The declaration of bankruptcy by Mayor Giuliani after losing a libel suit marks a new nadir in the decline of a former associate attorney general of the United States and one-time libel lawyer who went on to become a renowned prosecutor, who was once called “America’s Mayor” and dreamed of the White House, and who was widely admired as an attorney.

The filing, which seeks protection from creditors, comes just days after a jury ordered Mr. Giuliani to pay $148 million in defamation damages to two erstwhile Georgia poll officers — a mother and her daughter — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The judge in that case, Beryl Howell, ordered that the judgment be immediately enforced, finding that Mr. Giuliani only “feebly” — meaning not at all — allayed concerns about hiding his assets.

Under that judgment’s sword of Damocles, Mr. Giuliani is seeking shelter under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code. The filing serves as an X-ray of Mr. Giuliani’s chaotic finances and might as well have been written in red ink for all the debt it discloses. The vast majority of it is defamation damages, but there are also $1 million owed in taxes and another $3.5 million claimed by law firms, for a total of $152.7 million.

The filing also lists potential liabilities that have not yet been adjudicated. Among those is a suit from the first son, Hunter Biden, who, in a civil complaint, accuses Mr. Giuliani of “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data” harvested from Mr. Biden’s laptop. A voting technology company, Smartmatic, has sued Mr. Giuliani, Fox News, and others for $2.7 billion. That, too, is on the ledger. 

A political adviser to Mr. Giuliani, Ted Goodman, issued a statement reasoning that the “filing should be a surprise to no one” because of the gargantuan totals owed by Mr. Giuliani. He adds that the move will provide “transparency for his finances under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, to ensure all creditors are treated equally and fairly throughout the process.”

In response to the question, “How much do you estimate your assets to be worth?” Mr. Giuliani checked the box indicating a $1 million to $10 million bracket, a fraction of what he owes. Mr. Giuliani’s apartment on 66th Street is on the market for $6.1 million. The Internal Revenue Service has placed a lien on his condominium at Palm Beach for failure to pay taxes.

Mr. Giuliani’s once-lavish lifestyle is now defined by precarity, a state of affairs that caused President Trump to reflect: “It’s so sad what’s happened to Rudy. He’s a great patriot. He’s the greatest mayor in the history of New York. I think it’s a very, very unfair situation.” The 45th president held a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser for New York’s 107th mayor in September. 

Messrs. Giuliani and Trump are co-defendants in a criminal racketeering case in Georgia. Both stand accused of participation in “a criminal enterprise” to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state. Mr. Giuliani is also “Co-Conspirator 1” in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 indictment, which paints a picture of the one-time United States attorney as a protagonist in Mr. Trump’s alleged conspiracy.

Chapter 11, while it will allow Mr. Giuliani some fiscal breathing room, is not a panacea because it does not erase debts incurred via “willful and malicious injury.” The defamation judgment could fall under that category, though the question would likely have to be adjudicated through an adversary proceeding, a type of trial that occurs in bankruptcy court.

The filing pauses all civil cases against Mr. Giuliani — the list of claims against him is not short — but does not affect the criminal case being pursued by the district attorney of Fulton County, Fani Willis. Any testimony that Mr. Giuliani delivers in  bankruptcy proceedings, though, could be seized on by the prosecutors in Georgia seeking to strip him not of his money, but of his liberty.