Rudy Giuliani finds himself in new Trump-Russia legal trouble
Rudy Giuliani’s cartoonishly incoherent behavior has all but drowned out the far more important storyline about him: by his own admission, the Department of Justice Inspector General questioned him earlier this year, with regard to how he knew in advance that the FBI was about sabotage the election in Donald Trump’s favor. Today, Rudy’s Trump-Russia legal prospects took a new turn for the worse.
Even before election day, it was fairly clear that someone in the FBI told Rudy Giuliani about what was about to happen. We know this because Rudy went on cable news and bragged about it shortly before election day, and sure enough, FBI Director James Comey then sent a misleading letter which falsely implied Clinton was under investigation. When Rudy joined Donald Trump’s legal defense team earlier this year, it was equally obvious that he was doing this to try to get himself off the hook. After the DOJ IG released his report, Rudy admitted on cable news that the IG had in fact questioned him in February. That brings us to today.
CREW, a team of lawyers who have been successful in unearthing quite a bit of dirt about Donald Trump’s criminal scandals, has filed a Freedom of Information Act request aimed at exposing how Rudy Giuliani gained access to privileged FBI information. Here’s how CREW phrased the matter: “An unauthorized disclosure of information on an FBI investigation is illegal. How did Giuliani get leaked information that James Comey reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails?”
When the DOJ Inspector General released his report earlier this summer, he was asked about the Rudy Giuliani matter, and he responded by saying that the investigation into it was ongoing. That means we’ll get the answers eventually. However, this move by CREW means we may get those answers much sooner. In any case, it’s impossible to imagine that Special Counsel Robert Mueller isn’t investigating Rudy over this as well.
