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. [Continue reading…]
It isn’t clear whether Dunphy has any written evidence to support this claim, and her lawyer told MSNBC that there is no recording of the pardon conversation. He insisted, however, that the conversation “would be corroborated in other ways.” It is worth noting that the sum aligns with what one other witness has said with respect to pardons for sale.
In the waning days of the Trump presidency, many of the former president’s allies began openly marketing access to Trump and dangling the prospect of a pardon. Lobbyists collected tens of thousands of dollars from felons seeking clemency from Trump, but it was never proven that any of them actually shared those proceeds with Trump—which is an entirely different matter and likely highly illegal.
According to reporting by the New York Times, CIA officer John Kiriakou once broached the topic of a pardon with Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Kiriakou had been sentenced to nearly three years in prison for disclosing classified information. Kiriakou recalled that, when Giuliani left the group to use the bathroom, one of the former NYC mayor’s associates said Giuliani could assist Kiriakou—but for a price. “It’s going to cost $2 million—he’s going to want two million bucks,” he recalled the associate saying. [Continue reading…]