Perhaps fittingly, the ever belligerent U.S. President Donald Trump tapped the also at times off the rails, Rudy Giuliani, to serve as his lawyer. This week, Giuliani continued campaigning to normalize his boss’s behavior, acting as though the president of the United States saying that “flipping” should be illegal is no big deal. According to Giuliani, the president just didn’t know what he was talking about — which is itself an eyecatching admission.
Trump was originally so angry at his former lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to felonies and implicating the president in the process. At Trump’s direction, Cohen secretly pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars in hush money to try and tip the 2016 election in his boss’s favor, the lawyer told a court recently.
In response, Trump ranted to Fox News’ Ainsley Earhardt:
‘If somebody defrauded a bank… you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you’ll go down to two years or three years [in jail] which is the deal [Cohen] made, in all fairness to him most people are going to do that. It’s called flipping, and it almost ought to be illegal.’
Giuliani countered, telling the New York Daily News:
‘The president is not a lawyer… I don’t think he’s against the idea of cooperation. He’s against the idea of getting people to lie.’
There’s no evidence that Cohen lied to authorities about Trump’s involvement in his schemes. Other Trump associates have been nabbed for lying, but not Cohen. In addition, at least one major witness — the National Enquirer‘s David Pecker — is reportedly backing him up to authorities behind the scenes.
In other words, it’s not as though Giuliani’s comments fix the situation of the president having suggested witness cooperation agreements should be illegal.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
