Former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Wednesday that he was “concerned” by Rudy Giuliani’s role in the Trump campaign’s legal efforts challenging election results.
His comments come after Giuliani appeared in court Tuesday on behalf of the campaign just hours before a hearing in a case seeking to stop Pennsylvania from certifying its election results.
In an interview on Fox Business’s “Mornings With Maria,” Mulvaney said it was important for the campaign to move forward with its legal challenges, but slammed the use of the president’s personal attorney in those efforts as opposed to more experienced lawyers.
“I’m still a little concerned about the use of Rudy Giuliani,” Mulvaney said. “It strikes me that this is the most important lawsuit in the history of the country and they’re not using the most well-noted election lawyers.”
President Trump announced over the weekend that Giuliani would lead his legal effort in the wake of the election.
However, the former New York City mayor’s association with the president has come under scrutiny, partially due to media appearances in which he made embarrassing gaffes. Most recently, he was criticized for holding a press conference in the parking lot of a landscaping company near a pornography shop.
“This is not a television program, this is the real thing,” Mulvaney said. “So on one hand, I think it needs to go forward. It absolutely does. I wish that it was being prosecuted a little more efficiently.”
Giuliani denied to The New York Times that he asked the campaign for $20,000 per day for his legal services. The newspaper reported that some Trump allies were concerned that Giuliani was pushing for legal challenges in order to make more money.
“I never asked for $20,000,” he told the newspaper. “The arrangement is we’ll work it out at the end.”
Trump has refused to concede the election after President-elect Joe Biden was projected to win on Nov. 7, after extending his lead in several key states. The president’s campaign has filed multiple lawsuits in battleground states, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, to either invalidate or stop the counting of mail-in ballots that overwhelmingly went in favor of Biden.