Donald Trump turns on aides as he ‘refuses to pay Rudy Giuliani’s $20,000-a-day fees’
Donald Trump is turning on his closest aides after becoming the first American president to be impeached twice, according to reports.
Increasingly isolated in his final days in the White House, the President is wallowing in “self-pity” and refused to pay his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s $20,000-a-day fees for his failed campaign to try to prove election fraud, according to the Washington Post.
Revelations about further turmoil in the President’s inner circle came as Mr Trump finally spoke out against his supporters who stormed the Capitol.
Using the White House Twitter account because his own is frozen, Mr Trump condemned the rioters and called for peace in the run-up to Joe Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday.
“Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for,” he said.
A week after telling the pro-Trump Capitol rioters that, “we love you” and saying that they were “special”, the President struck a very different tone, adding: “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence.
“I want to be very clear: I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week. Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country.”
The President did not show any regret over egging on his supporters at a rally to march on the Capitol building, nor did he take back his repeated claims that he was cheated out of a poll victory. Mr Trump was reportedly persuaded to shoot the five-minute video after advisers warned him he could face criminal charges over his role in the riot that saw the deaths of five people. He made no mention of the impeachment vote.
Well-placed sources say he is being urged to resign a few days before his term comes to an end to try to avoid the indignity of being convicted at a Senate impeachment trial and barred from further office.
The impeachment vote was passed by a margin of 232 to 197. “He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love,” said Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Mr Trump was impeached by the House in 2019 over dealings in Ukraine but acquitted by the Senate.
