Rudy Giuliani goes off deep end after Michael Cohen names Donald Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator
Rudy Giuliani isn’t even bothering to make the cable news rounds this afternoon, in the wake of Paul Manafort’s guilty verdict and Michael Cohen’s plea deal. Perhaps he realizes there’s simply no possible way to spin news this bad in real time. Instead Rudy has issued a statement, which is usually what you do when you’re trying to keep things subtle, but Rudy’s statement is nonetheless rather far off the deep end.
Arguably the most crushing news for Donald Trump today is that when Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in court to having illegally paid off Trump’s mistresses, he accused Trump (the “candidate”) of having instructed him to do it. This means that Trump is now an unindicted co-conspitator in a felony criminal case. Just don’t tell that to Rudy, who has, shall we say, a rather different take on what we all witnessed today.
Here’s what Rudy Giuliani had to say in his statement today: “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen. It is clear that, as the prosecutor noted, Mr. Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.” This of course is a blatant lie. Michael Cohen directly accused Donald Trump of felony wrongdoing, and in case that wasn’t clear from what came out of the courtroom, Cohen’s attorney went on to confirm as much.
So now we have Donald Trump low-key ranting about how the Paul Manafort guilty verdict had nothing to do with him, while refusing to address the Michael Cohen plea deal at all, even as Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani is reduced to putting out a false statement which reeks of delusion. It’s not clear at this point what Trump’s defense strategy is even supposed to be.
