How the DOJ’s criminal case against Rudy Giuliani got held up – and why it’s finally in the endgame
CNN is now reporting that the DOJ is close to making a charging decision in the criminal case against Rudy Giuliani. CNN’s source appears to be Giuliani himself, so this does have to be taken with a grain of salt. However, this news has triggered a number of defeatist reactions along the lines of “it’ll never happen, if the DOJ were going to indict Rudy it would have happened by now!” So let’s talk specifically about why this is such a false premise.
After the Feds raided Rudy Giuliani’s home, the seized evidence was held up in court for the better part of a year due to an attorney client privilege battle. The DOJ just recently got that evidence, about ten weeks ago. So if the DOJ is now indicting him, it never did drag its feet. The courts did.
It’s important that we have realistic expectations for how long these kinds of things take, and an accurate understanding of who is or isn’t causing any perceived delay. That way you don’t end up drawing mistaken conclusions about what the DOJ has been doing, or what’s going to happen.
If you know that pizza delivery takes 20 minutes, and yours still hasn’t arrived after 15 minutes, you understand that nothing is wrong. But if you mistakenly think that pizza delivery takes 2 minutes, then by the 5 minute mark you’ll be angry and upset due to the mistaken belief that it’s very late and therefore never going to arrive.
When it comes to understanding federal criminal investigations, it’s not about “patience” or “having faith.” It’s about having an accurate understanding of how these processes actually work, so you don’t end up drawing gibberish conclusions or making absurd predictions.
In the ten weeks since the DOJ was given Giuliani’s electronic communications, it’s had to subsequently investigate all the new angles that those communications have led to, and pull together an indictment that’s so overwhelming, even the most reluctant jury will feel compelled to convict at trial. When you hear it in that context, you almost want to tell the DOJ to “slow down a bit, make sure you get it right!” But if you didn’t know the courts had tied up the seized evidence for the better part of a year, you’d think the DOJ has been moving too slowly against Giuliani.
And if you do know that the courts were the reason for the delay, you’re certainly not going to conclude anything as nonsensical as “if the DOJ hasn’t indicted Rudy by now, it’s never going to happen!” So much of defeatism is based on not understanding how any of this even works.
“But Palmer, why do you know about the Giuliani evidence being stalled in court, and no one else does?” Well, I read it in the Washington Post ten weeks ago. Its not some big secret that I dug up. The media reported it at the time. The media just didn’t make a big deal out of it, even though it was a big deal. And now we’re apparently seeing endgame movement in the Giuliani case, which is only a surprise to those who haven’t been paying attention.
