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UPDATE: Get ‘Yeah collusion’ tweet-from another Chapter?

Wow! Sorry but that’s the first reaction upon seeing Rudy Giuliani’s-Trump’s lawyer/co-conspirator-interviews yesterday morning. Evidently there’s no Hippocratic Oath-first do no harm-for lawyers. On the other hand you could say that Giuliani certainly did no harm and probably did a lot of good for the Russia investigation.

FN: In retrospect that might be a little optimistic-from the report it doesn’t seem Mueller was so aggressive with his inferences and collusion was never the focus of the investigation. For the most part Rudy’s canards were part of a political strategy-that in many ways you have to admit were kind of successful-due the general fecklessness of the MSM.

On the issue of collusion Giuliani tried to have it both ways and also door number 3. No collusion! Oh, wait-maybe collusion. 

“Whenever Rudolph W. Giuliani makes a new round of television appearances saying false, curious or just bizarre things in defense of his client, President Trump, some people inevitably ask why he keeps getting invited back on these programs. But there’s a great value to Giuliani’s appearances.”

Absolutely-they are vital. If it were up to me he’d do them everyday. And if you hate Trump like I do you should want the same.

Beyond that, the words and thinking of the illegitimate ‘President’s’ lawyer/co-conspirator is clearly big and important news. Keep doing what you’re doing Rudes.

“They tell us what the president is thinking about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into the Russia scandal — and what he’s afraid of. They also serve as a kind of briefing to Trump’s supporters: Here’s the new defense of Trump’s actions, so you’d better get ready to repeat this argument, however ridiculous it might be.”

Indeed-there’s a good case to make that at this point what Rudy is doing is less a legal strategy than a political one. He may well understand that Mueller has the goods on the illegitimate ‘President’ and at this point he’s playing for the base-he wants to muddy the waters so that-hopefully, the base protects Trump and prevents impeachment-which it’s pretty clear this is where Rudy thinks this is going. Like he said in an interview back in May in the end the question is to impeach or not to impeach?

“This morning, Giuliani appeared on Fox & Friends and CNN’s New Day, and said some very interesting things. Let’s begin with this portion of the CNN interview, in which he was trying to argue that Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman who is about to go on trial for a panoply of crimes, barely had anything to do with the campaign or Trump himself:

Four months, they’re not going to be colluding about Russians, which I’m not even [sure] if that’s a crime, colluding about Russians. You start analyzing the crime, the hacking is the crime, the hacking is the crime. Well, the president didn’t hack! He didn’t pay them for hacking!

There’s something else important Giuliani said on CNN, but before we get to that, here’s how he reiterated the point on Fox:

I’ve been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find “collusion” as a crime. Collusion is not a crime.

“In a very strict sense, Giuliani is right that there isn’t a particular crime called “collusion.” But that’s kind of like saying that if you walked into an Apple Store, stuffed an iPhone in your pants and walked out, you’re innocent because the criminal code makes no specific reference to “stuffing an iPhone in your pants.”

This has been the strange schizophrenic strategy of the Trump team since the start of the investigation. Trump has repeated countless times no collusion. But then sometimes his defenders will observe ‘collusion is not a crime.’

But to assert at the same time, both that there was

1. No collusion

2. Collusion is not a crime

Is question begging. It’s not clear why if 2 is true you even need 1 which is only necessary if 2 isn’t true. Giuliani went all over the place in his sort of off the cuff, free forming interview on CNN. While strongly suggesting 1 and then asserting 2 he also said

3. Who can be sure about anything?

This is almost a foray into extreme postmodernism or philosophical skepticism. It reminds you of the old philosophical debates in the time of Hume and Descartes-how do I know that I exist? Is it possible that I can doubt my own existence as I sit in my armchair and write this manuscript by candle light?

As for wether collusion is a crime, it depends what you’re colluding on-if it’s to buy concert tickets, it’s not a crime. If it’s with a hostile foreign government to rig an U.S. Presidential election, it’s-

“As Randall Eliason lays out here, there are multiple crimes under which any cooperation between the Russian government and the Trump campaign could potentially fall. If the campaign sought and/or received damaging information on its opponent from sources connected to the Russian government, it would almost certainly be in violation of this statute, which prohibits “a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution” from a foreign national for the purpose of a political campaign. A contribution could be money, but it could also be any other “thing of value,” and dirt on your opponent would seem to qualify. In addition to the crime of accepting the contribution, they could also be charged with conspiracy to violate election laws, or with aiding and abetting another person’s crime.”

Seth Abramson:

UPDATE: Now illegitimate ‘President Trump’ has stopped saying no collusion and is now saying collusion is not a crime. 

For now.

UPDATE 2.0: No he actually is doing both at once-there was on collusion, but anyway, it’s not a crime.

UPDATE: Still in retrospect it’s clear that Rudy and Trump achieved little success in muddying the waters. Trump’s talking points reman ‘No collusion no obstruction’ and while it’s false the media tends not to correct him about this in real time-and after all they themselves said the same thing after Coverup Barr’s fake exoneration letter.

Even while subsequently acknowledging this is false the MSM itself still remains pretty sketchy about what Mueller actually found and what he didn’t. Many pundits act as if the truth is ‘No collusion but some obstruction.’

Actually Mueller documents plenty of collusion as well as obstruction though as he says collusion is not itself a chargeable crime-though if it’s not an impeachable offense it certainly should be-Pelosi still seems unimpressed.

Everything seems to unimpress her even Trump being accused of rape-again.

Some of the MSM realizes that Trump clearly is guilty of collusion-if it’s not a legal crime it’s a moral and political one-as Nadler says impeachment is for conduct that is not criminal but perhaps should be.

But even the MSMers who do get this argue in the next breath that the narrative that there was no collusion has taken hold and helplessly throw up their hands-ignoring that they themselves are responsible for it taking hold and they have a duty to correct.

Indeed while Mueller said there was not enough evidence to establish conspiracy with the Russian government beyond a reasonable doubt it’s clear there was plenty of evidence of this. How do you fail to impeach a ‘President’ for who there’s ‘only’ enough evidence to establish conspiracy with Russia to a probable cause or preponderance of evidence standard?

End of UPDATE

Another very striking feature of Giuliani’s interviews was his penchant for denying things nobody asked about-and thereby getting Trump into even more trouble than he was previously-at least as far as public knowledge and opinion are concerned.

One denial of something no one asserted was his categorical statement that illegitimate ‘President Trump’ most certainly did not pay hackers to hack the DNC, Clinton, etc. 

“The most notable portion of the interviews was when Giuliani rekindled the idea that collusion isn’t even a crime. Trump’s defenders have occasionally noted that the word doesn’t appear in the criminal code — which is true but misleading— but Giuliani took it a step further: He basically suggested Trump would have had to pay for Russia to interfere on his behalf.”

“I don’t even know if that’s a crime — colluding with Russians,” Giuliani said on CNN. “Hacking is the crime. The president didn’t hack. He didn’t pay for the hacking.”

By the way I didn’t just embezzle $10 million dollars from the bank I work at either. Just wanted to establish that.

I mean no one thinks Trump himself would know the first thing about hacking. As for paying for hacks, I guess this is logical from Rudes’ standpoint as he’s trying to define ‘collusion’ as narrowly as he can-collusion is when you pay hackers to hack. 

FN: And while Trump may not have directly paid for hacks, the late Peter Smith did so on his behalf-and Smith was in the loop with the top Trump campaign senior aides-most of all Flynn but also Bannon, Conway, Spicer, et al.

And this can’t be dismissed as a simple rogue operation-beyond the emails with the to Trump team the Mueller Report documents that on July 27, 2016-the same day of Russia if you’re listening-Trump instructed Flynn to find Clinton’s emails so Smith’s actions were arguably in response to Trump’s instruction to Flynn.

End of FN

But he also answered some more questions that weren’t asked like that No, Trump was not physically present at the Trump Tower meeting. 

“Giuliani also seemed to offer a very narrow denial of what happened with the Trump Tower meeting. While discussing Michael Cohen’s allegation that Trump knew about the meeting, Giuliani focused his defense on arguing not necessarily that Trump didn’t know about it — but that he wasn’t physically at meetings at which information from Russians was discussed. And he did it on both shows.”

“Even this Russia meeting — I’m happy to tell [Robert Mueller] he wasn’t there; he wasn’t at the meeting,” Giuliani said while arguing that Mueller doesn’t need to interview Trump.

UPDATE: Cillizza has a compilation of the 37 strangest lines from Rudes’ interviews. 

But then, again, Giuliani further confused and muddied the waters by seemingly raising the specter of another Trump Tower meeting, a kind of Trump Tower meeting about the upcoming Trump Tower meeting with the Russians-a kind of pre-meeting. So is Trump’s lawyer/co-conspirator talking about the pre meeting or the actual meeting. Somewhere Jerry Seinfeld is smiling.

https://twitter.com/JonnyWinklerEh/status/1023975240496570368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1023975240496570368&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flastmenandovermen.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D37569%26action%3Dedit

At other times, Giuliani appeared to say that Trump also was not present for a separate alleged meeting before the Trump Tower meeting in which the Trump Tower meeting was discussed. Cohen has reportedly indicated that others can vouch for the fact that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting, but it’s not clear he’s talking about the specific meeting Giuliani is referencing.

“He did not participate in any meeting about the Russia transaction … the president did not,” Giuliani said. “And the other people at the meeting that [Cohen] claims he had without the president about it say he was never there.”

It’s not clear what Giuliani is saying here and it’s possible he’s telling so many lies on so many parts that he himself truly is confused. You’ve heard of telling so many lies you can’t keep them all straight? That seems to be Rudy. But beyond that it also sounds as if he may be trying to preemptively push back on a new bombshell-about a pre Trump Tower meeting to the Trump Tower meeting. 

“As I’ve mentioned a few times before, one of the oddities of Giuliani’s rolling defense of Trump in response to Cohen’s accusations is this: Giuliani says that the meeting where Trump allegedly learned about the Russia meeting never happened and he (Giuliani) has talked to the participants and they agree it never happened and Trump didn’t attend the meeting or know about the Russian offer. Now, there’s sort of a problem here. Cohen never said just what meeting he was referring to. And how can you be a witness to a meeting that never happened about what was said in that meeting?”

“This makes no sense.”

Nope, it’s a Seinfeld bit.

But from the start, I’ve had the sense that Giuliani does know specifically what Cohen is talking about but is denying the specifics.

“Now let’s get to what Giuliani said this morning. In a back and forth with CNN’s Alisyn Carmerota, he appears to say that two days before the meeting with the Russian lawyer there was a planning meeting to prepare for that meeting. This prep meeting would have been on June 7th, 2016. Giuliani says that meeting included Don Jr., Jared Kushner, Manafort, Rick Gates and others.”

Uh, Rick Gates, Rick Gates deputy to Paul Manafort-the first to go to trial because he’s Trump’s G. Gordon Liddy-Rick Gates? Rick Gates who has already flipped and is cooperating with Mueller Rick Gates. That Rick Gates was at the pre Trump Tower meeting about the Trump Tower Russia meeting that never happened-the first one never happened that is?

Maybe that’s why Giuliani is trying to preemptively knock down this question no one asked. Maybe Rick Gates has told Mueller all about it and Giuliani’s trying to get ahead of it. He did something similar actually with Cohen’s tape last week. He and Trump actually forfeited executive privilege so they could talk-in a misleading way-about it, which, prompted Cohen and Lanny Davis to release the actual tape.

So in short, Rudes’ interviews yesterday were a big roiling, incoherent mess in which he did great harm to his own client. Like Michael Avenatti says, let’s encourage him to do as many as possible. Having said that, there does seem to be a certain method behind the big roiling, incoherent mess. Essentially as we hinted above, Giuliani is playing a political strategy rather than a legal one. He realizes they’re goose is probably cooked legally.

But as Trump-apparently-can’t be indicted-and because it is a fact that it’s ultimately not a legal but a political question on assessing what happened in the 2016 election and wether Trump is legitimate, Rudy is trying to lay the groundwork for convincing as many Americans as he can not reject the findings of the Mueller probe once it concludes and makes its conclusions public.

This is why we must vote as if the future of American democracy is on the ballot; because it is

P.S. As a bonus Rudy offered a prediction that Mueller finishes the probe by September so as not to Comey around in the election. I put little credence in Giuliain’s accuracy here-my guess is the investigation does not only have one month left.

As for Comeying around, rather ironic if because of Comey’s manifest unfairness to Hillary Clinton, Mueller bends over backwards to be manifestly fair to Trump-who benefitted from Comey’s manifest unfairness to Hillary. That’s sort of adding manifest insult to injury.

And then we haven’t even gotten into the extreme-and manifest-irony of Giuliani-who was anything but a bystander to Comey’s Comying around-in fact there is good reason to believe that Giuliani was leaked information about Weiner’s laptop, etc, from pro Trump rogue agents at the NY FBI in October, 2016.

Just in case you think we’re being a little rough on Rudes-maybe yesterday was just an off day for him, no, he’s always like this. Here was just recently, tripping all over his own tongue on what he received on Clinton and from who. Ok, I might have received leaks on the Clinton probe but those who leaked were not active FBI agents. 

 

 

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October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

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