In the scramble to recover their long-since abandoned credibility, GOP government officials have worked overtime to discredit those responsible for holding President Trump and his team accountable for the questionable actions they took to secure the presidential election in 2016. It isn’t nearly as important to discredit the facts of the stories of Trump’s alleged collusion and obstruction of justice as it is to discredit those who report and investigate it.
While the targets have varied between officials within the intelligence community to the news media to a former presidential candidate who is no longer running for office, one theme has resonated throughout these attacks: Trump is being unfairly targeted and the investigation itself is a sham. The choice of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as Trump’s legal spokesman reflects the administration’s need to convince the public that the investigation is part of a “deep state” conspiracy against them since Giuliani is more than willing to repeat that claim and did so even without prompting in the past.
Breaking: Rudy Giuliani tells NPR that Robert Mueller’s office has told President Trump's legal team the part of the investigation involving the president will conclude by Sept. 1, if the interview with Trump takes place in by early- to mid-July.
— NPR (@NPR) May 20, 2018
In attempt to appear as if the administration has control of the situation, Giuliani has made statements to the press about his ability to influence the end date of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. On Sunday, the former mayor told several different news outlets that he had been provided a timeline by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that promises a conclusion to the probe into Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice. According to Reuters, an official with actual knowledge of the investigation who spoke under the condition of anonymity says this is entirely untrue.
‘He’ll wrap it up when he thinks he’s turned over every rock, and when that is will depend on how cooperative witnesses, persons of interest and maybe even some targets are, if any of those emerge, and on what new evidence he finds, not on some arbitrary, first-of-the-month deadline one of the president’s attorneys cooks up.’
Giuliani’s claim that Mueller aims to end probe by Sept 1 is ‘entirely made up’: report https://t.co/MfvoUmuLSC
— CNBC (@CNBC) May 21, 2018
Giuliani’s claim was backed by an accusation that the investigation will unfairly impact the results of the 2018 midterm elections, which echoes the criticism of James Comey’s October 2016 announcement of further investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state under President Obama.
Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani said special counsel Robert Mueller's office shared a completion timeline for the Russia probe two weeks ago. https://t.co/z7p0oCKKNM pic.twitter.com/phudBOFM6r
— CNBC (@CNBC) May 21, 2018
Gearing up for the long fight toward the November elections, a fight in which Democrats are expected to regain control of Congress, Trump’s legal spokesman has introduced a new talking point: for anyone critical of Comey’s decision to announce the Clinton investigation and by claiming that it cost her the election, the Mueller investigation should be reviled for doing the same to Republicans and President Trump.
Giuliani says Mueller's investigation of Trump may end by Sept. 1 https://t.co/DVRqtidit5 pic.twitter.com/MJ1fHssx5G
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 21, 2018
Giuliani’s claims of an ability to end the investigation have, so far, not panned out. After all, this is the same Trump mouthpiece that promised to bring an end to the investigation within two weeks of his appointment to the president’s legal team on April 19, 2018.
It’s been four weeks and three days since Giuliani made that claim and the investigation is still well underway.
Featured image via Getty/NurPhoto
