Bad news for Rudy Giuliani
Now that the Feds have raided Rudy Giuliani’s home and seized his electronic devices and communications, it’s a given that he’ll be indicted and arrested. The big question is when. The criminal justice system never moves as quickly as anyone would like. But it turns out Rudy’s stall tactics just took a blow.
Giuliani and his attorneys are attempting to delay the inevitable for as long as possible by forcing the courts to sort through the seized emails and determine which if any of them might be protected by attorney-client privilege. This won’t save Rudy, as attorney-client privilege doesn’t exist in instances where the attorney and client are committing crimes together; it’s just a stall tactic.
As it turns out, the stall won’t last particularly long. The judge in the Giuliani case has appointed Barbara Jones as a “special master” to sort through and parse Rudy’s communications. If the name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because Jones also served as the special master to sort Michael Cohen’s communications with Donald Trump.
Michael Cohen, who has long been cooperating with prosecutors against the Trump cartel, is now telling CNBC that Jones likes to work in an “expeditious manner” – meaning this isn’t going to be as effective of a stall tactic as it would have been if a different special master had been named.
So now we wait for Jones to determine which of Rudy Giuliani’s communications with Team Trump are admissible, turn them over to prosecutors, wait for prosecutors to decide which of those communications to put in front of the grand jury, and when to have the grand jury indict Giuliani. It’s all a multi-step process, which is why indictments seemingly take forever in the eyes of those who aren’t watching the process unfold.
But the appointment of Jones is bad news for Rudy and his stall tactics. It’s also bad news for Donald Trump. The sooner Rudy is arrested, the sooner he’ll have to consider cutting a plea deal, and the only “bigger fish” he can get anywhere by selling out at this point is Trump himself.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report