Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Military, Politics

Trump Goes All-In With Giuliani and Crowdstrike In Fox Interview

While virtually everyone in Washington is burning any Christmas card or note connecting them to Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump gave a rambling and at times baffling interview on Fox & Friends in which he not only doubled down on his faith in Giuliani but restated the importance of the widely discredited Crowdstrike server claims. Giuliani has been denounced for his role in the Ukraine scandal and portrayed as a universally despised individual in the State Department and national security agencies. Yet, Trump heralded Giuliani as “a great crime-fighter” and leader even though Fox co-host Brian Kilmeade questioned his role in the scandal and raised the fact that two of his associates are now under indictment. I have been critical of Giuliani’s representation of the President for years. The interview could be an effort to keep Giuliani, who is under federal investigation, in the fold or the President may genuinely still believe that Giuliani is not only blameless but praiseworthy. Either way, this is not good. Both Giuliani and the Crowdstrike theory have been discredited in prior testimony. Nevertheless, the interview offer a glimpse into a possible defense in the Senate.

Trump declared “Rudy is a great crime-fighter. Rudy is the best mayor in the history of New York City. Rudy Giuliani is a very legendary figure in our country.” He later added “He’s also a friend of mine. He’s a great person . . . the greatest mayor in the history of New York” and “the greatest crime-fighter probably in the last 50 years. When Rudy Giuliani goes there and you hear it’s a corrupt country, it means a lot.”

Trump may argue that he had every reason to rely on Giuliani’s opinion of Ukraine and, while many may disagree, it is his prerogative to accept the view of someone Trump views as an anti-crime figure. The problem is that the President appears alone in this view.

The Fox hosts also pushed back on Trump’s restatement of the Crowdstrike theory. The President declared “A lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine. They have the server, right? From the DNC … they gave the server to CrowdStrike — or whatever it’s called — which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, and I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?”

Even host Steve Doocy pointedly interrupted and asked, “Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?”

Trump responded “Well, that’s what the word is.”

That is not what the word is. However, the defense may be that the President again was acting on erroneous but good-faith views of the facts. The obvious retort is that this is not a good-faith view since the FBI did have access to the server and this is not in fact a Ukrainian company.

While I continue to believe that the Democrats are proceeding on an incomplete record and dubious theories of crimes like bribery, I do believe that they presented compelling evidence of that virtually everyone came to believe that there was quid pro quo demand coming from the President. From the first day of this scandal, I stated that such an abuse of power could be impeachable. However, the House must call key material witnesses like Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton rather than stick with an arbitrary December deadline for a vote.

Here is the interview:

118 thoughts on “Trump Goes All-In With Giuliani and Crowdstrike In Fox Interview”

    1. I was glad to see that.

      We as a country hire/train these guys to go kill & ph stuff up & I’m sure we don’t need to cherry pick how they did their job when we weren’t on the same ground.

      The same with the cops.

      They hesitate they’re dead not the brass.

      OT:

      Just how many were Real Voters recently in Virginia??? Just where does the Vote Fraud End???

      https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/11/hundreds-of-fake-drivers-licenses-intercepted-by-us-border-patrol-at-louisville-mail-facility/

      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-virginia-and-elsewhere-gun-supporters-prepare-to-defy-new-laws/ar-BBXdIYd

    1. Oky1 – I follow a couple of African-American Youtubers and the number of blacks going to the WH is higher than it was during Obama. I am not surprised by these numbers. He has made this a cornerstone of his office.

      1. Paul,

        I really never paid much attention that the Commie/Nazi American Hating Authoritarians were right in all of our faces stealing our language for decades.

        (Sen Joe McCarthy tried to tell us, maybe a bit rough, but correct)

        But now they (Commies) just bore me with their games.

        I think I’ll just attempt going forward to drop all the hyphenated American identity politics crap & just call some Tanned American the unaware native Americans of Chinese decent, or the Spanish/Amer Chinese mix or all the other mixes, they should just call themselves Americans if they can understand what that was meant to be. Otherwise they should always be welcome to leave.

        They’re all just Americans.

          1. Paul C…..what a scream….
            Did I tell you that I got to go to Majerle’s bar in downtown Phoenix (wearing a Charles Barkley jersey)
            in the 1990’s……….and I had fun ×3 til my daddy took my T-bird away🎶

            1. Cindy Bragg – I have never been to Majerle’s, which I think has moved to Mesa now. I have been to Alice Cooper’s place and bought a nice painting of a dragon.

              1. Paul …didn’t know he lives there…..or an artist.
                BTW….I was there @ June ’92. and thought Phoenix had the cleanest downtown area I had ever visited.
                It was spotless….and sparkled…..and that was during the day!

                1. Cindy Bragg – Alice Cooper lives here and is a hometown boy. Since he quit alcohol and drugs he plays two rounds of golf every day. He is very active in the social/charity circuit. The painting is not by him. They have an art-walk twice a year and he loans his walls to local professional artists. I go every couple of years. I have a tendency to impulse buy art. 😉

                  1. Paul C….I know what you mean!
                    That is impressive about Alice Cooper. I remember hearing 50 years ago that his father was a Baptist preacher.
                    I loved Al Kooper ( “child is father to the man”)…..or something like that. He started 3 Dog Night or Chicago? Getting too old to remember🤔

                  3. What a riot LOL

                    [on the infamous “Chicken Killer Alice” incident] Now everywhere I go the ASPCA is there, “Now no killing chickens.” Okay I promise I won’t kill any chickens. Go tell that to Col. Sanders. He kills 7 million chickens a day. If I had barbecued the chicken it probably would have been okay.

                    The hippies wanted peace and love. We [the original Alice Cooper band] wanted Ferraris, blondes and switchblades.
                    [Regarding rock artists involved in the 2004 “Vote For Change” tour] When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I’d run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick. If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.
                    To me that’s treason. I call it treason against rock n’ roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics. – criticizing the rock artists involved in the anti-Bush “Vote For Change” tour.

                    ”
                    I’ve always thought if you can break the girl’s heart by the second verse, it’s a hit. “

  3. Our narcissist-in-chief:

    https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/22/donald-trump-yovanovitch-072865

    Excerpt 1:

    ‘President Donald Trump unleashed fresh attacks on Marie Yovanovitch Friday, the former U.S. ambassador he ousted in May as his associates began pressuring the new Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden, accusing her of refusing to hang a photo of himself in the Ukrainian Embassy and saying she “was not an angel.”

    ‘”This ambassador that, you know, everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy,” Trump said in a phone interview on “Fox & Friends,” without offering any evidence of his claim. “She is in charge of the embassy. She wouldn’t hang it. It took like a year and a half, two years to get the picture up.”’

    Excerpt 2:

    “The claim that Yovanovitch refused to hang Trump’s portrait echoes similar complaints from earlier in his tenure when Trump’s official portrait was reportedly missing from thousands of government offices — until the White House released portraits of the president nine months after he was sworn in.

    “The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

    #MrThinSkin

    What kind of man — what kind of president — tells the leader of another country that the ex-ambassador is “going to go through some things.”

    1. “What kind of man — what kind of president — tells the leader of another country that the ex-ambassador is “going to go through some things.”
      *****************
      An honest one. His loyalty is to us, not some swamp creature working a sinecure with emotional issues.

      1. I don’t think that particular ambassador’s position is a sinecure. Ukraine is a country which has 44 million people living in it, problematic internal politics, and a border with a rival. James Hormel and his butt-buddy in Luxembourg was holding a sinecure.

        But, yes, the feigned indignation from one of the partisan Democrats on these boards (presumably the Gainesville guy using the WiFi at Starbucks) is bothersome. If the woman is so capable in difficult circumstances, she can get over an off-hand cut delivered over the phone.

        And the pissant refusal by FSOs to adhere to proper ceremonial merits a stiletto. It’s not her embassy. It’s our embassy and he’s our president.

        1. TIA:

          Her testimony was a soap opera. Do you really think this dame went toe-to-toe with Ukrainian oligarchs? No Margaret Thatcher or Barbara Jordan here who could match with most anybody. Looks like an affirmative action hire for Serbians and Canadians and “sinecure” is a nice word for it.

          1. The gustiest thing she ever did was give the Ukrainians a “no prosecution” list and even that was likely cover for Hunter’s millions so I don’t count that as a American interest. Of course, it backfired with the Ukrainians trying to fight corruption. Perhaps, it wasn’t so much a sinecure as a Manchurian candidate gig for the Dims. No wonder she couldn’t bring herself to put up the POTUS portrait. Think Capone put up a portrait of President Hoover?

          2. The Foreign Service examination is fairly rigorous (though they recruit for liberal learning, not for expertise) and she has an academic master’s degree from a fancy research university. She’s also been in the Foreign Service for 30-odd years. It’s not likely she’s an affirmative action hire, though it’s possible her va-jay-jay-jay gave her a leg up in the promotion process. She’s a Career Ambassador, the flag rank of the Foreign Service, so she knows how to navigate that bureaucracy. (Of course, that knowledge may be at a variance with the sort of competence our Foreign Service Officers should have). I’d wager she has a talent for community theatre, and that’s what you saw on display.

            1. “I’d wager she has a talent for community theatre, and that’s what you saw on display.”
              **********************
              A likely student of the Lindsay Lohan school of faux tears/emotion garnered at the drop of a hat.

            1. Yes, you are TIA. “An idiot.”

              You talk a good game, but in the main? You’re common and ordinary. And “it’s a reasonable wager” that you’ve only been moderately successful, if that.

      2. mespo said:

        “What kind of man — what kind of president — tells the leader of another country that the ex-ambassador is “going to go through some things.”
        *****************
        An honest one. His loyalty is to us, not some swamp creature working a sinecure with emotional issues.

        ======== @mespo:

        She was already back in the US when Trump said it. It’s not honesty; it’s a threat. And it’s certainly not presidential.

        mespo about Yovanovitch:

        “…some swamp creature working a sinecure with emotional issues.”

        Thanks for showing your true colors yet again. You always manage to come through…

        1. Anonymous:

          “Thanks for showing your true colors yet again. You always manage to come through…”
          **************************

          You, too, pal. Dispute the assertion,then. The new Ukrainian government hated her, too.

    2. Oh and by the way, how come US foreign policy is being ushered along by a Ukrainian (Call me Colonel Vindaman), a stiff Brit (Fiona Hill) and a loopy Canadian (Masha here) – all with axes to grind. Is it too much triggering for the self/country loathers to let native Americans run American things?

      1. For much of our professional-managerial stratum, their peeps are people in their class here and abroad. Ordinary Americans are just pairs of hands. The smart money says that the sort of American who is admitted to the Foreign Service has a portfolio of attitudes which hardly differs from these three.

        Take this inanity from Jay Nordlinger of National Review

        “Like Alexander Vindman — like Richard Pipes — Fiona Hill is foreign-born. Sometimes they make the best Americans.”

        Well, you have a spectrum of dispositions and behaviors in any subpopulation and it’s a big country with a lot of people in it. Sometimes they make the ‘best Americans’. And sometimes they don’t. The observation is fairly jejune – i.e. not one that needs to be made. But the observation in all it’s aspects is not one he’ll make, because he actually favors them over the rest of us. And, no, insubordinate Army colonels with snotty attitudes aren’t ‘the best Americans’.

        2. One thing the US’s people’s govt should try is to remove most all the current civil service people, around 2 mil., you know, the Vindmans/Hills, etc & replace them with Retarded people, then we can set back & watch govt improve.

  6. Rudy Giuliani tweets:

    “Biden: Lindsey Graham will “regret his whole life”!

    This reminds me of Biden’s decree to the media to silence me on September 29th.

    Now a threat to a US Senator. This is getting to be more and more like my old mafia cases. They sure do sound like crooks.”

    2. The bosses of New York’s five Mafia families in the mid-1980s came a hair-trigger away from sanctioning a hit on then-federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani, according to bombshell FBI records made public yesterday.

      The mob bosses decided by a 3-to-2 margin not to try to whack the future mayor and presidential candidate. But before cooler heads prevailed, at least two of the dons argued fervently that the mob-busting U.S. attorney should sleep with the fishes. murray weiss 2007

      To consider murdering seriously a U.S. Attorney the mob likely had fairly good reasons. An $800,000 price upon his head. Talk about a crime fighter with guts. He’s been preparing all his life to face the violence of radical leftist big media who have done far more to try to destroy him than placing a hit out on him.

  7. Gulliani is NOT a material witness.

    He is not a government actor.
    While we have days of testimony that actual government actors were pissed over his actions – SO WHAT ?

    If Gulliani told Zelensky or anyone in Ukraine that Trump would not release aide without an investigation – SO WHAT ?

    That is no different from the activities of Mark Elias, or Glenn Simpson or Christopher Steele.

    It is probably that Gulliani was engaged in the same kind of dirty politics as Clinton’s surrogates were in 2016.

    You can chose to vote based on that.
    It is not a crime.

    Even if Gulliani was sent to Ukraine by Trump with Pompeo’s support,

    He is still not part of the government.

    Jimmy Carter was sent to North Korea by President Clinton, and Clinton subsequently disowned the deal Carter struck.

    But ultimately the big problem is this false fixation on QPQ.

    IT DOES NOT MATTER.

    JT is a lawyer and a constitutional scholar, he should know better.

    If it is illegal to investigate where there is a political advantage – then the whole Crossfire Huricane/Mueller investigations was a gigantic crime.

    That is NONSENSE.

    It is an abuse of power to conduct an investigation where reasonable suspicion of a crime does not exist. It is abuse of power to get a warrant where probable cause does not exist.

    Regardless of his conclusions Horowitz is likely to give us a multi-volume lesson on reasonable suspicion and probable cause.

    Reasonable suspicion for the investigations Trump asked Zelensky from is pretty damn self evident. And that should have been the end of this.

    One nation blackmailing another is NOT A CRIME.

    It is impeachable only in the sense that there is no means to enforce the constitutional restrictions on impeachment and therefore what is impeachable is whatever the house and later senate decide.

    Doing so based on this would be a huge mistake.

  8. While Trump made some errors – JT is no better,

    The FBI has NOT ever had access to the DNC Servers.

    They were provided with the Data CrowdStrike took from those servers.

    At this point in time it is unlikely that it is possible to glean anything useful from those servers.

    Next, anyone claiming that something definitive has been established regarding the DNC hack/leak is Full of crap.

    VIPS has done an analasys of the files from the DNC server that are on Wikileaks and their conclusion is that they were leaked not hacked.
    VIPS is more credible that crowdstrike and has debunked false crowdstrike attributions in the past.

    That said it is not technically possible through technological means alone to establish the origen of a hack and anyone – like Crowdstrike that claims they can is full of Bunk.

    We are way past being able to trace hacks. The sophistication of non-government affiliated hackers is so great they can make a hack appear as if it came from any source,
    and Russia, China, North Korea, the US are even better.

    We only found out that Stuxnet came from the US because of the material that Snowden leaked.

    The fact is we do not know if the DNC has hacked or if there was a leak.
    We do not know who hacked them if they were hacked.

    And through purely technological means WE CAN NOT KNOW.

    If the press, Crowdstrike, the US intelligence community, the State Department, etc are reporting otherwise – they are either lying or they do not know what they are talking about.

    While Trump’s remarks on Crowdstrike and the server are nonsensical – SO ARE EVERYONE ELSE’S.

    We saw versions of this idiocy with Hill’s testimony.

    Experts telling us that something that was not even proposed had been debunked or that there were only binary choices.

    Absolutely there is no evidence that Ukraine hacked the DNC – though I think there are only two people on the planet that have said that.

    There is also no actual evidence that the Russians hacked the DNC that could not have been a false flag operation by North Korea, Ukraine, China, or some nongovernment aligned hacker.

    Assange has consistently asserted that the DNC emails came from a leaker not a hacker.

    Assange has not provided evidence of that, but the VIPS analysis suguests the odds favor a leak over a hack.

    NO ONE HAS DEBUNKED THAT.

    And lets remind everyone that Richard Jewel was purportedly the Olympic Bomber, that Steven Hatfill, and then Bruce Ivens were responsible for the Anthrax letters,
    Israel was responsible for Stuxnet, Iraq was months away from a nuclear bomb, biological weapons, and chemical weapons.
    That the Vincense was purportedly in international waters when it shot down the Iranian passanger plane.

    I can go on and on.

    You can beleive that our public servants in intelligence and foriegn affairs are decent and wise, but you can not beleive that they are often RIGHT without your head in the sand.

    Almost NOTHING has been “debunked” – except the accuracy of “the deep state”.

  9. IQ-wise, top journalists are up there. The most prominent ones are very, very sharp people. No question. Their verbal skills are off the charts. That’s what makes their blindness regarding their direct involvement in electing Trump so incredible. They absolutely have no idea, none whatsoever, that they got Trump elected. They, the left-wing main media, are directly responsible for the rise of Trumpism. They are so deeply despised by many millions of Americans that Trump was able to sneak in as their hero. Not one leftist saw it coming. He hates our unfair, conspiring, hateful, entitled, ordained, dishonest industry as much as most of us do.

  11. 3. Then, after eating lean protein and fiber, in that order, you can have some carbohydrates. You must eat every 2 to 3 hours. 3 main meals with snacks in-between. At least 8, 8 oz. glasses of water daily.

  12. Also Rudy Giuliani —-> “If Joe Biden is not prosecuted for these crimes, then nobody in America should ever be prosecuted for bribery.”

    1. Anonymous……you can watch him admit and brag about what he did on video tape!
      It would be a trial before the court, right? because who in his right mind would want a jury, knowing that the video runs on tv all the time?

  13. “I do believe that they presented compelling evidence of that virtually everyone came to believe that there was quid pro quo”

    What you believe and what “virtually everyone” believes or presumes is meaningless. All of the “compelling” witnesses offered double and triple hearsay and the transcripts don’t show any conditionality. And the only two people who heard directly from the president said he didn’t want a QPP. Add to that the fact that the president and foreign minister of Ukraine both said no QPP and no pressure.

    If this was an actual legal proceeding and not a partisan political show the whole thing would have been thrown out of court in about ten minutes. The democrats started this nonsense because they know what Horowiltz and Durham are going to drop.

    As for Giuliani, who better to look into possible criminal conduct on the part of the former Ukrainian government regarding the 2016 election. After all, there is a criminal cooperation treaty that exists between Ukraine and the United States.

    2. Congress conditioned the aid on addressing corruption in Ukraine.

      Can we impeach Congress because they built in a QPQ ?

      Turley is correct that this is impeachable – only in the sense that sneezing is impeachable.

      But ultijmately what is most disturbing is that we spent 4 years analy probing Trump – based on what ? Garbage, Nonsense, political dirty tricks that the CIA, FBI, DOJ, and Obama Administration bought hook line and sinker – either knowing they were crap, or hoping they were enough of a pretext to start a political witchhunt.

      Regardless, WE WERE LIED TO. And the misconduct that occurred was FAR WORSE THAN WATERGATE.

      And yet, there are people who think that investigating Biden who OPENLY Blackmailed the Ukraine in what sure smells like an effort to protect his son – that you think should be a crime ?

      That is the investigation you do not want to have ?

      Biden – like Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocense.
      He is not entitled to a presumption of virtue, or immunity from investigation.

      I guess if you listen to the media too long – it rots your brain.

  14. Rudy Giuliani tweeted ——>

    “I discovered a pattern of corruption that the Washington press covered up for years!

    I’m also going to bring out a massive pay-for-play scheme under the Obama Administration that will devastate the Democrat Party.

    Do you honestly think I’m intimidated?”

    1:37 PM · Nov 23, 2019

  15. Being despised in the swamps of the State Department and national security agencies is a badge of honor!

  16. −
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    Flyinby • 2 hours ago

    Why are foreign Nationals allowed to join our military to gain citizenship to the United States? That’s nuts. That practice needs to be stopped immediately.
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    John Truman Flyinby • 2 hours ago • edited

    Vindman is a Ukranian migrant in costume.

    He wants to enact his will in Ukraine. . .using our government to do it.

    He saw DC as the capital of the world. So, he sought power in DC.

    Globalists use OUR government to impose THEIR will.

    (For example: Chuck Schumer.)
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    Maus John Truman • 2 hours ago • edited

    Bring Vindman up on charges under the UCMJ. What he did is illegal on two counts: participating in partisan political activity while on duty and /or in uniform; and leaking classified or privileged information. Toss in violating the chain-of-command, and this POS should be tossed out without pension, at the very least. Or, send him to Fort Leavenworth for some time to contemplate his stupidity.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/11/oops-looks-like-senator-crying-chuck-schumer-just-inadvertently-outed-one-of-schiffs-whistleblowers/

  17. Jonathan: It should be recalled that Trump also referred to Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney, as “a very fine person” until Cohen realized he was hanging out there all alone, flipped and began cooperating with federal prosecutors… spilling his guts about his illegal activities on behalf of Trump. After Cohen pleaded guilty Trump said Cohen was a bad lawyer, lied and “should serve a full and complete sentence”. No presidential pardon for the “fixer”. For Trump loyalty runs in only one direction. Trump praises Rudy Giuliani now because he expects the latter to remain loyal. But if Trump thinks Giuliani, who is now under federal criminal investigation, is in legal jeopardy and may flip to save his skin by testifying in the impeachment inquiry, Trump will turn on him in a nano second! Trump will claim Giuliani was a rogue operative, acting on his own in Ukraine without presidential approval. With all the mounting evidence that’s a defense no one would believe. Nevertheless, Rudy, you better watch your back.

    1. And yet when Trump’s personal fixer flipped and exposed all of Trump’s dirty laundry and illegal acts – we could not even find a fair of dirty socks.

      I am bothered by Trump’s relationship with Cohen.
      Are you bothered by Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayres ?

      But if Cohen was really Trump’s “fixer” then it is time to admit – there are no Trump crimes hiding under rocks – or Cohen would have known them.

      Trump has been anally probed for 4 years.

      If you have not found anything yet, it is time to admit there is nothing there.

      The Crimes here are of those who were so certain they would find crimes that they bent the rules and committed crimes themselves.

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