Lawsuit Alleges Rudy Giuliani Selling Pardons for $2 Million, Splitting Fee With Donald Trump

Update to Creepy Rudy Giuliani Sued Under NY Adult Survivors Act For Sexual Assault And Battery.

The creepy sexual depravity of Rudy Giuliani aside, the part of this complaint that is going to get the attention of Special Counsel Jack Smith and the DOJ is the claim that Giuliani was selling pardons for $2 million each and splitting the proceeds with Donald Trump.

This is a crime – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich went to prison for it – and President Donald Trump later commuted his sentence.

NBC News reports, Giuliani accused of offering to sell Trump pardons for $2 million each in new lawsuit:

A woman who said she worked for Rudy Giuliani during the last two years of the Trump administration alleged in a wide-ranging lawsuit that Giuliani, the former president’s personal attorney, discussed selling presidential pardons and detailed plans to overturn the 2020 election results.

In a 70-page complaint filed in state court in New York on Monday, Noelle Dunphy said that after Giuliani hired her in January 2019 he sexually assaulted and harassed her, refused to pay her wages and often made “sexist, racist, and antisemitic remarks,” adding that she had recordings of numerous interactions with him.

Dunphy, who is seeking $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages, said Giuliani had hired her for $1 million a year in addition to expenses and pro bono legal representation for a domestic abuse case against a former partner. But after she was hired, Dunphy alleged, Giuliani kept her employment “secret” and paid her only about $12,000 and reimbursed some of her business expenses, owing her $1,988,000 in unpaid wages. She said she was fired in January 2021.

Dunphy alleged in her suit that Giuliani talked about presidential pardons. She said Giuliani claimed to have “immunity” and told “her that he was selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split.” The lawsuit did not suggest any pardons were sold.

Justin Kelton, Dunphy’s attorney, said on MSNBC that there is not a recording of the pardon conversation. “We do expect that it will be corroborated in other ways.” He noted that the complaint alleges that another person was present for that conversation — who Kelton said was Lev Parnas, a Giuliani associate — and that Dunphy’s attorneys would like to speak to Parnas about it.

A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

Hours before he left office in 2021, Trump pardoned 74 people and commuted the sentences of 70 others.

🚨 How many $2 million presidential “pocket pardons” might Rudy Giuliani have sold? And when will justice come for Rudy? Episode 68 of #TheLegalBreakdown https://t.co/rYcxOVqmH0 via @YouTube

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) May 17, 2023

Giuliani, who has denied allegations that he sought a pardon himself, told Dunphy that she could refer pardon-seekers to him, so long as they did not go through “the normal channels” of the Office of the Pardon Attorney because they would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, according to the lawsuit.

Dunphy also alleged that Giuliani provided a glimpse into plans to overturn the election if Trump lost, telling her “that Trump’s team would claim that there was ‘voter fraud’ and that Trump had actually won the election,” the lawsuit says.

This was also Roger Stone’s “Stop The Steal” plan in 2016, but Trump unexpectedly won. It was on the shelf for 2020 when Trump lost.

Giuliani’s New York law license was suspended in June after a state appeals court ruled that he made “demonstrably false and misleading” statements about voter fraud in the 2020 election. He sought to defend himself against other election-related claims made by an attorney disciplinary committee in Washington, D.C., in December, which said he “weaponized his law license” in a failed election fraud lawsuit in 2020.

Last year, attorneys for Giuliani were informed that he was a target of a criminal probe in Georgia looking into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. The prosecutor in that case has said charging decisions would be revealed this summer.

Dunphy’s complaint provides corroboration for a New York Times report in January 2021. Prospect of Pardons in Final Days Fuels Market to Buy Access to Trump:

As President Trump prepares to leave office in days, a lucrative market for pardons is coming to a head, with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the White House for clemency, according to documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers.

The brisk market for pardons reflects the access peddling that has defined Mr. Trump’s presidency as well as his unorthodox approach to exercising unchecked presidential clemency powers. Pardons and commutations are intended to show mercy to deserving recipients, but Mr. Trump has used many of them to reward personal or political allies.

The pardon lobbying heated up as it became clear that Mr. Trump had no recourse for challenging his election defeat, lobbyists and lawyers say. One lobbyist, Brett Tolman, a former federal prosecutor who has been advising the White House on pardons and commutations, has monetized his clemency work, collecting tens of thousands of dollars, and possibly more, in recent weeks to lobby the White House for clemency for the son of a former Arkansas senator; the founder of the notorious online drug marketplace Silk Road; and a Manhattan socialite who pleaded guilty in a fraud scheme.

Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer John M. Dowd has marketed himself to convicted felons as someone who could secure pardons because of his close relationship with the president, accepting tens of thousands of dollars from a wealthy felon and advising him and other potential clients to leverage Mr. Trump’s grievances about the justice system.

A onetime top adviser to the Trump campaign was paid $50,000 to help seek a pardon for John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer convicted of illegally disclosing classified information, and agreed to a $50,000 bonus if the president granted it, according to a copy of an agreement.

And Mr. Kiriakou was separately told that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani could help him secure a pardon for $2 million. Mr. Kiriakou rejected the offer, but an associate, fearing that Mr. Giuliani was illegally selling pardons, alerted the F.B.I. Mr. Giuliani challenged this characterization.

[Trump] has suggested to aides he wants to take the extraordinary and unprecedented step of pardoning himself, though it was not clear whether he had broached the topic since the rampage.

He has also discussed issuing pre-emptive pardons to his children, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and Mr. Giuliani.

Legal scholars and some pardon lawyers shudder at the prospect of such moves, as well as the specter of Mr. Trump’s friends and allies offering to pursue pardons for others in exchange for cash.

“This kind of off-books influence peddling, special-privilege system denies consideration to the hundreds of ordinary people who have obediently lined up as required by Justice Department rules, and is a basic violation of the longstanding effort to make this process at least look fair,” said Margaret Love, who ran the Justice Department’s clemency process from 1990 until 1997 as the United States pardon attorney.

Mr. Trump has shunned an intensive Justice Department review process intended to identify and vet the most deserving recipients from among thousands of clemency applications. [Trump] created an ad hoc system in the White House that Mr. Kushner has had significant influence over and has relied on input from an informal network of outside advisers, including Mr. Tolman. That system favors pardon seekers who have connections to Mr. Trump or his team, or who pay someone who does, said pardon lawyers who have worked for years through the Justice Department system.

Few regulations or disclosure requirements govern presidential clemency grants or lobbying for them, particularly by lawyers, and there is nothing illegal about Trump associates being paid to lobby for clemency. Any explicit offers of payment to the president in return could be investigated as possible violations of bribery laws; no evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump was offered money in exchange for a pardon.

* * *

Mr. Kiriakou said he also broached his quest for a pardon during a meeting last year with Mr. Giuliani and his associates on another subject at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, which involved substantial alcohol.

When Mr. Giuliani went to the bathroom at one point, one of his confidants turned to Mr. Kiriakou and suggested Mr. Giuliani could help. But “it’s going to cost $2 million — he’s going to want two million bucks,” Mr. Kiriakou recalled the associate saying.

“I laughed. Two million bucks — are you out of your mind?” Mr. Kiriakou said. “Even if I had two million bucks, I wouldn’t spend it to recover a $700,000 pension.”

Mr. Kiriakou said he did not pursue the arrangement, but he shared the anecdote at a party last fall. A friend, a Transportation Security Administration whistle-blower and former air marshal named Robert J. MacLean, became alarmed and feared Mr. Giuliani might be selling pardons.

Without telling Mr. Kiriakou, Mr. MacLean filed a report with the F.B.I. “I felt duty-bound to report it,” Mr. MacLean said. Neither he nor Mr. Kiriakou heard from the authorities.

Mr. Giuliani rejected the portrayal of events, saying that he did not remember meeting with Mr. Kiriakou and that none of his associates would offer his services as a pardon broker because he had made clear that he did not work on clemency cases as a result of his representation of Mr. Trump.

“It’s like a conflict of interest,” Mr. Giuliani said. He said he had heard that large fees were being offered, “but I have enough money. I’m not starving.”