Rudy Tells Trump He’ll Go Down With the Ship

November 8, 2023

5 min read

While Trump jokes that his former attorney is so loyal, the feds could put him in “solitary” confinement and he still wouldn’t say anything negative about his idol

Rudy Giuliani is bleeding cash, losing attorneys, racking up lawsuits against him, facing criminal charges, and alienating longtime friends and Republican Party stalwarts. And yet, as his life comes apart around him, Giuliani is still promising to go down with the Donald Trump-sized ship, sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone.

The former top Trump lawyer bragged to associates in recent months that he’d never “break” or betray Trump, even as his own legal problem exploded and indictments were handed down, two sources with knowledge of these comments tell Rolling Stone.

The pledge highlights both Giualini’s declared loyalty in the face of extreme legal jeopardy and the former president’s growing isolation among the circle of advisers who helped him try to overturn the 2020 election. As the Trump legal team games out which of his co-defendants are most likely to cooperate with prosecutors, Giuliani appears to be one of the few alleged co-conspirators whose loyalty is viewed as uniquely reliable.

Trump himself appears to have confidence in his former attorney’s loyalty. Since he’s left office, Trump has occasionally joked to confidantes that Giuliani is so loyal, federal authorities could put his former attorney in “solitary” confinement, and he still wouldn’t say anything negative about Trump, according to two people who’ve spoken with the former president. Maybe that’s why, despite the former Trump campaign lawyer’s unique solidarity, Trump still isn’t doing much to help alleviate his mounting legal bills.

But Trumpland has been surprised before. Prosecutors shocked the former president and his legal team by securing a plea deal with Sidney Powell, whose loyalty at least one Trump associate believed was “never supposed to be breakable.” Throughout his administration and post-presidency, the former president has seen a number of otherwise die-hard MAGA allies nonetheless end up cooperating in investigations of him, including former national security adviser Mike Flynn and Trump’s erstwhile fixer Michael Cohen.

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For all the bravado of his loyalty pledge, it appears that Giuliani doesn’t have many good options for the moment even if he was open to cooperating with prosecutors against Trump. District Attorney Fani Willis has offered lenient plea deals with lighter sentences of probation and fines to a number of Giuliani’s co-defendants. But there are no such sweetheart plea deals in sight for the former New York City mayor, according to two people familiar with the matter.

“The only deal the mayor is making is to tell the truth and unfortunately, every single prosecutor in this case is a partisan Democrat focused on their own partisan political ambitions and keeping President Donald Trump out of the White House,” Ted Goodman, an adviser to Giuliani tells Rolling Stone in a statement on Nov. 7.

Giuliani’s more recent promises to MAGA fellow travelers follow a similar 2021 pledge he made to his former client in which he said he would never turn on Trump, unlike other “weak” souls, according to a person familiar with their post-presidential interactions. But since 2021, Giulaini’s legal problems have only multiplied, a development that assures his oath of undying fealty to Trump is about to be put to its greatest test.

In addition to an indictment in Georgia, special prosecutor Jack Smith listed him as a “co-conspirator” in the indictment of Trump on election-related charges. He also faces a host of civil suits against him, including defamation suits by Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic, and election workers over his bogus election fraud claims, a sexual harassment suit by a former employee, a suit from Hunter Biden alleging the former mayor illegally hacked his laptop, and a suit by his former attorney Robert Costello over allegedly unpaid legal bills.

Trump, who often views loyalty as a one-way street, has privately told associates that he expects his fellow election-denying loyalists and possible witnesses for the prosecution to be willing to go to jail, rather than flip. Despite Giulaini’s growing legal bills, the former president has shown only a limited willingness to help with his former attorney’s finances.

Trump has paid out tens of millions for his own legal bills thanks to a campaign warchest held by his Save America PAC. But when Giulaini and his attorney asked Trump for help paying for his continuing legal defense, the former president agreed only to headline a fundraising event rather than make a cash contribution.

Adding to Giuliani’s recent legal troubles is the plea deal struck by Jenna Ellis, a former Trump campaign attorney who worked closely with him in late 2020 to try and overturn the election. In an interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Ellis’s attorney Frank Hogue said “I think [Giuliani] should be” worried about the case against him. Ellis, he said, “wouldn’t be a help” if called to testify but, according to Hogue, “his troubles extend far beyond her.”

This article was updated with a statement from Ted Goodman, an adviser to Rudy Giuliani, at 6:34 p.m. on Nov. 7.