Former New York City mayor and longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani doesn’t sound like he’s taking well to the news that a grand jury has been convened in connection to the ongoing criminal investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance of former President Donald Trump and his business. That grand jury will be tasked with considering whether or not to issue an indictment of the former president if prosecutors decide to propose a charge or charges, and setting up the grand jury suggests that prosecutors may think that they have enough to bring a charge (or charges).
During an appearance on the far-right outlet Real America’s Voice with Steve Bannon, Giuliani said that an investigation into Trump like what Vance and New York state Attorney General Letitia James have been running should be illegal. Giuliani said that authorities have simply been investigating Trump’s “whole life” in an effort to “pin a crime” on him, but he is just incorrect. Investigators have been operating in response to clearly documented potentially criminal behavior, including possibly fraudulent adjustments of the valuations of assets held by Trump’s business.
Those valuation adjustments would have been meant to help secure benefits like tax breaks, and tax fraud is not a made-up crime! Based on public information, investigators have also been apparently examining issues like how perks for the Weisselbergs were handled, alongside whether the distribution and management of non-salary benefits for the family (a longtime associate of the Trumps) followed tax rules. Again — tax fraud is not a made-up issue! Giuliani’s insistence that investigators have decided to “just investigate people” and see if they can find a crime is inaccurate.
Discussing James and Vance, Giuliani ranted as follows:
‘The Attorney General of the state ran on the unusual platform [of] “I’m gonna get Trump!” And the D.A. works very closely with her… This is a vendetta. It should be illegal, if it isn’t illegal, for a prosecutor to conduct a witch hunt investigation trying to find a crime on you. Pick somebody. Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump… I’m going to look at his whole life and let’s see if I can pin a crime on him. That’s what they’re doing to Donald Trump… The way you investigate crime in a democracy, in a country of laws is you get some form of — even if not quite probable cause but some indication that a crime was committed. We investigate crimes that lead to people. We don’t just investigate people. That happens in a dictatorship. And don’t tell me we’re not headed in that direction. We’re headed in the direction of… dictatorship.’
Watch Giuliani’s meltdown below:
