Folding up the tent
Yesterday Rudy Giuliani did something remarkable: he told the truth. More specifically, he told the truth about having lied. In a new court filing he admitted that he’d made false claims about Georgia election workers. The civil suit is still ongoing (for the moment) and Giuliani still claims he’s not liable for anything. But it sure does feel like a strategic surrender. And that’s not surprising.
Giuliani is on the verge of being swallowed whole by his criminal justice problems. He’s at a point where he’s doing proffer interviews with the DOJ in a last ditch attempt at avoiding indictment, and could still end up going to prison even with the proffer effort. People in his position often find themselves unable to prioritize the civil suits they have going on, and end up trying to fold up the tent on them. Giuliani is conceding key aspects of his civil case against the Georgia election workers, seemingly because he’s simply not in a position to keep fighting.
This comes even as Donald Trump is now reduced to making one social media post after another about how it’ll be an “honor” if he’s criminally indicted for January 6th, and how he can’t wait to get to trial so he can prove to everyone that he secretly won in 2020. In other words Trump has now given up any hope that he somehow won’t be indicted for January 6th, and he’s seemingly given up any hope of somehow pushing the trial until after the election. He’s now settling for fantasizing about how well the trial will supposedly go for him. Trump is folding up the tent in his own delusional way.
Of course back in the real world, Donald Trump will soon find himself criminally indicted on perhaps a hundred or more felony counts across at least four jurisdictions, and if he’s convicted on any one of those counts in any one of those trials, he’s going to prison. Meanwhile Trump’s loyal sidekick Giuliani is now strategically admitting that he made things up about the 2020 election, even as he’s doing proffer sessions with Jack Smith aimed at throwing Trump under the bus.
This is the kind of end stage desperation, hallucination, and ultimately resignation that you see from criminal co-conspirators when they realize they’re finally up against it. Donald Trump could be criminally indicted for January 6th as soon as today. His sidekicks could be indicted alongside him or shortly thereafter. No wonder they’re already folding up the tent.
