The law firm that Rudy Giuliani formerly worked for, Greenberg Traurig, released a statement on Thursday rejecting his defense of a $130,000 payment that President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Giuliani, a recent addition to Trump’s legal team, has suggested that it’s common for lawyers to make secret payments to individuals to keep them quiet the way Cohen paid Daniels over her alleged affair with Trump.
“We cannot speak for Mr. Giuliani with respect to what was intended by his remarks,” a spokeswoman for the law firm said in a statement. “Speaking for ourselves, we would not condone payments of the nature alleged to have been made or otherwise without the knowledge and direction of a client.”
The New York Times first reported the statement.
Giuliani announced earlier Thursday that he has resigned from the firm to focus on his legal work for the President.
The former New York mayor joined the President’s legal team last month, and he has since made headlines for his comments regarding the payment made to Daniels.
In an effort to explain the payment, Giuliani said in an interview on “Fox and Friends” last week, “Don’t you think a lot of these people would pay that when they can? I represented, I can’t disclose who, I represented clients who paid substantially more than that.”
Giuliani added, “If you’re wealthy you’re a target. We had a case, very famous person, this woman was a professional – you could do a movie about it – she was a professional that would hit on rich guys, older ones, and then shake them down for a couple of million bucks.”
During a separate interview last week with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Giuliani offered a similar justification for Cohen’s transaction.
“Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients,” he said. “I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along, these are busy people.”
The White House has said Trump denies Daniels’ claim that she had a consensual sexual encounter with him over a decade ago.