Giuliani: Trump's not sitting down for an interview "in a corrupt investigation"

“Those FBI agents should be fired today,” Rudy Giuliani told Fox & Friends this morning, “and in prison next week.” Giuliani joined a chorus of guests on F&F arguing that the report from inspector general Michael Horowitz changes the entire ballgame around the special counsel probe of Donald Trump and the 2016 campaign. “They should end it,” Giuliani insisted, calling it “corrupt,” and said the report now makes it clear that Trump will never sit down with Robert Mueller’s investigators:

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Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, said Friday that Donald Trump should not be subjected to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller because a watchdog review of the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation exposed the special counsel’s separate probe as a “corrupt investigation.”

“There should not be an investigation,” the former New York mayor, in an interview with the hosts of “Fox and Friends,” said of Mueller’s probe into coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. “Mueller should now make a report, everything he has got. No interview of the president. He shouldn’t be bothered with it. Why would he get interviewed in a corrupt investigation?”

Giuliani extended the earlier remarks of his boss about the firing of James Comey and what it means for the investigation. Mueller reportedly had been investigating the firing of Comey as a potential obstruction of justice, but Giuliani points out that the Horowitz report provides a perfect defense against such a charge. Comey’s insubordination and disastrous discipline within his ranks provide an avalanche of grounds for termination, Giuliani argued — and it’s tough to dispute it, even though technically Trump didn’t need to have cause to terminate Comey at all. The Horowitz report essentially confirms and corroborates deputy AG Rod Rosenstein’s findings in the memo that recommended Comey’s termination.  In order to succeed in court on an obstruction charge, Mueller would have to say that Trump had no other rational basis for terminating Comey other than a motive to obstruct the investigation, and the report demolishes that argument.

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That is, unless Trump admitted to an obstructive motive in the firing. That’s why sitting down with Mueller was always a bad idea for someone with as little rhetorical discipline as Trump. With this report in hand, Trump has a “get out of jail free card” from the political consequences of refusing to be interviewed, John Solomon told Laura Ingraham last night:

Just in case Trump didn’t get the message from his attorney on his favorite morning show, Jason Chaffetz emphasizes the damage that the report has done to Mueller’s probe:

“Anything Peter Strzok touched is contaminated,” Brian Kilmeade interjects, to which Chaffetz replies, “It is.” That said, prosecutors deal with this on a fairly regular basis, thanks to incidents of police misconduct and the unreliability of witnesses with connections to defendants. Mueller knew about Strzok’s texts early on and fired him a few months after launching the special-counsel probe, so he’s had enough time to try to build chains of evidence and investigation that don’t have anything to do with Strzok. The question is whether there’s enough to find, especially with obstruction off the table and a clear political animus seen not just with Strzok but within the upper echelons of the original investigating agency.

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Given that Mueller hasn’t filed a single charge on anyone related to supposed “collusion” with Russia or its intelligence service, the answer seems to be no. It might be time for Mueller to write his own report and close up shop, as Giuliani suggests.

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Ed Morrissey 2:00 PM | October 11, 2024
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