Trump allies Clark, Giuliani push for legal fees after Georgia prosecution

By Mike Scarcella

WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump administration lawyer Jeffrey Clark have asked a judge in Georgia to award them legal fees they spent fighting criminal charges of interfering in the 2020 presidential election, following similar requests by U.S. President Donald Trump and other defendants.

Like Trump, Clark and Giuliani argued they are entitled to legal fees under a new Georgia law designed to reimburse defendants when a prosecutor is disqualified and the case is dismissed. Prosecutors in November dropped the election interference case after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from overseeing the prosecution.

Clark in a court filing on Friday in Fulton County Superior Court said he is owed more than $1 million. Attorneys for Giuliani, who was a personal lawyer for Trump, asked for reimbursement for more than $317,000 in fees.

Altogether, defendants in the case have asked for nearly $14 million so far, an attorney for Clark said on Monday. Lawyers for Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Georgia enacted a law in May that requires courts to award fees and costs to any defendant whose charges are dismissed after the prosecuting attorney is disqualified for improper conduct. Trump last week asked the court to award him more than $6.2 million in legal fees.

Georgia prosecutors have questioned the constitutionality of the law. In a filing submitted last month, the Fulton County district attorney’s office warned that it could unjustly impose financial liability on an elected official over the exercise of their core duties.

“The prosecution of these defendants was neither arbitrary nor political,” the filing said.

Willis accused Trump and 18 co-defendants of conspiring to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results after a recording surfaced in the media of Trump asking its top electoral official to "find" him enough votes to win. All of the former defendants had pleaded not guilty.

“The complexity of the case, the experience of counsel, the prevailing rates in the community, and the successful result obtained all support the conclusion that the requested fees are reasonable,” Giuliani’s lawyers told the court in their filing.

An attorney for Clark, Harry MacDougald, in a post on the X social media platform on Monday said “the reckoning for 5 years of a Trump-deranged bender is beginning.”

Clark, a former partner at law firm Kirkland & Ellis, served in the first Trump Justice Department. His request seeks more than $500,000 for his lawyers in the election case and more than $550,000 for work he said he performed himself, calculated at a rate of $700 per hour.

"The total amount requested on my behalf in this case is very reasonable for a matter of this complexity and with such dire potential adverse consequences for me and my family," Clark told the court.

Read more:

Trump requests $6 million in legal fees in Georgia election interference case

Rudy Giuliani must pay his defense lawyers $1.4 million, judge rules