Rudy Giuliani just gave up the game
The Mueller report just exposed Donald Trump as a guy whose campaign embraced Russia’s efforts to alter the outcome of the 2016 election, and as a guy who committed hundreds of acts of felony obstruction of justice. Trump is nonetheless spinning the report as a total exoneration. Now his criminal defense lawyer Rudy Giuliani is saying something that sounds like yet another patented Rudy screwup – but we think he’s actually laying the groundwork for what he knows is coming next.
Rudy appeared on CNN State of the Union this morning and flatly declared that “There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians.” Wait a minute here. Even as Donald Trump is insisting more loudly than ever that there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia, Rudy is insisting that there’s nothing wrong with collusion. Is Giuliani simply off-message and babbling like usual?
Here’s the thing. House Democrats are going to hold public hearings which will place a spotlight on just how much collusion there was between the Trump campaign and Russia. The average nonpolitical American, who has spent the past two years wondering who Robert Mueller might be, is now about to sit down in front of the television and hear all about what really happened.
That’ll include Don Jr’s decision to meet with Russian government representatives in the hope of obtaining dirt on Hillary Clinton. That’ll include Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone’s communications with Kremlin puppet WikiLeaks, which ended up publishing Democratic Party emails during the election which had been stolen by Russian government hackers. Donald Trump’s “no collusion” mantra is about to get blown to pieces in front of a live audience.
Rudy Giuliani, in his more lucid moments, surely understands that this is coming. He knows that before much longer, Donald Trump will have to shift his message from “no collusion” to “nothing wrong with collusion” – even if Trump is too delusional to have figured that out yet himself. We don’t think Rudy screwed up this morning; we think he just gave away the game for where Team Trump knows this is headed.
