Giuliani’s Law Firm Undercuts His Statements as They Part Ways

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, abruptly resigned from his law firm, which then promptly undercut his recent statements defending the president.

Giuliani had taken a leave of absence last month from the firm, Greenberg Traurig, to represent Trump. But the firm, one of the nation’s largest, said in a statement on Thursday that he no longer worked there.

Firm partners had chafed over Giuliani’s public comments about payments that another of Trump’s lawyers, Michael D. Cohen, made to secure the silence of a pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with Trump. The president has denied her allegations.

Giuliani suggested that such payments were common at his firm, even without the knowledge of the clients. “That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do, out of his law firm funds,” he said on Fox News. He added, “Michael would take care of things like this like I take care of this with my clients.”

The New York Times asked Greenberg Traurig about those remarks early this week. Shortly after Giuliani’s resignation was announced, the firm responded.

“We cannot speak for Mr. Giuliani with respect to what was intended by his remarks,” said a spokeswoman, Jill Perry. “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.”

Trump has publicly denied knowing about the payments as they were made. Giuliani said the president reimbursed Cohen for them, an arrangement he said was routine. Giuliani had to walk back many of his comments.

Giuliani laughed when read the statement from the firm. “First of all, I don’t think they really understand what I said,” he said. Giuliani said he was referring to a nondisclosure agreement Cohen had negotiated. “That’s a very common part of a settlement,” he said. “In fact, any lawyer would negotiate that for a client.”

Later on Thursday, Giuliani said that officials at the firm had never raised concerns about his comments. “They never brought it up,” he said. “I have good feelings about them, but for me, this opens up being able to speak” freely without being concerned about how Greenberg Traurig would react.

He said he had turned down two offers to host a radio show as he stayed out of the spotlight at their request since the end of the campaign, during which he served as an aggressive surrogate on Trump’s behalf. “The last year and a half, I haven’t been on television,” Giuliani said. “Frankly, I’ve missed it.”

The firm’s prominent lawyers are not unified against Giuliani — one of its best-known litigators, Marc L. Mukasey, is an ally of his.

“You’ve gotta realize the firm is 2,000 lawyers,” Giuliani said, “some of them big supporters of the president, some of them enemies of the president.”

In its statement, Greenberg Traurig said that Giuliani had resigned effective Wednesday. “After recognizing that this work is all consuming and is lasting longer than initially anticipated, Rudy has determined it is best for him to resign,” said the firm’s chairman, Richard A. Rosenbaum.

Lawyers at Greenberg Traurig are sensitive about their public image. In 2005, one of its lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, was implicated at the center of a wide-ranging corruption scandal that shook Washington.

Giuliani has enjoyed the public-relations work he has been doing for Trump, according to three people who have spoken with him. Much like his client, Giuliani, a former New York mayor, prefers being untethered, they said.

And despite Trump’s grousing about Giuliani’s gaffes, the president has also told people that Giuliani is putting out information that the president wants to be part of the public conversation, particularly about the special counsel inquiry.

What’s more, Trump’s team functions better as a collection of free agents as opposed to major names tied to a big firm, which imposes strong restrictions, according to one person familiar with the situation.

One person close to Giuliani said that his serving in the administration in some role eventually was a possibility and had been the subject of informal conversations he had with the president.

Many of the country’s top law firms have resisted the prospect of their lawyers representing the president. As Trump tried to rebuild his legal team this spring, firms told their top lawyers that if they wanted to represent the president, they would have to resign.

The firms were concerned about Trump’s long-standing history of ignoring his lawyers’ advice and apparent failure to pay his bills, and backlash from employees who did not want to work for a firm that was representing Trump.