spend his own money.
It is possible that Giuliani was paid for his work in Ukraine. His best Ukrainian pal has just been charged with being a Russian spy.
But it is also critical to note that Giuliani said he was doing the legal work pro bono, a sad state when one takes in a billionaire as a client but doesn’t charge.
The bankrupt former attorney still wouldn’t have anywhere near the $151 million that he owes so far, but it’s possible that he still has money somewhere. It would just be extremely difficult to move around the United States.
Moving back to what we know, Giuliani has debts that he could have avoided if he had simply avoided Donald Trump. But something pushed him to need that relationship and need to be the center of attention, so much so that he didn’t ask for money upfront (He did ask Trump for $20,000 a day for work after January 6th) and then refused to do the work if Trump was unwilling to pay him.
Very few have fallen further and faster than Rudy Giuliani. Had he not defamed Moss and Freeman, I might have a sliver of sympathy. He was caught in the web.
But he did defame them in a way that put their lives in danger. It is hard to put a price on that, but Rudy Giuliani is giving it a furious try.
This report is based in part on original reporting by Martin Pengelly of The Guardian.
I can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com and on X @JasonMiciak.
Editor’s note: This is an opinion column that solely reflects the opinions of the author.