A prominent Philadelphia attorney and onetime Trump impeachment lawyer says he can’t stand to represent Rudy Giuliani any longer—insinuating in a court filing that Giuliani isn’t just impossible to work with, but he’s a cheapskate who refuses to pay.
The allegations emerged Friday in a motion filed by Bruce Castor in Philadelphia to be removed as Giuliani’s counsel. Giuliani has “failed to respond to discovery requests or, frustratingly, work even in the slightest” with Castor, the disgruntled attorney wrote.
Castor was representing Giuliani in a civil lawsuit filed by a voting supervisor who sought damages for lies spread by Giuliani, former President Donald Trump, and two Republican poll watchers about the 2020 election. The supervisor argued the false claims subjected him to unnecessary hate, ridicule, and physical threats.
ADVERTISEMENT
Castor said he “reluctantly” agreed to represent Giuliani after a previous plan—for him to briefly be the “local” attorney until a Texas lawyer could take over—fell through. Castor wrote that he stuck with the case, “while not happy about it,” only to maintain relationships with other lawyers and previous clients.
Castor detailed how Giuliani has been a pain to work with, refusing to hand over requested documents and not participating in his “own defense.”
He said he “unequivocally threatened” Giuliani with a hard deadline—for last week—to pay at least a portion of his retainer and to cooperate with his requests. Castor said Giuliani agreed in writing, but the money and documents never came.
Castor summed up his grievances with Giuliani in the filing, first obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer, by saying, “He’s not cooperating, and he’s not paying me.”
However, reached by The Daily Beast on Friday, Ted Goodman, a political adviser and spokesperson for Giuliani, insisted Castor was paid for his work and called the accusations disappointing.
“Potential future clients should beware of working with someone like Mr. Castor, who has zero respect for the spirit of attorney-client privilege with these attacks against his client,” he said via text.
“We understand he lacks the courage to stick with what he perceives as an unpopular cause among the cocktail party crowd, but it’s very disappointing to see him take these cheap shots at the mayor simply because he thinks the mayor is an easy target and because he wants to suck up to the anti-Trump legal community.”
Bruce Castor defended then President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial.
U.S. Senate TV via REUTERSHe confirmed, perhaps not surprisingly, that Giuliani and Castor will no longer work together.
“We’re making a change with regards to legal counsel,” he wrote in a separate text. “More will become apparent in the coming weeks on this.”
Castor’s office took a message from The Daily Beast, but did not immediately respond.
Giuliani, 78, has been dealing with a slew of legal wranglings as of late.
Among those is a lawsuit filed by the phone company for Giuliani’s consulting firm, which claimed in a New York court last month that the LLC stiffed them for more than $30,000.
More recently, a former employee accused Giuliani of sexual harassment and filed a 70-page complaint in New York Supreme Court this week. Days later, Giuliani was sued by a heckler he brazenly claimed assaulted him last summer—despite video showing the man did nothing more than pat Giuliani’s back.
Once the personal attorney for Trump, Giuliani has had his license to practice law suspended in New York since 2021 because of his election lies. He may soon lose his right to practice law in Washington, too, where he’s accused by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of using “his law license to undermine the legitimacy of a presidential election.”
Castor, a former Republican politician and attorney general for Pennsylvania, led Trump’s defense in impeachment hearings—on occasion drawing ire from the former president and his allies, especially after he gave a rambling, nonsensical speech during opening arguments.
He was previously known for declining to charge Bill Cosby in 2005 after a university employee accused Cosby of sexual misconduct.
