Trump has a decades-long habit of stiffing his workers. He did it all the time with his casinos and other projects. Lawyers have learned to ask for retainers up front before working for him.
Well, not all lawyers, apparently.
Trump stiffed his alleged co-conspirators, whose false claims brought in $250 million
Several of the attorneys who spearheaded President Donald Trump’s frenzied effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election tried, and failed, to collect payment for the work they did for Trump’s political operation, despite the fact that their lawsuits and false claims of election interference helped the Trump campaign and allied committees raise $250 million in the weeks following the November vote.
Well, of course they failed. This is Trump they’re dealing with, after all. The man who never pays anyone if he can find a way to get out of it.
Except Trump now has one small problem. . . . The people he stiffed are now his co-defendants in the Georgia case:
Trump has a long history of not paying his bills. But the revelation that he likely stiffed Giuliani, a longtime friend, is all the more striking given that much of the work Giuliani did for the Trump operation is detailed in a sprawling RICO indictment in Georgia released Monday, in which Giuliani is a co-defendant alongside Trump and 17 other people.
Giuliani wasn’t the only one.
Federal Election Commission records and testimony from the House January 6 select committee hearings reveal that none of the private sector lawyers identified — but not indicted — in that case got paid for their post-election work: Not Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro or John Eastman.
Giuliani and Eastman wanted a mix of reimbursements and payments, but records show they received virtually none of that money. Powell had to turn to her own law firm to pay her volunteers. All the while, the Trump team raised hundreds of millions of dollars off of the false claims of election fraud that Powell and Giuliani promoted on TV and in court.
Smith didn’t indict them (yet), but Willis did. Powell, Chesebro, and Eastman figure prominently in her case.
“Chesebro, for his part, told the House committee that the work he did for the Trump team was pro bono.” Maybe so (sounds unlikely), but Eastman wanted (and wants) to be paid. Giuliani wanted to be paid $20,000/day, which is outrageous, but while he got travel reimbursement, he never got any kind of payment for services rendered.
Now all these people are charged with, among other things, violating Georgia’s RICO law, which has mandatory minimum prison terms. Going to jail for a guy who won’t even pay them for all the work they did for him, all the trouble they got into for him? How long before one, two, or more, decide it’s not worth going to jail for the skinflint?