Rudy Giuliani Announces He’s Joining The Russia Probe & His Role Has People Puzzled

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The president has long established his vehement opposition to the very existence of the Russia investigation, and in that, he has been joined by many of his closest allies in the Republican Party who have come alongside him to seek to put an end to the whole thing.

Now, one of his allies is coming alongside him in a more formal role, with The Washington Post among the outlets to report that Rudy Giuliani is joining the president’s legal team. The former New York City mayor is coming on board with the express purpose of seeking to help “negotiate an end” to the Mueller probe.

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He told the publication:

‘I’m doing it because I hope we can negotiate an end to this for the good of the country and because I have high regard for the president and for Bob Mueller.’

When pressed by The Post, he would not say whether or not the end he had in mind would include the president sitting down for an interview with the special counsel’s team. That has remained an open question for some time now, and the president has been reported to be leaning away from that possibility in the wake of the FBI raiding his personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Those raids, though, to be sure, were carried out as a part of a criminal investigation by the Southern District of New York into the Trump attorney and not as a part of the Mueller probe.

Giuliani is joining the president’s legal team alongside Jeane Serene Raskin and Marty Raskin, a couple who are both former federal prosecutors and run a law firm in Florida. The announcement of the new additions to the president’s skeleton legal team comes a short time after another announcement of a couple joining the president’s legal team was abruptly retracted. Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing had been set to assist the president in the Russia probe last month when “conflicts” got in their way.

“Conflicts” is the term used by Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow to describe what kept the couple from joining up. The longtime conservative judicial activist Sekulow is one of the two lawyers who made up the president’s Russia probe covering legal team before Thursday’s revelations, the other being Ty Cobb. A third lawyer, John Dowd, resigned from the president’s legal team recently just a short time after making a direct call for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to use his power to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller and therefore end the Russia probe.

In the face of Rosenstein declining to do such a thing, Giuliani declined to answer when pressed by The Post about whether or not the president would fire the Deputy AG anytime soon. There have been reports that the president is considering taking matters into his own hands recently.

What is clear is that Giuliani will work tirelessly to implement the president’s agenda, for better or for worse. Trump, who he has long been allied with, commented as follows of the former NYC mayor Thursday:

‘Rudy is great. He has been my friend for a long time and wants to get this matter quickly resolved for the good of the country.’

Featured Image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images