President Donald Trump tweeted his support for Rudy Giuliani Saturday, calling him “a little rough around the edges” but a “great guy and wonderful lawyer.”
He may seem a little rough around the edges sometimes, but he is also a great guy and wonderful lawyer.
Donald Trump did not write this line.
Trump translator: “Guiliani has dirt on me and can ruin me. He’s useful for now to protect me.”
Should be, “and needs a wonderful lawyer.”
‘What’s a few crimes among friends? Us crooks gotta stick together.’
In a less supportive move, Trump also declined to say if Giuliani is still his lawyer when pressed by reporters Friday.
He will be Trump’s lawyer for purposes of invoking attorney-client privilege, but when it comes to Giuliani’s criminal actions, they will claim that Trump never paid him so Giuliani was acting on his own.
Rough around the edges? Ooooooooookay
Trump is standing by, maybe slightly behind, Giuliani waiting for the bus.
Dont worry Rudy he will be there when you really need him.
I’m just waiting for “He’s doing a great job”,
aka The Dotard Kiss of Death.
Everyone should know by now if Trump is asked if he is standing by or needs someone,that person is OUT !
There’s an article in Politico about Trump advisers being unhappy with Giuliani and wanting him to just shut up. The most interesting quote was “At least one Republican suggested Giuliani would not leave even if Trump wanted him to.”
It’s an interesting situation. Rudy loves the TV lights more than self-preservation, apparently, and there isn’t much Trump could do to stop him making appearances. Involuntary commitment for psychiatric evaluation doesn’t keep you off the streets for very long, these days.
Trump: Rudy? Who are you talking about?
“President Donald Trump tweeted his support for Rudy Giuliani Saturday, calling him “a little rough around the edges” but a “great guy and wonderful lawyer.””
Parnas and Fruman are awaiting similar tidings of support as well.
Donnie and Rudy just foul up everything like a dog with diarrhea.
Yes, Fat Ass is standing right behind Rudy Juggalohoney at the corner bus stop.
And the crosstown express should be here any second now.
Don’t worry, Rudy. The dry cleaners should be able to get rid of those tire tracks on your Armani suit in no time.
Two men wrapped up in illegality. Trump promises Guiliani a pardon and the Medal of Freedom and a partridge in a pear tree. For his trouble, Guiliani turns state witness and swears Trump ordered him to break the law, cops a plea and moves to Europe under a witness protection program complete with facelift and new teeth.
allies of the President have been pushing for him to dump Giuliani, fearing that his lack of verbal discipline will hurt Trump by proxy.
Well, that’s not a very nice thing to do to your long-time girlfriend.
One must learn how to read a Trump tweet. The context: The NYTimes published an article which was intended by SDNY, in my view, to offer Rudy the option of a plea deal where he would plead guilty to a FARA charge and shut up. The value of this to Trump/Barr?: It isolates Rudy’s conduct as a side deal from the overall accusation of Trump’s shakedown of the UKR gov’t for in kind campaign donations and keeps him from testifying before the election.
Nowhere in that article did it mention campaign finance violations, FCPA violations, bribery, extortion or conspiracy. That was intentional (from the SDNY) in my view.
The NYT article includes Michael Schmidt and Ken Vogel as authors. They are both friendly to the administration and (esp in the case of Vogel) use Rudy as a source.
Rudy’s response to said offer is also contained in that article,
Mr. Giuliani said that federal prosecutors had no grounds to charge him with foreign lobbying disclosure violations because he said he was acting on behalf of Mr. Trump, not the Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, when he collected the information on Ms. Yovanovitch and the others and relayed it to the American government and the news media.
“Look, you can try to contort anything into anything, but if they have any degree of objectivity or fairness, it would be kind of ridiculous to say I was doing it on Lutsenko’s behalf when I was representing the president of the United States,” Mr. Giuliani said. Mr. Lutsenko had chafed at Ms. Yovanovitch’s anticorruption efforts and wanted her recalled from Kiev."
So what Rudy is saying is that he didn’t do his dirty deeds at the behest of a corrupt UKR prosecutor; he did it all for Trump and at his direction. Rudy happens to be right about this. He’s telling Trump, ‘if I go down, you go down with me.’. Recall that Rudy did this to Pompeo too, flashing text messages between him and the State Dept, and that has caused a major breach in the hull of Trump’s ship of state. There is an on-going mutiny at the State Dept and it’s killing Trump, Pompeo and Rudy.
What Barr would prefer:
Rudy isn’t doing either it looks like, which would then put the onus on SDNY to indict Rudy for the same crimes as Parnas and Fruman, but then invariably tie it to the larger Trump objective of moving pieces out of the way to launch a shakedown of the UKR gov’t for Biden dirt.
The problem Barr has is that Adam Schiff is quickly gathering the same evidence and can tell the same story in detailed impeachment articles which will lead to criminal referrals of both Rudy and Pompeo, and form the basis of a criminal indictment of Trump post-term.
This is why Barr/Trump need Rudy to take a deal and why Rudy won’t do it. Trump’s kinder tone to Rudy here is about pacifying him and keeping him on the same team. Chances are Rudy fully grasps that Pompeo and Barr have been trying to throw him under the bus for the last month and he needs to fend for himself.
Note: Updated a few points to clarify that the NYT is reporting what the SDNY, FBI sources, Barr’s office, or WH likely told them about the scope of the Rudy investigation. The sourcing is “according to two people familiar with the inquiry.”, so that 's a wide range of potential folks. They are also reporting Rudy’s response to those comments on the scope of the investigation against him. The point I want to keep clear (which I stated in an earlier post) is that this article reads to me as if SDNY is attempting to negotiate with Team Rudy through the press.