Giuliani admits his associate asked for a fee of $20,000 a day to help Trump overturn the election, but says he didn't know about it
- After months of denial, Giuliani admitted his associate requested a daily $20,000 fee to help Trump.
- He said his associate sent the fee request while he was out of town.
- Giuliani said he represented Trump out of a sense of commitment and didn't expect to be paid.
After months of denials, former President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, conceded that one of his associates asked campaign officials for a $20,000 daily fee to help Trump after his election loss, according to a New York Times report.
Giuliani told Times reporter Maggie Haberman on Friday that his associate, Maria Ryan, sent an email to the Trump campaign shortly after Election Day requesting the amount, but said he did not know about it at the time.
Ryan consulted with another associate, Larry Levy, to decide how much to ask for while Giuliani was out of town, he said.
The request was sent from a Giuliani Partners email account, according to a copy of the email reviewed by The Times. It was sent to at least three campaign officials at the height of Trump's post-election fundraising.
"Mr. Giuliani began working the case in the wee hours of the morning on November 4," Ryan wrote in the email. "He has a team in Washington working out of rented hotel rooms."
She continued, writing, "we will contract for $20,000 a day which will include all of the expenses for Mr. Giuliani and his staff."
The Times first reported that Giuliani had requested the amount in November. When outlets asked about the request, Giuliani denied it, insisting that it was a lie. He continued to maintain that he hadn't asked the president for that sum well into the new year, even as recently as Friday afternoon where he reportedly said "I did not do that" on his radio show.
Giuliani told Haberman that he told both Trump and White House chief-of-staff Mark Meadows that he didn't want to be paid, calling the amount "ridiculous," though he said he could not remember when this conversation had taken place. It was also unclear whether or not Giuliani was aware that Ryan had sent the email request when he first denied asking for the sum.
"I never had a single expectation of being paid a penny," Giuliani said.
In his conversation with Haberman, Giuliani blamed Trump's other advisers, calling them "incompetent" in the lead-up to the election and said he felt bad he was being portrayed as a "money-grubbing ambulance chaser."
He added that he represented the president out of a sense of commitment.
"I didn't see anything about this that was going to lead to great wealth," Giuliani told the Times. "I did see a lot about this that was going to lead to great torture."