- Maria Ryan wrote a letter to Trump asking for Rudy Giuliani to be pardoned, according to a new book.
- The letter was intercepted by another Giuliani ally, the book, which was obtained by the NYT, said.
Rudy Giuliani's associate tried to ask former President Donald Trump to give the former New York City mayor a "general pardon" and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, according to an upcoming book.
Maria Ryan wrote the letter to Trump in his final weeks as president and after the January 6 Capitol attack, according to Andrew Kirtzman's "Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor." An advance copy of the book, set to be released on September 13, was obtained by The New York Times.
In the letter, which was dated January 10, Ryan asked the former president if he could pay Giuliani for his time spent defending him during trials for election challenges before asking for the award, the book says.
"Mr. Giuliani rarely asks for anything for himself," Ryan wrote in the letter, per the New York Times reporting on the book. "He is praying you present him with this on Friday, January 15 or Monday the 19." The letter then included Ryan's request for a "general pardon" for Giuliani.
Robert Costello, a lawyer for Giuliani, told the Times that the letter may not exist and said that Giuliani "did not authorize or request" the letter.
"The mayor has been consistent that he never asked for a pardon and told President Trump that if he was offered a pardon, he would decline it because he didn't do anything wrong," Costello told the Times.
The letter never reached the President, according the book, because Bernard B. Kerik, Giuliani's adviser, intercepted it on its way to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff.
Giuliani's lawyers recently revealed he is a key person of interest in the Georgia criminal investigation into whether or not top Republicans tried to interfere with the 2020 election.
Giuliani has recently spent time defending the former president following the FBI raid at his Mar-a-Lago home, during which a trove of classified documents were retrieved, according to court records.
Costello and Ryan did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.