Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani speaks during a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Washington, Dec. 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana.)
On Tuesday, as Rudy Giuliani pleaded not guilty to felony charges alleging his criminal role organizing fake electors in Arizona so Donald Trump could reverse his 2020 defeat, things went a bit off the rails as the former mayor repeatedly spoke over a judge at length before being told he must pay a $10,000 bond and appear for booking within 30 days.
Giuliani appeared for the arraignment hearing remotely and without an attorney aiding him. He told the court he was “capable of handling it myself,” The Associated Press reported.
Prosecutors have tried to serve the attorney and longtime ally to Trump in the fake electors case for weeks but did not have success until May 17.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Giuliani, 80, was served the Arizona indictment late Friday night, roughly an hour after he boasted on X.com (formerly Twitter): “If Arizona authorities can’t find me by tomorrow morning: 1. They must dismiss the indictment; 2. They must concede they can’t count votes.”
Giuliani was served as he walked to his car following his birthday soiree.
In court on Tuesday, prosecutors expressed the difficulty they had serving Giuliani and described him as being historically uncooperative. One U.S. attorney slammed Giuliani’s suggestion from over the weekend that when he was served, he accepted the summons “like a gentleman.”
“That is not a true statement. He did not tell us where he was going to be. Its semantics if he accepted service like a gentleman or not but he’s shown no intent to comply with legal process in this case,” the prosecutor said.
Prosecutors said an attorney for Giuliani — they did not specify who — called them on Monday asking the government for a virtual appearance and they objected. Rather than going through the process of serving him again, prosecutors asked the judge to order Giuliani to appear and to pay a $10,000 cash appearance bond.
Giuliani had already said at the hearing that he faced a number of large financial judgments against him, the prosecutor said, before sharply adding: “I don’t think the court should be a secondary secured creditor.”
When given a chance to speak, Giuliani railed at the suggestion that he was “hiding from anyone.”
“The reason for the difficulty to get up to my apartment is it’s a 10 story apartment building, I have a fair number of threats, including death threats and don’t have security any longer since I’ve been in bankruptcy. So I have very very strict rules about who gets up and who doesn’t. As you might imagine, some people do pretend to be all sorts of things to get up,” the former New York City mayor said, sounding breathless.
As the court listened, Giuliani continued rapidly: “I still have death threats that go back to the time I was in, not just public service but four years ago, there was an attempt to kill me by the Iranian government. It was very well documented and tried in France. [There’s] another in Netherlands.”
Setting the bond, he said, “would be totally punitive.”
“I’ve been indicted in Georgia, appeared on every occasion. I’ve been sued about 20 to 25 times by a very similar movement to this one which is ‘Let’s see what we can do to destroy Donald Trump movement,”” Giuliani said. “I do consider this indictment a complete embarrassment to the American legal system but I’ve shown no tendency not to comply. I show up for every court appearance and there’s no history — ”
The judge interrupted him saying, “All right, sir. I think I understand your position.”
He kept going, however, speaking over the judge and calling his indictment a “completely political case.”
The judge interjected: “Mr. Giuliani I don’t want to mute you but I need to move on. I understand your position regarding release conditions.”
As the remote hearing wrapped up, it was established that Giuliani would have to arrange to appear via self-surrender in Maricopa County within 30 days and the judge promptly reminded him that he must post the $10,00 secured appearance bond as well,
“You said a bond of $10,000? I thought — ” Giuliani said, cutting himself off.
When the court affirmed, there was a long pause on the line before he uttered: “All right.”
Meanwhile in New York where Giuliani is in the throes of bankruptcy proceedings following a court order that he pay two election workers he defamed $148 million, a stipulated order was set down.
The order extends a deadline for a second time for creditors to challenge the dischargeability of debts. As Law&Crime reported Monday, bankruptcy lawyers are moving aggressively to sort out Giuliani’s finances and filed a notice to serve Republican billionaire and WABC owner John Catsimatidis with a subpoena in hopes of uncovering “all documents and communications” around the circumstances of Giuliani’s firing from his radio show and his statements about the Georgia election workers he defamed, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
Giuliani was indicted in Georgia in August alongside Trump and 17 others for allegedly conspiring to subvert the election in the state with fake pro-Trump electors. Giuliani, prosecutors argue, led efforts there to pressure lawmakers. Giuliani pleaded not guilty and was released on a $150,000 bond.
Bloomberg reported that during a status conference in the bankruptcy matter with U.S. District Judge Sean Lane in New York on Tuesday, an agreement had been tentatively reached among Giuliani, Freeman and Moss that would bar the former mayor from continuing to make false statements about the women going ahead. Precise details were not made public by the parties’ attorneys at this time.
Giuliani wasn’t the only person arraigned in Arizona on Tuesday. He was joined by 10 fellow Trump allies including Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward as well as her husband, Michael Ward, and Trump attorney Christina Bobb. Others charged include: Arizona State Sen. Anthony Kern; Tyler Bowyer, an executive at the right-wing youth association Turning Point USA; a former Arizona GOP party director Greg Safsten; a onetime chairman of the Arizona’s Cochise County Republican Committee Robert Montgomery; a Republican precinct member from Gila County, Samuel Moorhead; Nancy Cottle, former vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; and Loraine Pellegrino, former president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women organization.
Notably, long before the indictments came down, an attorney for Pellegrino and Cottle provided a statement to Daily Kos saying the women were innocent of the charges and were merely spending their “golden years becoming more active in the political process.”
In a statement circulated among the press on Tuesday, Giuliani’s political adviser Ted Goodman described the charges as political and an attempt to “interfere with the 2024 election and to take down President Trump and anyone willing to take on the permanent Washington political class.”
“Mayor Rudy Giuliani — the most effective federal prosecutor in U.S. history — looks forward to full vindication soon,” Goodman wrote.
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