By Zachary Cohen and Alison Main | CNN
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against President Joe Biden for calling him a “Russian pawn” during a presidential debate nearly three years ago.
Giuliani announced the lawsuit at a rambling and sparsely attended news conference outside a courthouse in New Hampshire, where he filed to take advantage of the state’s defamation laws.
The former mayor reiterated several familiar attacks against Biden and his son, Hunter, though he only sued the president – despite the high bar for statements by public figures in a political setting to be found defamatory.
The move comes as Giuliani is facing his own legal exposure on several fronts and new questions about his ability to pay the lawyers representing him. Wednesday’s news conference took place shortly after news broke that another lawyer, who has been representing Giuliani in the Georgia election subversion case, had withdrawn.
Asked if he was concerned about Giuliani’s ability to pay his legal fees in this case, as his debts mount, Lou Diamond, one of the attorneys who appeared Wednesday alongside the former New York mayor, told reporters, “That is the furthest thing from my mind.”
“When I say he’s my friend, he is my friend. And he’s the friend of the country. He is America’s mayor,” Diamond said.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
Giuliani also addressed reporting from The New York Times that prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office have asked about the former mayor’s drinking habits – and what Donald Trump knew about it while Giuliani served as the former president’s personal lawyer.
Trump has been indicted in Smith’s federal election interference case, and CNN previously reported that Giuliani is listed as co-conspirator 1 in that case. Giuliani has not been charged with a crime in that case.
“If I had an alcohol problem, and I could do all of that, I…
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