U.S. President Donald Trump increased the scrutiny on his legal team with the addition of his longtime ally Rudy Giuliani earlier this year. Soon after his appointment, Giuliani revealed the bombshell that Trump had actually repaid his lawyer Michael Cohen for Stormy Daniels’ hush money after all. The cascade of incendiary comments did not stop there.
This week, the former New York City mayor shared with USA Today that the Trump team is preparing a “counter-report” for any conclusions drawn by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation. He said that their report will be released after he and his associates on Trump’s legal team scrutinize whatever Mueller ends up filing with the Justice Department.
To be clear, though, there is no clear indication that Mueller will actually file anything with the Justice Department, whether a report simply summarizing his findings or something further. Giuliani is just freaking out.
That’s not where the major jumping the gun ended for Giuliani, though. He asserted that he expects Mueller to file his mystery report no later than September 1 in order to avoid dragging his investigation through the midterm elections.
He quipped:
‘I don’t think Mueller wants to be seen as interfering with the election.’
That’s a deeply ironic charge that Mueller could even interfere with an election at all via simply carrying out his judicial duties. After all, it’s the Trump team who accepted Russian interference in the election time and time again. Trump himself literally stood before the world and called on Russian hackers to seek to recover missing Hillary Clinton emails — and Russian hackers were listening, targeting Clinton campaign emails for the first time that day.
The Trump team is coming out against election interference only now that it serves their interests to do so. When the interference itself serves their interests, they’re all in.
Giuliani doesn’t even think that’s a bad thing, apparently.
On Monday, he commented while on Fox & Friends:
‘I have been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. Collusion is not a crime.’
Actually it is.
Former White House general counsel Robert Bauer explained:
‘[Collusion] definitely covers technical offenses. It includes U.S. citizen aid and support to a foreign national trying to influence a federal election, which is illegal.’
The irony of Giuliani entertaining the “collusion is not a crime” argument is that Trump’s de facto motto for some time has been, after Make America Great Again, “no collusion.” A photographer caught a version of that phrase scribbled on printed notes of remarks Trump was delivering to reporters recently in an effort to patch up his relationship with the reality of Russian election interference. (Those efforts failed.)
As recently as Sunday, Trump tweeted:
‘There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!’
So which is it? Collusion is not a crime, or there was no collusion? Mueller knows — or is working on finding out — but Giuliani just keeps throwing darts at a wall he can’t see and hoping for the best.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
