Criminal law, Lawyering, Media, Politics

Giuliani: “I Never Said There Was No Collusion Between The Campaign, Or People In The Campaign”

Another interview, another controversy. Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani has found himself in another firestorm after telling CNN host Chris Cuomo: “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign.” The problem is that his client has . . . repeatedly.

Update: In what has become a pattern, Giuliani spent the next today walking back his statements.

Giuliani made some good points in the interview but whatever progress was made was quickly lost in the pileup over the collusion line. Giuliani was trying to focusing on the evidence against the President: “There is not a single bit of evidence the President of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC.” In the heated exchange, he then said “I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign… I have not. I said the President of the United States.”

Giuliani also said Trump has never denied there was no collusion:“[Trump] didn’t say ‘nobody,’ he said he didn’t, How would you know nobody in your campaign…” However, Trump has denied precisely that. This includes just last month, the president posted on Twitter, saying there was no collusion. In August, Trump tweeted “Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, one of the most successful in history, is a TOTAL HOAX.”

I will add that I continue to find the new and open advocacy of hosts like Cuomo to be jarring. There was a time when hosts tried to be neutral and allow for civil debate between guests. Hosts are now the advocates offering determined arguments for or against Trump.

If there is a strategy here, I cannot see it. Chaos is a situation, not a strategy, in litigation.

Giuliani put himself again at odds with what his client has said:

Moreover, Giuliani himself has made such denials.

157 thoughts on “Giuliani: “I Never Said There Was No Collusion Between The Campaign, Or People In The Campaign””

  1. WALL STREET JOURNAL REPORTS:

    MICHAEL COHEN RIGGED ONLINE POLLS..

    TO ESTABLISH TRUMP AS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

    SCHEME ALSO INVOLVED DRUDGE REPORT

    President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen acknowledged on Thursday that he schemed to rig online polls that sought to make Trump seem like a more plausible presidential candidate.

    The story was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. In a tweet following the report, Cohen said he sought to help Trump’s political aspirations, having been directed by the candidate.

    Cohen’s goal appears to have been to pay a computer specialist to use software that would help Trump do well in at least two online surveys in order to make it appear that Trump had more support than he actually had.

    Trump, who had flirted with presidential runs before but never made much headway, may have wanted to make it seem as though voters found the idea of his candidacy compelling notwithstanding his lack of government experience.

    “In January 2014, Mr. Cohen asked Mr. Gauger to help Mr. Trump score well in a CNBC online poll to identify the country’s top business leaders by writing a computer script to repeatedly vote for him. Mr. Gauger was unable to get Mr. Trump into the top 100 candidates. In February 2015, as Mr. Trump prepared to enter the presidential race, Mr. Cohen asked him to do the same for a Drudge Report poll of potential Republican candidates, Mr. Gauger said. Mr. Trump ranked fifth, with about 24,000 votes, or 5% of the total.”

    The Drudge Report, one of the most important drivers of online reader traffic, featured the Journal story on Thursday morning with a banner headline: “Did Trump bribe Drudge poll?”

    Edited from: “Trump’s Ex-Lawyer Michael Cohen Schemed To Rig Polls In Presidential Race”.

    Today’s NPR

          1. Kurtz, Take note of Peter’s spin making it seem as if the Drudge Report was reacting when all they were doing was posting headlines like it normally does.

            This was the title: Michael Cohen and bag of cash…

            Pithy.

        2. Like it frequently does the Drudge Report simply provided a link to a WaPo story without reacting one way or another. That is how Peter likes to spin the news, distort the news and outright lie.

      2. The most prescient comment made in the above article regards Michael Cohen who supposedly paid off some people. The question, if the story has any credibility behind it is “The real takeaway from your story is, didn’t he steal $37,000?”. Micheal Cohen is going to jail for this type of action so it becomes a big question. $37,000 was the remainder of what supposedly was to be paid.

      1. i like what turley said. in litigation chaos is a situation not a strategy
        actually for some people it can be a strategy, just an ineffective one usually, which is why the saying arose.

  2. AGAIN ONE MUST ASK.. ‘WHO’ DOES GIULIANI REPRESENT?

    I have noted many times that Rudy Giuliani may have expected a cabinet position in Trump’s administration. Therefore he might secretly harbor a bitter grudge against Trump. ‘I’ would harbor a grudge if I was Rudy. Giuliani endowed Trump with establishment acceptance at a crucial juncture in the 2016 primaries. Then Trump completely snubbed Rudy when announcing cabinet picks!

    10 years from now, Rudy might reveal the enjoyment he took at ‘screwing’ Trump up with convoluted and contradictory arguments. Rudy might say something like, “I don’t know ‘why’ he trusted me. It’s not like I owed him any favors at that point”.

    1. “AGAIN ONE MUST ASK.. ‘WHO’ DOES GIULIANI REPRESENT?”

      You can ask that question Peter, but what you should really ask is why you are so ignorant on the affairs of the day.

  3. Cohen says he rigged online polls for Trump in 2014, 2015

    https://www.apnews.com/a4c6f82b5b904a189a2e598255301554

    NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s estranged former lawyer acknowledged Thursday that he paid a technology company to rig Trump’s standing in two online polls before the presidential campaign.

    Michael Cohen tweeted that “what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of” Trump.

    “I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it,” he added.

      1. interesting story, kind of, not sure what it contributes to anything
        you know campaigns are pulling stunts like this all the time yes?
        it’s just cohen made it seem funny by paying them to create a fake organization of women to admire him. that’s pretty ridiculous!

        i have a theory that cohen suffers from donald envy

    1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9qzWRqX6qro
      Funny series….my favorite episode was “The Beast who walked The Bronx”
      It’s in two, c. 10 minute segments….Part II is easy enough to find if the link doesn’t lead right into it.
      The guest star, the Captain who terrified the guys, actually did play Nazis in some WWII films.

  5. It’s only a matter of time that Trump and Giuliani say ” Make Collusion Great Again “

  6. This column is a good example of nitpicking. How would the President or anyone in his position know for sure what others are doing. This is a lowbrow complaint not fit for a highbrow lawyer. The President can only speak for what he knows or himself. The President’s words though not the most precise were true.

    Jonathan Turley redeems himself only partly when he says: “I will add that I continue to find the new and open advocacy of hosts like Cuomo to be jarring. There was a time when hosts tried to be neutral and allow for civil debate between guests. Hosts are now the advocates offering determined arguments for or against Trump…Moreover, Giuliani himself has made such denials.” No one on this blog could be the center of so many hostile questions and not make a statement that was inprecise.

    Turley is recognizing the hit job being attempted and that is wrong. But that is focused in second place and the gotcha moment is put in first place. That by itself is disturbing as it is doing precisely what he is accusing Cuomo of doing ” Hosts are now the advocates” It is clear the President was not involved in any of this stuff. New news shows that the FBI is up to their necks in the worst type of behavior and was told the Steele Document did not meet FISA requirements.

    2. ” It is clear the President was not involved in any of this stuff. ”
      No, it isn’t. And even so, many misdeeds are done by hands removed from the source.
      And I would replace the word collusion with Conspire. Mr. Trumps ‘bromance’ has blinded him to the conspiratorial nature of his relationship with Russia.
      He has put us all in danger.

      1. Becka, It is far more clear that others have had a much closer political association with the Russians than Trump could ever have had. Where did the Steele dossier come from? Hillary’s campaign and Russians. Uranium One. Highly paid speeches tied to Russians. I am not saying that Hillary was a Manchurian Candidate of Russia only that her ties are much greater so I wouldn’t push the President’s involvement since his administration has been much more forceful against Russia and the claims against him seem like total garbage in addition to the fact that the FISA requests are now known to have been unlawful. Do you believe Trump has been soft on Russia? Simply compare Obama’s actions to Trumps.

        Go ahead and make your case that there is a Russian Trump conspiracy. If that were true he would have been out of office before he ever got to sit in the Oval Office. Right now it appears that this entire consipiracy was generated from a cover up that didn’t even involve Trump but cover ups have to be covered up so we are likely seeing the results of a triad of cover ups.

      2. I would agree that nothing is clear when you have 2 1/ 2 years of investigative limbo, a stone-faced, mute Special Prosecutor who owes no explanation about where he’s at or where he’s heading, and endless speculation.
        We need another 2 1/2 years just like it.😒

    3. “nitpicking”? Was it “nitpicking” to notice that Trump, at Helsinki, publicly disagreed with U.S. intelligence agencies that all concluded that Russia interfered with the 2016 election to benefit Trump? Is it “nitpicking” to wonder why a U.S. President would have secret meetings with a Russian dictator and then confiscate and destroy notes of such meetings? Is it “nitpicking” to question why a U.S. President would announce that ISIS was “beaten badly” (a lie, of course), and therefore that U.S. troops would be pulled out of Syria because a Turkish dictator told him so, without even consulting top U.S. military officials for their input? Is it “nitpicking” to hold Trump accountable for the deaths of the 4 Americans killed in the suicide bombing carried out by the “badly beaten” ISIS?

      What on earth causes you to claim that “it is clear” that Trump was not involved with all of the criminal conduct carried out by his campaign and which resulted in criminal indictments, guilty pleas and convictions? Why? Because the liar-in-chief, Kellyanne, Hannity, Coulter and Rush say so? What kind of leader doesn’t know what his organization is doing? Did Manafort, Flynn, et al, do all of this behind his back and without his knowledge? Is that what you claim mainstream media are supposed to assume? Why on earth would anyone ever believe anything Trump, Kellyanne or Giuliani say? They are consistent pathological liars and everyone without Trump Derangement Syndrome knows it.

      Why hasn’t “The Art of the Deal” meister been able to bully Congress into letting him have his way? According to reports, he is bewildered why they aren’t simply knuckling under and why, after agreeing to accept responsibility, the American public blames him for the shutdown.

      1. Let’s see….that’s a lot of questions, and Natacha wants a lot of answers….sooo, Yes, yes, yes, yes, sanity, prefer it, no, most of them, possibly, yes, patriotism, obstructionism.
        I hope this helps her out, and that I answered all of her c. dozen questions in order.

      2. Natacha, people hate it when you speak the truth. No need not to be cheerful though when Trump’s poll numbers are at a historic low and dropping…something about a shutdown that the American majority clearly knows is bogus, stupid, painful for others and dangerous. The gigantic Orange Ego and his cohorts are only worrying about next years election which despite the ridiculous canned fact-free posturing that can be read here about border safety, preserving “our culture,” drugs and terrorists etc is all that the Wall is about. The 2020 election. Desperation time…better cause more chaos and blame it on Democrats. A strategy currently failing. The FOXish people here are good at persuading only themselves, echo chamber style. I guess things were too busy in D.C. to address the “critical” wall during the 2 years of GOP House and Senate control. Transparent is the word. As in “able to clearly see through.”

        1. Acromion,
          – I think your blind loyalty should be rewarded:

          May you be assigned a center seat between Natacha and Diane on a transconinental flight.

      3. Natacha, do you have ADHD and is that why you can’t remain on a single topic?

        I’ll let you answer the question asked “How would the President or anyone in his position know for sure what others are doing”?

        Are you able to do that staying on topic? I doubt it.

        “What on earth causes you to claim that “it is clear” that Trump was not involved with all of the criminal conduct”

        I provided the answer. Now you can provide your claim of criminal conduct and the proof that goes along with it. You won’t be able to do that either.

        1. Allan,
          My record in answering questions posed in a comment is 14 answers….I think it was only a dozen answers to Natacha’s questions.
          When I answered the record 14 questions, the one who posed the questions forgot what the questions were😊😀.
          So “train of thought” often seems to get derailed here by those who pepper their comments with a surfeit of questions.

      4. first off that all of them concluded any such thing is false. it was 4 not 17. but you don’t care do you?

        also THEY ARE NOT THE BOSS. they advise the boss. the boss is the POTUS.

        keep the chain of command clear or we all end up slaves to whatever the generals tell us!~

      5. God bless the great Donald J Trump, President of the United States!

        We are with you 100%! Take em to the mat boss!

  7. Now you know the so called investigation is running out of abilities to do anything useful They won’t investigate the already exposed culprits and worse keep harping on this boring collusion stupidity. $35 million plus to find out what any law student or police academy graduate could determine in a matter of minutes. Collusion isn’t a crime The only crime is a real RICO violation to hoax the tax payers out of 35 million as an unexpected wind fall for a bunch of DINO and RiNO lawyers looking for some career closing sunset funding.

    Imagine if at the beginning Meuller had been honest enough to say on day one. “The answer to your Question is ‘Collusion is not a crime. Case Closed. “

    1. Michael, it’s worst then that.

      I’m not sure what the heck Giuliani or Turley are trying to say but it’s very clear now many of the leadership of the FBI/DOJ, including Mueller & Co are guilty of multiple felonies.

      It starts about a min : 21 secs in:

      1. Oky, I guess this is the reason people on the left hate Hannity. He provides information obtained by good journalists that is true. He renders his opinion which is opinion not fact but he also provides room for the voices of investigative reporters. The left hates to hear the truth.

        So far I haven’t heard from the New York Times in my email box. They generally send me the most important news within a minute of its release. I guess in this case they are still trying to figure out a way of spinning bad news for the left or this news will be relegated to the department of less important news while the frontpage headline might read ‘Trump’s tie didn’t match his shoes’.

        1. Allan,

          Ahead of the 2020 election the globalist commies of the Dems/Rinos/Corps/old media have been very active pulling everyone’s freespeech they can.

          Last I heard over a million accounts have been flagged & shut down.

          Murdock’s kids are said to be trying to turn Fox into the new commie CNN, but had to back off for now.

          Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram & Hannity are all under threat of having their shows pulled.

          What’s shocking to me is why the heck do people like Rep Steve King, Giuliani, Prez Trump & his reps, etc., give NYT, Wapo, CNN, Msmbc, etc. the time of day or any comments or interviews.

          All of those old media are either anti-American, cia & most are foreign controlled by the likes of Qutar, Saudia Arabia, Mexico drug king pins.

          1. Oky, your comments here read like they were posted from a survivalist camp. You guys start weekend training on Thursdays?

            1. Put some ear plugs in as many in the FBI/DOJ, etc., have had to turn Loud song birds against Mueller & Co to attempt to save their azzes from even more prison time.

              Mueller/Comey’s Russia Bullsh*t narrative against Trump & Co has collapsed.

            2. trust me this is not how the chatter goes when survivalists have a meet n greet.

              anyhow it’s too damn cold now for anything outdoors besides… skiing! break out the gear the snow is here.
              warm the gluwein!

            1. im not a big fan of steve king but sometimes he cracks me up
              I can’t get the nyt article i have dosed them too heavily the past week

            2. Yes Racist, Rep Steve King seems fine to me. It’s people like CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WAPO & you & your kind that are the Racist Pimps.

              Enjoy the Slavery of your own mind.

      1. the direct costs are trivial with or without the fines and forfeitures. that’s not really the important thing to be concerned about.

        the budget however small relative to other DOJ spends, is a lot for a special prosecutor and a team of angry Democrats who want to make trouble. Congress should certainly be careful about reckless funding of witch hunts which distract everyone from important business.

        1. Mr Kurtz – “Team of angry Democrats?” Somebody drank the Trump Kool-Aid. Starting with Mueller (Republican). Name the 13 “angry Democrats on the Special Counsel team.

          1. Meuller is the kind of Repubican only a Democrat can love.
            And not many of them love him either. He is known to the Democrats of Boston who suffered from Whitey Bulger’s crimes who had the run of the place due to his snitch relationship with the FBI office there which Meuller failed to properly supervise.

            Or say antiwar Democrats (yes they exist) who don’t forget his lies about the nonexistent Iraq WMDs

            Or say motorcylist Democrats who know how he used snitches and undercovers to cobble up a weak and unsuccessful RICO persecution against the Hells angels

            or say whomever he smeared in the anthrax investigation who was not at fault

            I tell you it’s amazing you guys defend this person. he has a horrible record. his stint as Special Prosecutor is much the same.

            and when the final report is out and you are disappointed then you will say it was because he was a Republican, perhaps. Sure. ok

              1. you my fact checker? say what you gotta say. I’m not running an errand for you.

                1. You’re blindly repeating an untrue thing, brought to you courtesy of the Donald and Rudy show. You don’t need to prove anything to me. I already know you’re wrong. Nothing I say to you will convince you except trying to document it for yourself. I fact-check myself all the time because I’d rather deal with reality than live in a bubble. Can you say the same?

                  1. ” I fact-check myself all the time”

                    Right. That is why you called Trump a racist. Fred Trump, decades before Donald was even born, was arrested and then released because he did nothing wrong. You said look at the column from the NYTImes which I did along with other newspapers and Snopes. You lied. There was no proof in that article that Fred Trump was a racist or that Donald Trump was as well.

                    Enigma, I wonder what you mean by ” I fact-check myself all the time” Do you do that standing in front of a mirror naked?

                  2. I check things regularly yes. It’s a good practice. But you have to scrutinize the fact checkers too. Like Snopes. A dude with a laptop and a former porn star for a wife. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

                    1. Checking is good, if you continue to keep saying, “13 angry Democrats” without checking, knowing at minumum others question it. You will have shown no regard for what is actually true and no desire to find out.

                    2. i have to say the sex worker wife is an attractive woman at least from the er um images i have seen

                      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fact-checker-arbitrate-fake-news-accused-defrauding-website-pay-prostitutes-staff-includes-escort-porn-star-Vice-Vixen-domme.html

                      why is she mixed up with the snopes idiot? oh he has a great racket going thats why. sex workers always have a good eye for business.

                      she can do better than that, nonetheless! his days are numbered as the word spreads about what a lame-o self appointed grand poohbah he really is and an authority on nothing

                    3. i dont care, maybe you are right or wrong.

                      But i observe none of you have anything to say about meuller’s pathetic record; nothing about Meuller screwed up whitey bulger scandal or the WMDs in iraq lie or the anthrax botched investigation or the botched hells angels rico trial but you guys are always keen on that 13 angry democrats thing.

                      so i will just not bother. in fact i can take your word for it that i am wrong and it would not change a thing. what matters are consequential facts and you have a bad habit these fools have taught to you of constantly ignoring the consequential facts in favor of trivia like that which is basically immaterial one way or another, because after all, they know that their current job and hence future careers depend on tarring up the Pres and justifying their existence, with anything they can, regardless of whatever party they have or not. so it would not matter if they were 13 republicans they would still be gunning for the POTUS or some of his crew

  8. If the FBI claims to have initiated their counter-intelligence investigation because the President, in exercising his constitutional authority, fired James Comey, then what actually are the limits of the FBI’s power to spy on American citizens?

    And who in their right mind believes this president would be able to fire his way out of trouble? This is not The Apprentice and President Trump clearly does not control what goes on the cutting room floor.

    1. Anyone who sees the Trumpian behavior and long list of capable and educated people he has fired would immediately see the pattern he exerts trying to control people by ultimately firing them if they won’t lick his boots. You would have to be ignorant not to. That he will ultimately ‘be able to’ depends on the internal strengths of our legal system. He can’t fire them all….

      1. Becka, Trump is President. He was elected to make policy. We have a Congress that is able to act as a check. So far his actions and his gut feelings have been correct. Those hired by the White House are not supposed to make policy. They are supposed to advise. Look at other administrations and see how many changes there were. Trump had the disadvantage of not knowing the players that were available to work for him. He had to hire those whose loyalty was likely much greater to the candidate Trump defeated.

      2. Capable and educated?

        Those are two qualities that make public servants dangerous. Dangerous, because they have in them a nature that can do harm, and dangerous because they have the support of ignorant people that believe capability and education mixed with the proper ideological bent cannot possibly do harm.

        The President has the constitutional authority to fire capable and educated people. And he would never be able to fire his way out of any investigation.

    2. According to reports, there were several reasons the counter-intelligence investigation was started, not simply the firing of Comey. As to who believed he could fire his way out of trouble? Trump believed it. How do we know? He told his Russian guests the next day in the Oval office.

      1. the newly elected president is the boss brought in by the people to make the entrenched bureaucracy accountable to the people. it circumvents the electoral process if the bureaucracy can immediately smear him.

        trust me this can cut both ways.

        i think the Deep State has learned a lot since JFK. why bother rubbing someone out when they are better off smeared and defanged and contained in place?

        of course we all known Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. repeat until convinced!

        1. of course we all known Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. repeat until convinced!

          This subject has been done to death, Kurtz. There’s absolutely nothing Oswald did that required the aid of anyone else, and he had a long history of manifest deficits in the realm of doing anything collaborative. You’ve all had 50 years and produced a 4-digit population of monographs, but what you don’t have is an organism whose existence can be demonstrated through inductive reasoning. Nor do you have any discernible motive attributable to any extant organism.

          1. For a decade or so between 70s and 80s, Howard Hunt went to a lot of trouble to defend credible accusations that he was part of the hit team by former CIA agent Victor Marchetti. A defamation suit that ended with a jury deeming the original story more credible than not. And then about two decades later near his death he recanted this and confessed to precisely that. Laid it on LBJ, and Cord Meyer, said Frank Sturgis and a Corsican and some others were in on it and he was “just the bag man’ [finance].. Which is what numerous of your monographs have said too. That in itself was enough to convince me. I will take Howard Hunt’s word for it, ok?

            Then there is the HSSA report which i know is not consistent with that and it had some flaws. but many years later when it emerged that CIA lied through their teeth about having no contact with with various persons Blakey said he trusted the CIA at the time but did not trust them anymore and basically they are a bunch of liars.

            And whatever the faults of the conclusion were I know that Blakey continues to hold the second shooter on the grassy knoll conclusion. I will take his word for it, ok?

            I will also take the word for it of all the expert riflemen who have tried to duplicate Oswald’s magic shots and failed. I have a piece of crap Carcano myself and it has always been a laugh to me that Oswald did it alone.

            Really it’s the Warren commissions story that’s weak and no wonder since the guy who took over LBJ set that up as a whitewash.

            You are free to think what you like and many people who are decent and smart folks believe the warren commission. I do not.

            And I take it as a lesson for the current situation where DJT is being smeared by subrosa groups of government employees and their collaborators in the private sector all vested interests who have full intention of stopping him from restricting immigration, reviving industry at the expense of financial interests, and restraining foreign military adventures. They are accomplishing this through the sabotage they have suborned in the DOJ and the heat they generate in the media.

            The running dogs in the press do their bidding not ours.

      2. Trump believed it. How do we know? He told his Russian guests the next day in the Oval office.

        So President Trump told his Russian guests he could fire his way out of trouble? Do you have a citation for that?

        1. “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

          In the same Oval Office meeting, Trump disclosed classified information to the Russians, putting some Israeli assets at risk.
          https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/us/politics/trump-russia-comey.html

          1. Same source: By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia,” Mr. Spicer said. “The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified conversations.

              1. Evidently, Trump thought the same thing about firing Flynn.

                Jared Kushner is the one who thought that firing Manafort would get Trump out of trouble.

          2. AS the left twists and turns to change context because the truth is an anathema to them:

            Why haven’t we actually seen those words? Once again the NYTImes isn’t using a quote. They are using an unamed document read by an unamed person. That is not evidence of anything except the NYSlimes is not a good news source. The quote may not exist at all based on the NYTimes reporting. The next thing they do is separate the comments in a way to make things bad for Trump so I will put the quotes of Trump together in a way they likely were.

            “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job”
            “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off, I’m not under investigation.”

            This is the type of cr-p practiced by Peter Shill and even worse by the NYTimes. It is obvious that both intend that their lies not be discovered.

    3. Olly, you got it. There are NONE if they can screw with their BOSS then they can do anything they like to the rest of us too. It’s just a question of why bother that keeps most people safe. Their anonymity and their irrelevance is their best defense.

      FBI does a lot of good but this has tarred their reputation and made them look bad. It’s really a sad day for America that we have backslided into the J Edgar style cointelpro nonsense.

      https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1084844716636733440?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

  9. JT is correct. TV “news” is not news. An interview is not an interview anymore. I come here to read a reasoned response and for the legal knowledge of the issues. Not to always agree or disagree but to get informed.

  10. Giuliani is the gift that keeps on giving. Beginning with his admission that Trump told him to draft a Muslim ban that would not look like a Muslim ban, he has made an endless stream of stupid and damaging statements. If his client had a functioning brain, he would have fired him long ago. These two are made for each other.

    1. It’s another bad day for Trump.

      There’s plenty of deflection downstream from Trump’s Troupers.

      1. It’s been a bad couple of years for some; I think many are still in a state of shock at Trump’s stunning upset win in Nov. 2016.
        If he is elected to a 2nd term, I shudder to think what will become of those shocked souls who fell apart early in the current term.

  11. I watched the BS show called Chris Cuomo on CNN last night. These CNN dorks always have these expressive “question expressions” when someone else is talking. Cuomo is With Out Papers. Or: a WOP. That term used to be negative. Now it is fake. But Cuomo is a Flake. We need to start referring to this phenomenon as “Flake News”.

  12. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YikN3TAzTho/VZ7jANDMwWI/AAAAAAAACcY/cEtaxil6lU4/s1600/Jack%2BBenny%2Band%2BRaymond%2BBurr.jpg
    In a classic Jack Benny episode, guest star Raymond Burr spoofs his role as Perry Mason by incompetently defending Jack against charges that he strangled a noisy rooster to death.
    By the time Burr is done “defending” Benny, there’s a real possibilty that Benny will sent to the gas chamber for his crime.
    Sometimes I think back on that episode when I watch Rudy.

    1. Technically speaking, Giuliani did not admit that there was any “conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC” by members of the Trump campaign.

      Instead, Giuliani denied ever having denied that there was any “conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC” by members of the Trump campaign.

      Perhaps the distinction is too subtle coming from Trump’s lawyer.

    1. dbenson

      “I never said that I was there to ROB the bank. I just wanted to out by removing them of some of all that paper.”

  14. Hmm. The automatic censor here allows “screwing” but not “b’tard”, as in b’tard file.

    So much for freedom of speech.

    1. Let’s try an inflected version. Giuliani bastardized his previous comments about campaign collusion.

  15. “Hosts are now the advocates offering determined arguments for or against Trump.“

    I miss the good ol’ days, like in 2009 when our president was treated with fair and balanced respect. Even Tr*mp conveyed respect, by accusing the president of being born elsewhere and dispatching a tremendously fantastic team to Hawaii, who found “unbelievable things”.

    So sad what’s happening now.

  16. Giuliani is being quite lawyerly in what might be called a PR context. That’s a reason for lawyers to be sparing about entering the arena with journalists, particularly BAD journalists, who appear to be the only kind employed these days.

    We actually do understand that there was no collusion. We know that because crooked but highly-motivated government employees have been scrounging around for it for 30 months and found nothing. Please recall that 928 days after the Watergate burglary, the last of 3 sets of defendants were convicted of obstruction of justice &c by a jury in a federal district court in Washington for their role in that caper. The FBI opened this investigation 899 days ago. (And that doesn’t include the preliminary period when they were running informants).

    The substantive problem here is abuse of power by the Department of Justice and it’s components. The professor doesn’t care about that. He cares that lawyers aren’t being given a certain deference and that other lawyers are not behaving according to spec. You have a big pink elephant defecating on your Oriental rug and what you notice are some cockroaches on that window sill. Unserious.

    2. Penetrating glimpse into the obvious: “found nothing” that you in you limited capacity as a bystander would, of course, know nothing about.

      1. They’ve prosecuted a mess of people on minor process crimes. What did you not see in those plea agreements? What you did not see was the delineation of any conspiracy in which the defendant was supposedly a participant. That doesn’t tell you anything, but it does tell a non-brainless person something.

      2. yes they have found some people willing to roll for a bunch of stuff that was not Trumps fault and in manafort’s case had absolutely nothing to do with him at all

        roll on what is not clear however. let’s see what else comes. I have a feeling you’re going to be disappointed.

  18. Giuliani spent much of his career as a prosecutor, and came to national prominence in that role.
    Old habits die hard, and it looks like Rudy sometimes forgets if he’s supposed to be defending Trump, or screwing him over.

    2. its easy to point the finger at the man in the arena

      lets hear from teddy roosevelt:

      “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

  19. “Another interview, another controversy. Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani has found himself in another firestorm after telling CNN host Chris Cuomo….”

    I stopped reading when I saw the letters CNN and threw up when the words Chris Cuomo followed

    The Democrats have killed our nation, from LBJ to Anarchists ANTIFA and alternative facts CNN et al

    We miss the once great country America once was 😐

    2. LBJ and the Democratic Congress (aided and abetted by about 30% of the Republican caucus) made a great many BAAAD policy decisions. However, the Congress actually functioned as a decision-making body (recall the federal budget was balanced in FY 1969), the press was amply staffed with reporters who loved stories and wanted to tell them (even as they might favor one side or another in political disputes), and the courts weren’t nearly as officious as they are today. (Earl Warren and his co-conspirators were horrible, to be sure).

      And, of course, nearly all politicians maintained a certain baseline of patriotism and had a certain regard for appearances. Malcolm X was subject to a public rebuke from Elijah Mohammed for making some ill-considered remarks about the Kennedy Assassination. Nowadays, you might hear equally rude remarks on the floor of the House.

      1. Yes, the age of cellphones is different. Some aspects not so good. Others better?

        1. well everyone can get porn now that’s the main thing
          instead of shops in bad neighborhoods it’s in everyone’s pocket
          not clear on how that would be better, not clear at all
          mostly just a big time waster like social media

      2. I trace the fall of our nation at LBJ. His “Daisy ad” political video silently targeting Barry Goldwater. It peddled fears, lies and hate, all true to form to LBJ and clearly how he targeted blacks to enslave them to govt welfare. For LBJ it was all about power. He loathed blacks by using the n word in private. Thus LBJ was the beginning of the end. Earl Warren removed God from our national ethos

        Witness the comments on these forums, devoid of reason but plentiful in James Carville scorched earth politics thanks to Bill and Hillary Clinton

      3. LBJ and GOP Senator Everett Dirksen were often at odds politically, but liked and respected each other.
        They were both heavy drinkers, and Johnson would frequently invite Dirksen to the White House for a drink or ten.
        One time, after Dirksen laid into LBJ in a Senate speech, LBJ said, ” You know, Ev, you called me things the other day that I wouldn’t call a cur dog”.
        A couple of real characters.

        1. That degree of collegiality does assist in the mechanics of legislative business, something necessary in a legislature with an architecture as dysfunctional as ours is. That having been said, Dirksen was a manifestation of an era when the Republican Party’s program was amorphous and reactive. It retains many of those habits. It’s only when you get idea men like Drs. Gingrich and Armey in charge that it attains some measure of coherence and purpose.

          1. thats right and TRUMP who has an agenda not just a sit back and react mentality. you called that one right. yes Gingrich had that too. smart!

    3. With some degree of specificity, detail in which or whose Administration America was “great”, But first, what are the particular standards or principles by which you’re judging a nation’s “greatness”?

      1. A nation’s greatness should be judged by its ability to lead the world.

        Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration excelled in making our nation’s ability to lead the world great.

        1. You “Lead the World” is a quaint notion. Run the world or control the world is more the Empire’s style these days.

        2. FDR is famous for his scientific administration and holding the record for acting as a dictator.

          1. yes he was a tyrant but America owes its worldwide military and economic supremacy to him so give some credit where it’s due.

            many tyrants emerge in times of crisis to lead the nation. many times they make things worse and other times they are saviors. it’s almost a human survival instincts. and people revile tyrants when they are unsuccessful and worship them like gods when they win. again, this is human instinct.

            will Donald rise to the occasion or fizzle like a fart in the skillet? time will tell

              1. you like to say that, but it’s a cop out for spelling out a complete thought.

                https://www.britannica.com/topic/tyrant

                this is as good an explanation of any
                personally i do not think tyrants are always bad
                a lot of figures in history are just ambivalent and its foolish to count them all as good or bad
                was alkibiades a traitor? a traitor to who?

                1. You don’t get full dress answers when you say blatantly foolish things.

                  1. well, i will hold back the tears, a moment please, allow me control my disappointment that you didn’t make a full dress answer, sir.

          2. Come again? Admirers of Roosevelt (e.g. Arthur Schelesinger) contend that Roosevelt was a very sloppy administrator. Schlesinger had a somewhat specious argument that this was actually a virtue.

            1. he won, that was his proof. all the commentators who detract from FDR ever since did not come up with the results, but he did.

              i used to hate FDR but now I see him in a different light

              1. I reserve judgement on FDR because he was a complex man doing both good and bad things. His most important feat IMO was in keeping the US together.

                Read Burton Folsom’s book “New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America”

                Kurtz you will find this suggestion very rewarding.

        3. He lead it mostly be getting us into war and then directing total war against the Axis.

          Make no mistake FDR was an American Dux Bellorum every bit as much as Lincoln was.

          I find it interesting a supposed liberal is so admiring of success in war. But that’s what his leadership accomplished first and foremost was in the business of killing people and destroying the rival nations.

          I also find it interesting that Americans are so proud of their victory in World War II and remember it habitually alongside the 6 million Holocaust tragedy……AND YET

          ….during World War II there were also a lot of other non-Jewish civilian deaths. Putting aside however many civilians the Allies killed in Germany and Japan with indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets like Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, there were the civilian deaths of

          Chinese civilians deaths:

          7-8 million due to military and atrocities,
          5- 10 million due to disease and famine

          or the USSR civilian deaths (remember, that’s the evil RUSSIANS!)

          4-10 million due to military and atrocities,
          8-9 million due to disease and famine

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

          maybe there should be a “Chinese Holocaust” museum in DC too?
          Or a Russian Holocaust museum?
          since they lost more civilians in the war that put us on top.
          US lost how many civilians? A handful? and probably not one due to famine.

          I am not surprised that the countries which took the heaviest losses of civilians in World War II– China and Russia– today are envious of America’s “leadership” of the world in all things military and economic

          1. i am not trying to pick on or offend Jewish people here I am just trying to point out how distorted opinions are about vague things such as “leadership”

            if we are all created “Equally” by God as Mr Jefferson told us, then each of these other massive civilian losses during World War II should perhaps be remembered as well

            and yet I find young people are completely ignorant of the scale of losses among the Chinese and Russian populations during World War II even as they are “educated” with an almost catechistic fervor about certain other mass atrocities of note.

            Today, it’s easy to pretend that we Americans are a bright shining whatever and all the benighted Chinese and Russian rivals are dastardly doers. But, Americans may have no idea about the effects such harm can have on a national consciousness.

            Indeed we owe a debt to our Jewish fellow Americans for helping us understand that and it helps us to understand the zeal with which they support Israel and its often severe actions to defend itself. but we should not let our empathy stop there. Empathy should go out to all nations victimized by war and certainly it should not stop before it also reckons with Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, and Afghanistan.

            Empathy would perhaps be a good thing to help us from getting too far and fast into a new war, say, in a place like Syria, where we have no vital interests, and can’t sold ancient feuds. And yet if Donald Trump dares to try and pull a small number of troops out then the generals and the media finger waggers go ballistic on him.

            And look at how they have bullied him for attempts at diplomacy with Russia. Very sad!

          2. The ‘total war’ was ongoing before we ever entered. And there wasn’t any other option but to wage ‘total war’.

            1. oh yeah sure there was. we could have stayed out of the war. for starters. now, maybe that would have been the wrong choice for a lot of reasons. but it was possible.

              or we could have not provoked japan with an oil embargo, how about that. crazy idea i know.

              then we could have done things in the prosecution of the war like not bomb cities with no air defenses filled with civilians and little strategic significance, except that is, the expected psychological effect on the subject national population as a whole. that is the very definition of terror, isnt it? targeting civilians with violence for psychological effect.

              but USA chose to do that. maybe it was necessary. Or, maybe, it wasn’t necessary to incinerate Dresden, but maybe it had a point in Tokyo Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Maybe the point of Hiroshima was to intimidate the USSR. Jap civilians had to die in order to secure America from the coming arms race. I can live with that. I can say it without flinching. Or maybe that was not necessary either. I am not sure.

              But let’s face it, one of the worst terror bombers of the 20th century was…. drum roll please…. the USA. That is not an insult. It is what it is. Maybe it was… necessary.

              I can say this and be totally at peace with the outcome which benefits me as an American. I just am past the point in which I need to pretend that deliberate mass targeting of innocent civilians for death by our government in world war two was necessary because otherwise it would make me feel bad. It doesnt. maybe it was necessary or maybe not. but mostly we get to say it was, because we won. Maybe the Japs thought they had to murder Chinese civilians too? But they didn’t get to say so because they lost.

              That’s just how it works

              today, the delusional moralistic thinking about history by Americans is precisely what allows us to fail to recognize the serious pickle we are in at this time and the necessary actions that are both proportional and legitimate to secure our interests. Like a wall or like deporting illegal immigrants. So things will go sideways until it’s too late for us, or, we have to do worse things.

              Kind of like the Indians that took it easy for a hundred years of getting pushed West before they finally resorted to terror and taking scalps. Too little too late for them. Think about it, think clearly and without moralism.

              1. One of the amusing things about you is that you recycle arrant nonsense propagated by paulbots and alt-right types while denying you ever read their stuff.

                1. who is a paulbot? oh i forgot by that you mean ron paul, ron paul is in retirement. yes i like rand paul.

                  alt right. what did i deny. i formed my opinions when richard spencer was still in prep school. for all you know richard spencer learned from me.

                  if you find something incorrect rather than insult the speaker you could address the proposition but you are too arrogant to give a full dress reply i recall you saying

                  you’re a very smart and well educated person but your arrogance detracts from your wit rather than adding to it

              2. “or we could have not provoked japan with an oil embargo, how about that. crazy idea i know.”

                Kurtz, you are approaching the Twilight Zone and blaming us for Japan’s attack. In other words if another country tells us they want to buy x while they are attacking other nations we are obligated to give them x? Your logic tells us that if Iran asks us for ballistic missiles and atomic weapons we should sell it to them or they have a right to attack us. This type of thinking leaves me wondering what you are smoking.

                1. it is not twilight zone it is history

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABCD_line

                  it was the japanese viewpoint that is all. i try and consider both viewpoints when forming my own conclusions.

                  also your example is not apt. ballistic missiles are not necessary for basic industry and civilization. oil is and was especially for japan that had no oil. one could argue and many have that the oil embargo was tantamout to act of war itself. i actually find that compelling.

                  now, at the time, Congress had not declared war, but FDR wanted it, and the embargo all but guaranteed it.

                  I am not taking the Jap side of this. I just point to their viewpoint.

                  1. “it is not twilight zone it is history”

                    Kurtz, I wasn’t denying the history. I was commenting on your opinion. You can consider as many viewpoints as you wish but should we deny Iran’s desire to buy our balistic missiles and nukes are we then at fault if they attack us? That is pretty much your position with Japan.

                    ” ballistic missiles are not necessary for basic industry ”

                    Oil was necessary to Japan for their military to continue its agressive actions. If they stopped using oil for aggression they would have had oil for the usual use and we would have supplied it to them.

                    “Congress had not declared war, but FDR wanted it”

                    FDR wanted war against Germany but didn’t act on that desire. The Japanese were tied to the Germans and thus the war. Germany considered attacking the US because we were producing armaments for the German’s enemies and they could see our lights from their submarines with everything going on normal. I guess, based on your logic or lack of logic, we couldn’t stop sending these things to the British because that would have given them a right to attack us.

                    1. i think the oil embargo was a strong measure but appropriate concerning the Jap aggression in China.

                      it would have been senseless to concede asia to the japs. it would have been far thinking and enlightened however not only to defeat japan but also to support self determination from a position of strength, from the very end of the war and promptly so.

                      unfortunately, the US just took over the imperial jap positions at the end of the war and did very little to cooperate with indigenous nationalists and instead worked with former jap collaborators– which is what pushed a lot of asians into the soviet hands

                      of course in the case of China the nationalists were not themselves collaborators and had fought the Japs in alliance with the CPC too but were quick to resume their bloody civil war with them, the communists, rather than contemplate land reform which was the Chicom ace in the hole to gain support of the starving people of the countryside who as I pointed out earlier had suffered millions of deaths due to famine during war.

                      The nationalist failure in china in the immediate postwar period was basically due to greed, which the communists predictably exploited to the max. Don’t blame the communists for being smart and Chiang for being stupid. He was!

                      is there a lesson here? Yes, the cities can be controlled by greedy overlords and their hired guns for a long time but eventually the countryside can win, if it is organized by a genuinely patriotic and selfless cadre with the best interests of the peasants at the center of party policies.

                      In this Donald Trump has accomplished what the Republicans never had the imagination to do, that is, win the hearts and minds of people in the Rust belt with his policies to revive industrial economy and restrict further invasion by foreigners. Both of which are immediate concerns for us even though the rich Dems in california could care less. They don’t get it in the cities as you can see from the commentary from the Democrat apologists here who can barely conceive that there is such a thing as a middle american white working class let alone care about it; but he is as popular with us out here in flyover as Mao was with the peasants in the Chinese countryside.

                      excuse me but i dont want to miss a chance to speak to our current situation.

                      one thing that Trump has lacked, is the development of leadership cadre to advance his vision systematically. red maga hats are not enough. Obama is the one who should be imitated in this regard, for how he had experience in contemporary community organizing methods and encouraged those things among the Democrats. Do Republicans have any clue about organizing people to carry out work of common interest? Not much thats for sure. At least Donald has been able to communicate, a big improvement over some others I can remember.

                      Is there an effort to organize youth now? Not much. no, I think a lot of republican honchos just want trump to fail so they can get back to business as usual.

                      it’s time for a second revolution inside the Republican party to advance enlightened populism and set the old failed blueblood nonsense aside for good.

                    2. and I might add that trump can appeal to the native born black working class too in theory just as much as whites, but, hollywood has a certain cultural lock on them. so it’s difficult. but as steve bannon said clearly, the Trump phenomenon is not a racial one but a civic nationalism. Even if it does appeal strongly to whites and I think there is nothing wrong with that.

                      what bannon did not touch on, and we have heard little from him since the midterm, is that big city suburb whites are tempted to the Democrat flag due to their university trained affectatious tastes which ape liberalism, a certain phony cocktail party mentality, which leaves them weak minded and overly responsive to social media shaming and mass media brainwashing. so the core of Trump support ironically rests among those whom Democrats love to insult even as they pretend to represent them– the workers.

                      white people themselves are slow to understand this; they have their own sort of racial instinct which makes them ironically hesitant to criticize their own white skinned university approved liberal leadership and point out what a dismal and spiritually weakening presence these fake moralizers have been. so it’s white liberals like Pelosi who are out there on one hand denouncing racists etc all the time and yet they use the power of instinctual racial cohesion to keep all their lilly white liberal sycophants in tow. its a very odd and perplexing phenomenon but i have seen it in action for decades.

                      some of the most awkward white people around foreigners and nonwhites etc are often the better educated managerial and bureaucratic functionary types who would never DREAM of saying a bad politically incorrect word about anybody. it’s almost as if they have so utterly censored their own mouths that commonplace racial or ethnic thinking which comes normally has sort of grown back into their bodies like ingrown toenails harming and mutilating them. So even as they never utter an un-PC word they surround themselves in a sort of unspoken cocoon of suburban whiteness and denial. they are kind of what one of my friends called the “lace curtain irish,” struggling hard to assimilate for fear that someone will associate them with the poor crackers who love Trump!

                      For my part i loathe people like that and would usually rather be alone or maybe around foreigners in my free time than my own people who utterly lack any kind of ethnic self identification whatsoever. yes, one can be against politically invasion by foreigners at the very same time you like to visit with them socially. foreigners will not begrudge you that in general only phonies from the suburbs.

          3. The Holocaust (Jewish) is remembered not for the numbers which were high rather for the fact that Hitler was trying to exterminate one religious group of people who had been productive members in Germany’s society. Over one-hundred million people died outside of wartime casualties so that leftist types of governments could keep their power. Today the left forgets their history of fascism that is also associated with National Socialism and Communism.

  20. Cognitive bias? Path dependence? Second thoughts?

    Giuliani is saying that he never denied what he now knows Mueller will allege. And that’s confirmation from the horse’s mouth–no bias.

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