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Former New York City mayor and Donald Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani may be in particular peril if reports that he will not be offered a plea deal in the Georgia election interference case are accurate, according to a legal expert.
Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman was reacting to a report from The Guardian that neither Giuliani, Trump, or former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will be offered a plea deal after being charged in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' investigation into alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, and instead will be made to go to trial.
The trio were indicted along with 16 others in the sprawling RICO case, four of whom—former Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Kenneth Chesebro, and bail bondsman Scott Hall—have since taken a plea deal and agreed to testify against the other defendants. The reports, which could still change, that Trump, Giuliani and Meadows will not be offered plea deals suggest that Willis' office sees the three men as the biggest targets in their investigation and that the flipping of other indicted defendants for their testimony is to achieve the primary goal of prosecuting them.
Trump, Meadows, Giuliani and the remaining 12 defendants have pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them in the Georgia investigation, with Willis proposing a trial date of August 2024 for all the defendants who have not taken a plea deal.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Litman said that if plea deal reports in Fulton County are accurate, they would be "particularly devastating" for Giuliani given his financial difficulties and the case against him.
"He's broke and now will have no leverage to plead out except for a tiny break for acceptance of responsibility," Litman wrote. "So he'll need to spend $ he doesn't have for a conviction he likely can't escape."
In response to the plea deal report, Giuliani's spokesman Ted Goodman told Newsweek: "This is yet another unethical leak—likely by the prosecutor's office—to create publicity around a phony case where the highly partisan prosecutor's office in Georgia can't prove any wrongdoing.
"The only deal Mayor Giuliani is making is to tell the truth and, unfortunately, every single prosecutor in this case is a partisan Democrat focused on their own political ambitions and keeping President Donald Trump out of the White House," Goodman added.
Giuliani's financial woes have seen his former lawyer, Robert Costello, suing him over claims the former mayor owes him more than $1.35 million in unpaid legal fees. Giuliani is said to owe nearly $550,000 in unpaid taxes from 2021.
He is also being sued by Noelle Dunphy, a former employee who alleges Giuliani sexually abused her and owes her $2 million in back wages. Giuliani denies the allegations.
In a statement to The Guardian, Trump's lawyer, Steve Sadow, said the former president has no interest in negotiating a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors.
"Any comment by the Fulton County district attorney's office offering 'deals' to President Trump is laughable because we wouldn't accept anything except dismissal and maybe negotiate the terms of that office's apology to President Trump and the American people," Sadow said.
Update 11/29/2023 11:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Rudy Giuliani's spokesman Ted Goodman.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more