Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s federal case over attempts to overturn the 2020 election have questioned witnesses about Rudy Giuliani’s drinking habits, according to a report.
The former Trump lawyer denied this on Wednesday at a press conference in Concord, New Hampshire, stating, “I do not have an alcohol problem. I have never had an alcohol problem.”
Investigators in the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith have also asked about the degree to which Trump was aware of his lawyer’s drinking as the pair attempted to thwart Joe Biden being certified as the election’s winner, according to the New York Times.
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The report claims that answers to such questions could have consequences for the former president’s current attorneys if they attempt to use a so-called advice-of-counsel defense, which might argue that Trump was merely a client following advice from his attorneys. According to the report, such an argument could be weakened if Trump knew he was being advised by someone “compromised by alcohol,” particularly as others inside his circle told him he had lost the election.
Giuliani’s drinking has previously been commented on by other Trump advisers who were at the White House on election night. Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, told the Jan. 6 Committee that Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” on the night he was telling others “we need to go say that we won.” Miller said that he did “not know his level of intoxication when he spoke with the president,” and Giuliani denied the account. Liz Cheney, who co-chaired the committee, said Trump has “followed the advice of an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani.”
Trump himself has “spoken derisively” in private about Giuliani’s alcohol consumption, according to the Times, citing a source familiar with the comments. The newspaper also reported that a consensus from friends and former aides of the former New York City mayor was that his drinking had amplified some of his qualities—“conspiracism, gullibility, a weakness for grandeur”—rather than causing a wholesale transformation of his character.
“I’m with the mayor on a regular basis for the past year, and the idea that he is an alcoholic is a flat-out lie,” Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, told the Times in a statement. He went on to add: “The Rudy Giuliani you all see today is the same man who took down the mafia, cleaned up the streets of New York and comforted the nation following 9/11.”
