joe biden

May 27 (UPI) — Former President Joe Biden filed suit against the Department of Justice Tuesday to block the release of unredacted audio recordings and transcripts of his private conversations with the ghostwriter of his 2017 memoir.

In 2024, the Heritage Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act to get Biden’s comments to Mark Zwonitzer while writing, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose.

Under the Biden administration, the Justice Department had withheld the materials. But when Trump took over the presidency, “the Department has reversed that position,” the suit said.

In February, Biden’s attorney Amy Jeffress wrote, “without any formal explanation for its about-face, the Department notified President Biden of its intention to release the audio recordings and transcripts to the plaintiffs in the FOIA Action.”

On May 5, “the Office of the Deputy Attorney General informed President Biden, through counsel, that the Department had made a final decision to release the materials, with limited redactions, to the Heritage Plaintiffs and to Congress on June 15,” the lawsuit says.

“Every American, including a sitting or former vice president, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home,” Jeffress wrote in the lawsuit. “And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure.”

The documents were from records that then-special counsel Robert Hur used to write some parts of a 2023 report on Biden’s handling of classified documents that described him as “painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.” Hur didn’t bring charges against Biden.

Redacted transcripts of those conversations have already been released to the public.

Rep. Jim Jordan, D-Ohio, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he wanted the tapes released.

“I think it’s just important for the American people to know exactly where the President of the United States was… . (W)e’d like to see all that information, I think, to underscore what the Democrats were trying to hide just a few years ago,” CNN reported Jordan said.

May 19 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Justice announced it will drop criminal fraud charges against billionaire Indian businessman Gautam Adani.

The Justice Department submitted a motion Monday asking a federal judge to drop the indictment from 2024 brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, N.Y. The request said the department “reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants,” NBC News reported the court filing said.

Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter and Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella signed the filing. Prosecutors assigned to the case were not included.

Separately, the President Donald Trump administration announced it had reached a $275 million settlement with a company founded by Adani over “egregious” apparent violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran, Politico reported.

According to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, Adani Enterprises Limited bought $191 million worth of shipments of liquefied petroleum gas from a Dubai-based trader. OFAC alleged the company overlooked indications that the gas originated from Iran, Politico said.

Adani is the founder and chair of the Adani Group, a conglomerate based in Ahmedabad, India. Brooklyn prosecutors charged him and others in a fraud and bribery scheme in November 2024, while President Joe Biden was in office.

Adani’s lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell included two of Trump’s personal attorneys: Robert Giuffra Jr. and James McDonald, Politico reported.

Adani’s worth is estimated at more than $100 billion. He is one of the richest people in Asia, and is an ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Prosecutors alleged that Adani and his co-defendants paid $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials. The bribes were to help Adani Green Energy, a subsidiary, win approval to create India’s largest solar power plant. It was projected to bring $2 billion in profits over 20 years.

They also alleged the defendants defrauded American and international investors by gaining funds “on the basis of false and misleading statements.”

Adani Group denied the allegations and called them “baseless.”

May 13 (UPI) — The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Wednesday evening against D.C. disciplinary officials who recommended Jeffrey Clark be disbarred over his efforts to overturn 2020 election results, the latest move by the Trump administration to defend allies accused of helping President Donald Trump remain in power after that election loss.

The lawsuit in a federal court in D.C. alleges the disciplinary officials used their powers to punish lawyers over what federal prosecutors describe as “internal Executive Branch deliberations” in order to regulate federal government actions.

“Weaponizing state bar discipline against Executive Branch attorneys in this way chills them from giving candid legal advice to others in the Executive Branch, including the president and attorney general,” the lawsuit states.

“To permit these proceedings is to allow state bar authorities to control the Executive Branch. That is not the law.”

Clark was an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department following Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, and urged Justice Department officials to issue a letter he wrote casting doubt on election results, according to congressional investigators and D.C. disciplinary officials.

The letter specifically targeted the results in Georgia, a swing state Trump lost to Biden by 11,779 votes, alleging a Justice Department investigation had uncovered election “irregularities” despite Attorney General William Barr having already announced there was no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud in the election prior to his resignation.

Clark had prepared the letter to be signed by Barr’s replacement, then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, the second highest-ranking Justice Department lawyer, both of whom refused because they knew its contents were untrue.

Clark continued to push for the Justice Department to issue the letter, which he intended to be used as a template to be sent to other states. Amid the political turmoil, Trump considered appointing Clark as attorney general — a move Clark encouraged so he could launch nationwide investigations to uncover unfounded claims of election issues.

Trump abandoned the idea of appointing Clark only after being informed doing so would cause mass resignations among Justice Department leadership.

The D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel opened its investigation into Clark’s actions after Sen. Dick Durbin, as then-chairman of the committee, asked it to probe his “serious violations of professional conduct.”

The D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility in July recommended that Clark be disbarred in D.C., stating that “when a lawyer attempts to make intentional false statements on an issue that the lawyer understands to be a ‘pressing matter of overriding national importance,’ or knowing that the false statement would have serious and far-ranging consequences, they deserve the ultimate sanction.”

A final judgment has not yet been issued in the case.

The Justice Department on Wednesday asked the court to quash the D.C. disciplinary proceedings against Clark, and alleged they violate the Supremacy Clause and Article II of the Constitution by arguing that Clark was acting as a federal government employee who cannot be punished for performing Executive Branch duties.

Federal prosecutors also frame the issue as involving internal discussions. They said Clark attempted to persuade his superiors to issue a draft letter “that he felt reflected the actual law and facts about the 2020 election.”

“D.C. disciplinary authorities may not punish a United States official for disagreeing with a superior or coworker or for sharing an opinion just because those disciplinary authorities disagree with it,” the filing states.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also accused the D.C. Bar of being “a blatantly partisan arm of leftist causes,” accusing it of being weaponized.

“The D.C. Bar will no longer be permitted to probe sensitive Executive Branch deliberations and target Executive Branch officials with whom they happen to politically disagree, and federal attorneys will once again be free to share their candid legal advice with their bosses and colleagues,” he said in a statement.

Clark was never charged in federal court in connection with his role in the alleged scheme, but he, Trump and 17 others were indicted in Georgia on racketeering charges. The case was dismissed after the prosecutor appointed following Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ removal declined to pursue the charges.

Other Trump allies accused of aiding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election have also been sanctioned in D.C., including Rudy Giuliani, who was disbarred in D.C. and New York, and John Eastman, whose D.C. law license was suspended on an interim basis after he was disbarred in California.

Wednesday’s lawsuit is the latest action by the federal government aiding those who supported Trump’s false election claims.

On Trump’s first day in office, he issued clemency to the roughly 1,500 people charged or convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

He also issued pardons to Giuliani, Eastman, Clark, Sidney Powell and many others accused of aiding his efforts.

Addressing reporters on a recent flight to Algeria, Pope Leo XIV invoked the Gospel, called himself a peacemaker and pledged to keep speaking out on behalf of the downtrodden.

“Too many people are suffering in the world today,” he said. “Too many innocent people are being killed, and I think someone has to stand up.”

Pontiffs have a tradition of weighing in on global strife, and Leo’s words were in keeping with long-standing church teaching. Appearing in front of reporters in this fashion was also not new: Pope John Paul II began taking questions from journalists on the papal plane in the 1970s.

But the first American pope was in fact wading into an unprecedented political tempest — responding to a series of broadsides from President Trump that drew Leo into debates over the war with Iran, immigration policies and more, all while Catholics in the U.S. and around the world looked on.

With no permanent peace deal in sight to end the war, two of Trump’s top lieutenants — Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both Catholics and potential 2028 presidential candidates — have also been pulled into the fray. On Thursday, Rubio met Pope Leo at the Vatican in what he said was a long-planned diplomatic visit. Next month, Vance will release a memoir, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” detailing his 2019 conversion to Catholicism.

Trump’s invective has not abated, even in the week his chief diplomat met the pontiff. Ahead of Rubio’s visit, Trump repeated his claim that Leo was “just fine” with Iran developing a nuclear weapon. In response, Leo said that his critics should go after him “truthfully,” noting that the Catholic Church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons.

Against the backdrop of this sparring, Rubio sought to downplay the drama after his official visit to the Holy See, which lasted about two hours. On X, he said the meeting with Leo focused on their “shared commitment to promoting peace and human dignity.”

The episode has revealed the unique power Leo holds on the U.S. stage, with his inherent understanding of the country’s politics and an ability to deliver his message in an accent that at times reveals his Chicago roots.

“He’s speaking in English and he’s American,” said Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, most recently of the memoir “Work in Progress.” “People can’t dismiss him as not understanding the United States.”

For weeks, Leo has been asked to respond to a cascade of insults from Trump, including accusations that he is “weak on crime,” that he was chosen as pope because of Trump, and that the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics should “get his act together.”

In measured tones, Leo has repeatedly said he does not want to fight with the president. He counters that he is merely preaching the Gospel. On that flight in April, the pope told journalists: “I do not look at my role as being political, a politician. I don’t want to get into a debate with him.”

He added: “I will continue to speak out loudly, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateral relationships.”

He may not be a politician, but Leo’s preaching, ranging from Iran to immigration and global warming, has touched a nerve with Trump. In the U.S., Catholics often serve as a powerful swing vote and hold a wide range of views on those issues. But even in a time of deep division and political malaise, enthusiasm for the pontiff, born and raised in the Chicago area, is hard to dismiss.

Leo’s ascendancy comes as engagement with the Catholic Church appears to be growing in the United States. Though comprehensive data are hard to come by, parishes are reporting renewed interest.

Mark Gray, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, said there was evidence of an increase in baptisms, a trend that appeared to predate Leo’s election as pope last May.

Some of the new American converts lean more conservative, experts said, part of a broader rise in traditionalism. Amid tensions over whether the church should focus more on traditional issues of morality, such as abortion and marriage, or global concerns like war and migration, Leo has stressed that all are welcome and that he wants the church to function as a big tent.

Making history

U.S. presidents have long sought to court the pope, mindful of the country’s sizable Catholic population and its potential as a swing vote in elections. Woodrow Wilson was the first president to meet with the pope, in 1919, during talks after the end of World War I. Since Dwight Eisenhower made a trip to Rome in 1959, every president has traveled to meet the pope, some more than once.

That includes Trump, who traveled to see Pope Francis in 2017, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump. He also attended Francis’ funeral in 2025.

Asked if there was any precedent for Trump’s clash with the pope, Steven Millies, a professor of public theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, invoked an English king who changed the course of church history: “Henry VIII invites a comparison,” he said. Henry rejected Catholicism in the 1500s and founded a new church in order to ratify a divorce rejected by the pope.

Though Trump — who is not Catholic — has not suggested any such schism, he certainly appears to have discarded most niceties. The president has not apologized for any of his comments, though he did, after widespread backlash, take down a social media post that appeared to depict him as Christ.

Trump is constitutionally blocked from seeking another term, so picking a fight with Pope Leo may not have lasting political implications for him. But it’s a different story for Vance and Rubio, both of whom may need to appeal to the country’s Catholic voters to further their ambitions.

In the 2024 election, the Catholic vote tilted more decisively to the right, with 55% supporting Trump compared with 43% for Kamala Harris, according to the Pew Research Center. Four years earlier, Catholics were evenly divided, with 50% supporting Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, and 49% backing Trump.

Rubio noted as he headed to Rome that “obviously we had some stuff that happened” between the White House and the Vatican. Vance, who has frequently expressed his support for the pope but is also known for his often-punchy defense of the president’s positions, drew some derision in April when he was asked at a conference about Trump’s comments and suggested that Leo should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”

He later modified his tone, posting on X: “Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day. The President — and the entire administration — work to apply those moral principles in a messy world. He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.”

Still, the rift could cloud the upcoming release of Vance’s memoir, overshadowing a book meant to burnish a potential 2028 bid with questions about Trump’s antagonism toward the pontiff.

Two Catholics have served as president — Biden and John F. Kennedy. During an era of stronger anti-Catholic sentiment, Kennedy famously gave a speech as a candidate emphasizing the separation of church and state. Biden was more openly devout, attending Mass every weekend and quoting Catholic hymns in his speeches. Vance is the second Catholic vice president, following Biden’s two terms as President Obama’s deputy.

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said Trump’s social policies were a boon for U.S. Catholics and alluded to electoral politics without mentioning the pope. “President Trump has great respect for the more than one billion Catholics around the world, especially the Catholic Americans who helped power his landslide election victory in 2024,” she said.

The Midwestern pontiff

It’s been a year since the man born Robert Prevost in 1955 stepped out onto the Vatican balcony as pope, a role that predates the United States by nearly 2,000 years. The first American pope’s compatriots quickly seized on his Midwestern upbringing (he’s a White Sox fan) and relatable family dynamics (one of his two brothers supports Trump). In a nod to his Chicago roots, an Iowa-based clothing store, Raygun, began selling a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Da Pope.”

Leo also served for years as Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, building a global profile that helped propel him to the papacy. It hasn’t stopped Chicagoans from claiming him as one of their own — even showing up at the Vatican with Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.

Known as “Bob” before becoming Pope Leo, the new pontiff chose a name that clearly signaled his intentions as a leader, invoking memories of Leo XIII, an intellectual considered a pioneer of modern Catholic social teaching and an advocate for workers. Millies said the choice signaled that Leo wants to refocus on justice and care for others as well as the rising threats around the globe. Leo has cited artificial intelligence as one of those challenges.

With a more low-key presence than his predecessor, Pope Francis, some observers have labeled Leo as quiet. But as his tug of war with Trump shows, his messages are frequently not subtle. In fact, his reserved style may be a reflection of his Midwestern roots.

This mild manner comes across in public statements that nonetheless make a lasting impact.

Last fall, Leo questioned Trump’s decision to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War. “Let us hope it is just a way of speaking,” he said. More recently, he took aim at the president’s preferred method of communication, his social media site Truth Social. Asked about Trump’s vitriol on the platform, Leo said: “It’s ironic — the name of the site itself. Say no more.”

Perhaps no message has been clearer than the pope’s decision on how to spend the Fourth of July this year. For the nation’s 250th birthday, as Trump hosts a giant celebration, the pope will be an ocean away. His plans? Visiting Lampedusa, an Italian island that serves as a stop for migrants traveling to Europe.

Lucey writes for Bloomberg.

Who won the 2020 election?

Was the Capitol attacked on Jan. 6, 2021?

Can Donald Trump be elected to a third term as president?

No brainers, right?

The answers are, of course, “Joe Biden,” “yes” and “no.” Any fact- and reality-based American would say so. But that humongous class of people pointedly doesn’t include the president of the United States. And apparently for that reason, his nominees for federal judgeships — the very jobs in which you’d most want fact-based individuals — hem, haw, stammer and ultimately decline to give direct answers when Democratic senators test them with such easy-peasy questions at confirmation hearings.

One after another, month after month, Trump nominees for district and appeals courts across the land say that the answers to the questions are matters of debate, of “significant political dispute.” Well, they’re in dispute only because Trump says they are, as does every ambitious officeholder and office-seeker desperate to remain in the retributive ruler’s good graces — including, alas, would-be judges.

To watch them squirm and then squirt out the same rehearsed reply, the same legalistic word salad, just like the dozens of nominees before them would be hilarious (see below) if it weren’t so ominous for the rule of law in the nation.

Trump nominees for other high-ranking jobs, likewise prepped for Senate Democrats’ questions by their Trump handlers, give the same rote response. But the fact that candidates for lifetime seats on the federal bench, making decisions of life-changing consequences for millions of Americans, would choose to dodge the truth is most sickening.

In their truth-trolling to keep Trump happy, lest he yank their chance at new black robes, these candidates fail the test of judicial independence. As one Democrat, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, told four district judge nominees last week at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, their humiliating hedging “on an issue of fact” — Biden won in 2020 — “reflects not only on your honesty but really on your fitness to be a federal judge.”

Indeed. That judicial nominees would curry Trump’s favor bodes ill for future federal jurisprudence in the one branch of government that’s stood up for the rule of law against Trump, repeatedly, when Congress and the Supreme Court have not. To be fair, a number of judges confirmed in Trump’s first term have been among the many who’ve ruled against his and his administration’s second-term abuses of power. Yet just as Trump has populated his Cabinet and executive branch with sycophants, unlike in Trump 1.0, he’s obviously applying new litmus tests to potential judges. One of them, clearly, is playing along with his election lies.

His nominees’ failure to speak truth to Trump’s power should be disqualifying. But they’re not disqualified, because the Senate is run by Republicans who share their fear of him.

That fact is a big reason to hope that Democrats capture the majority in November’s midterm elections and that, under new management, the Senate will finally take seriously its constitutional “advice and consent” responsibility to act as a check on Trump nominees for the final two years of his term — including, perhaps, one for the Supreme Court.

And, yes, this is Trump’s final term, for all of his teasing about “Trump 2028.” The Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says as much in its opening line: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Yet the four wannabe district judges at last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing — Michael J. Hendershot of Ohio; Arthur Roberts Jones and John G.E. Marck, both of Texas; and Jeffrey T. Kuntz of Florida — struggled over that clear language.

All four hesitated when Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, asked them to describe the amendment. He even read its initial words before querying Marck, “Is President Trump eligible to run for president again in 2028?”

Marck paused, then sputtered: “Senator, with ah, without considering all the facts and looking at everything, depending on what the situation is, this to me strikes as more of a hypothetical of something that could be raised.”

“It’s not a hypothetical,” Coons countered, then asked again whether Trump is “eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution.”

“Um, I would have to, to review the, the actual wording of it,” Marck blabbered.

Coons turned to the others: “Anybody else brave enough to say that the Constitution of the United States prevents President Trump from seeking a third term?” Silence.

“Anybody willing to apply the Constitution by its plain language in the 22nd Amendment?” Coons persisted. Crickets.

His Democratic colleague, Blumenthal, inquired of the foursome, “Who won the 2020 election?” All agreed in turn that Biden “was certified” the winner. None would say he “won” because — as we and they know —Trump insists to this day that he won; he’s turned the power of his “Justice” Department to trying to prove that obvious falsehood. Far be it from these future judges to contradict the president who nominated them.

Here’s Hendershot’s gibberish to Blumenthal’s simple query: “Senator, I want to be mindful of the canons here. I know this question has come up many times in these hearings and it’s become an issue of significant political dispute and debate. So, with, with that, I would say that, that President Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 election.”

After the others replied similarly, Blumenthal turned justifiably scathing: “It’s pretty irrefutable that Joe Biden won the election. But you’re unwilling to use that word because you are afraid. You are afraid. Of what? President Trump? That is exactly what we do not need on the federal bench today. We need jurists who are fearless and strong, not weak and pathetic.”

Apparently unshamed, each similarly demurred when he asked if the Capitol had been attacked. “You’ve seen the videos, have you not?” Blumenthal blurted.

No matter, Senator. These would-be triers of fact apparently won’t believe their eyes. Not when their patron, the president, insists on lies.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
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ATLANTA — The Department of Justice is seeking the names of every person who worked in the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that Donald Trump has long accused of widespread voter fraud he falsely says cost him victory against Joe Biden in the state that year.

Lawyers for the county filed a motion on Monday night to quash a grand jury subpoena that asks for the names and personal contact information of county employees and volunteer poll workers. This latest action comes after the FBI in January went to a Fulton County elections warehouse and seized ballots and other documents from the 2020 election, which Georgia’s certified totals showed Trump lost in the state to Biden by 11,779 votes out of nearly 5 million cast. Trump, a Republican, still insists the election was stolen from him even though judges and his own attorney general concluded otherwise.

Monday’s court filing says the subpoena is meant to “target, harass and punish the President’s perceived political opponents.” The request is “grossly overbroad and untethered to any reasonable need,” the county’s lawyers argue. It “cannot yield any evidence that could result in a criminal prosecution,” they wrote, arguing that the statute of limitations on any federal crime related to the 2020 election has already expired.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.

County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts, in an emailed statement, called the subpoena “yet another act of outrageous federal overreach designed to intimidate and chill participation in elections.”

“Let me be crystal clear. Fulton County will not be intimidated,” said Pitts, a Democrat who’s running for reelection.

Since the 2020 election, Trump “has obsessively propagated the debunked conspiracy theory that Fulton County ‘stole’ the 2020 election from him,” the county’s lawyers wrote. “And he has made it clear that he seeks retribution against those who refuse to indulge his baseless claims.”

Trump has already targeted individual poll workers like Ruby Freeman, who was attacked by him and his supporters after the election. Freeman, who’s Black, has said she was forced to flee her home after false claims of election fraud against her led to racist threats and strangers showing up at her home.

The grand jury subpoena, dated April 17, was served on the county’s director of elections on April 20, the county’s court filing says. It seeks the “name, position/function, residential and email addresses, and personal telephone number(s)” for thousands of election workers “ranging from county employees who assisted on election day, to bus drivers who operated a mobile voting location, to volunteers and temporary poll workers,” the filing says.

The subpoena “is a chilling escalation in the campaign to terrorize Fulton County election workers,” the county’s lawyers wrote, adding that threats arising from the current political environment have caused election workers to “fear for their physical safety.” That and other stresses “including the likelihood of being scapegoated by public officials” are causing election workers to leave their jobs “in unprecedented numbers,” they wrote.

The county’s lawyers note that the subpoena directs the county to provide the records not to the grand jury but to an out-of-state Justice Department lawyer or to the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit used for the seizure of the county’s 2020 ballots in January.

The January seizure of the ballots and other records from Fulton County was one in a string of moves by Trump’s administration to obtain past election records from critical swing states. The FBI in March used a subpoena to get records related to an audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County in Arizona. And the Justice Department in April demanded that Michigan’s Wayne County turn over its ballots from the 2024 election, which Trump won against Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris.

The Justice Department is also fighting numerous states in court for access to voter data that includes sensitive personal information. Election officials, including some Republicans, have said handing over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

1 of 3 | Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is interviewed on the floor of the 2024 Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis., on July 16, 2024. Giuliani has been hospitalized in critical condition, his spokesman said Sunday. File Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI | License Photo

May 3 (UPI) — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalized and is in critical condition, his spokesman said Sunday.

Giuliani “is currently in the hospital, where he remains in critical but stable condition,” Ted Goodman said in a statement.

“Mayor Giuliani is a fighter who has faced every challenge in his life with unwavering strength, and he’s fighting with that same strength now. We do ask that you join us in prayer for America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”

Goodman did not say why Giuliani, 81, was hospitalized.

The former mayor’s condition was also noted by President Donald Trump, who wrote on his Truth Social platform, “True Warrior, and the Best Mayor in the History of New York City, BY FAR.”

Trump also took the occasion to praise his political ally and former lawyer, who served as one of the key figures in the president’s baseless campaign attacking the results of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden as “rigged.”

“They cheated on the Elections, fabricated hundreds of stories, did anything possible to destroy our Nation, and now, look at Rudy. So sad!” Trump wrote.

Trump in November pardoned Giuliani and 76 others tied to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including participation in what has become known as the fake electors scheme. The strategy involved the creation of false slates of pro-Trump electors in every battleground state that he lost to Biden, including Georgia.

The former mayor’s championing of Trump’s claims also resulted in his own financial troubles.

In September, he reached a confidential settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which had filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against him for his allegations the company rigged the 2020 presidential election.

Giuliani was previously disbarred as a lawyer in New York and Washington, D.C.