Donald Trump’s attack terrier, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union show, with Jake Tapper hosting. The president had sent out his TV attorney to retract one of the POTUS administration’s actions. The attorney acted as if it never happened. Nice try.
Giuliani claimed that the man sitting in the Oval Office could not be charged with obstruction of justice. His reason was that the commander-in-chief never had the conversation that Comey insisted happened. That would have been the one where Trump told the former FBI director to take it easy on Michael Flynn, the former National Security Adviser. Flynn turned state’s evidence in the Russia attack investigation against Trump in order to save his own son from jail.
The president fired the former National Security Adviser 17 days after he was informed about Flynn’s offense of being open to Russian persuasion. Giuliani said:
‘The president says that he never told Comey that he should go easy on Flynn. Comey says he did. He put it in his memo. We do have a prior contradictory statement by Comey under oath to the contrary. But put that aside. So if (Trump is) going in and testifies to that under oath, instead of this just being a dispute, they can say it’s perjury. If they believe Comey instead of Trump. We know by now who they believe.’
Tapper commented:
‘I just want to be clear about what happened in that conversation with Comey about Michael Flynn. What exactly did President Trump say?’
Giuliani argued against Tapper, saying “the president didn’t say that:”
‘There was no conversation about Michael Flynn. The president didn’t find out Comey believed there was until about — I think it was February when it supposedly took place, memo came out in May. And in between, Comey testified under oath that in no way had he been obstructed at any time. And then all of the sudden, in May, he says he felt obstructed. He felt pressured by that comment, “You should go easy on Flynn.”’
But Giuliani returned the shot, claiming that Tapper was “crazy:”
‘I never told ABC that, that’s crazy. What I said was, that is what Comey is saying Trump said. I have always said, the president denies it. Look, it would be easier for me if the president did say that. That is what he will testify to if they ask that question. But they already know that. So why are they asking us for him to repeat what they already know under oath.’
Tapper would not let Giuliani get away with that:
‘You’re saying a month ago, you didn’t tell ABC News that he said something along the lines of, “Can you give him a break?”‘
Giuliani laughed. Still, he had talked on ABC News and seemed to say that Trump had, indeed, talked to Comey about Flynn:
‘No, I did not. I said that is what Comey says. He didn’t direct him to (go drop the investigation). What he said was, can you, can you …’
Tapper broke into Giuliani’s comment:
‘Comey says he took it as direction.’
Giuliani ended with:
‘Well, that’s okay. He could have taken it that way, but by that time he had been fired. He said a lot of other things, some of which has turned out to be untrue. The reality is, as a prosecutor, I was told that many times, ‘can you give the man a break,’ either by his lawyers, by his relatives, by his friends. You take that into consideration. But you know that doesn’t determine not going forward with it.’
Check out the video of the entire interview via YouTube, below:
https://youtu.be/-suiZmhTPew
Feature image is a screenshot via YouTube.
