Rudy Giuliani Is Having an Extremely Bad Summer

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Poor Rudy Giuliani. Poor, poor Rudy.

The former mayor of New York City is finally facing a reckoning largely stemming from his decision to become the mouthpiece for former President Donald Trump. And it seems he’s quickly finding that he has few friends to help him out.

Giuliani’s law license in his home state, where he once served as a top federal prosecutor, was suspended last month after a New York court found “uncontroverted evidence” that Giuliani “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers, and the public at large” as a lawyer when he represented Trump and the Trump campaign following the November election.  

On Wednesday, Giuliani’s license to practice law in Washington, D.C., was suspended by an appellate court “pending outcome” of the fate of Giuliani’s law license in New York. 

Giuliani has described the suspension of his New York law license as political retribution from the state’s Democrats, telling Newsmax last month: "There's no doubt if I was representing Hillary Clinton, I'd be their hero.”

But Giuliani has even bigger problems. He’s a defendant in multiple multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits from voting machine companies that say he spread disinformation and made false claims against them in a failed crusade to overturn the election results and keep Trump in the White House.

And if that weren’t enough, Giuliani is also being investigated by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York—the office he previously led during the Reagan administration. In April, the FBI embarked on an early-morning raid of Giuliani’s home and office and seized computers and phones related to an SDNY investigation into Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine. 

Giuliani’s friends and allies, including his son Andrew, have publicly pleaded with Trump to help Giuliani with the cost of his mounting legal problems. Others, including former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, created a fundraiser to help with his legal bills called the “Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund.” 

“Rudy’s fate will determine if America still is a Republic governed by We The People, or if the swamp has finally amassed total control of our great country,” the group’s website says, without a hint of irony or sarcasm. “That’s why Rudy urgently needs YOUR help as he battles for his freedom and justice.”

A page was also set up on the crowdfunding website Fundly to help Giuliani cover legal bills, with the modest goal of reaching $5 million in contributions by the end of August. As of Tuesday, the page had raised just $9,540. By Thursday morning, the link to the fundraiser was redirecting back to the Fundly page for political fundraising, and could not be found. 

It might be a bad summer for Rudy, but it’s also looking like a rough season for other members of the Giuliani family. 

Andrew Giuliani launched a bid for governor of New York in May with an exceptionally weird video and a press conference in which he called his father “the greatest mayor not just in the history of New York but the history of America.”  

But it’s not clear that being the son of New York’s “greatest mayor” will help Andrew on his quest to win the same office. Last week, Republican leaders gathered to vote in Albany in a straw poll for their preferred 2022 gubernatorial candidate; Andrew got zero votes.