Rudy Giuliani comes closer to throwing Trump world under the bus
When Rudy Giuliani told the mainstream media last week that he had begun cooperating with the January 6th Committee, and then told right wing propaganda outlets that the committee was illegal, we pointed out that Rudy’s words weren’t what was important. All that matters is whether Rudy has figured out he’s going to prison. If not, he’ll just keep playing games. But if Rudy has finally figured out he’s prison bound, he’ll selfishly sell out whoever he has to sell out, in the hope of staying out of prison.
It turns out Rudy appears to now understand that he has to at least give up some people. According to the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, Giuliani’s negotiations with the January 6th Committee have become fairly specific. Giuliani doesn’t want to give up Trump, but he’s willing to give up all the Republican members of Congress who were in on the election overthrow plot. This is a big deal, for two reasons.
First, these are negotiations, which means that by definition you start by only offering part of what you’d theoretically be willing to give up, and hope it’s enough. If there’s pressure to give more, then you give more. So by the time these negotiations are done, Rudy could end up agreeing to give up more than what he’s currently offering.
But even if Rudy just gives up what he’s currently offering, this would give the committee crucial inside testimony and evidence that could absolutely nail the congressional Republicans who were part of the seditious conspiracy plot. Rudy is likely one of the relatively few people who can definitively give up these House Republicans, because he had them carrying out his plot.
Of course this leads to the question of why Rudy is being allowed to “negotiate” the terms of his testimony, when he’s already been subpoenaed to give up everything. But let’s be real here. There is no magic wand the committee can wave to force Rudy to give up everything. It can put him in prison for contempt of Congress, and it surely will if he doesn’t cooperate at all. But if Rudy is wiling to accept that punishment, then the committee would get nothing out of him at all. As a practical matter, if the committee has a choice of getting significant and ongoing but incomplete cooperation from Rudy, or none at all, it has to take the former. And if Rudy does end up flaking out, the committee can always ring him up for contempt later.
It’s also possible that Giuliani doesn’t want to give up Trump to the January 6th Committee because he wants to keep that in his back pocket so he can trade it to the Department of Justice later in exchange for criminal leniency on the mountain of felony charges he’s facing. For that matter, it’s possible Rudy has already given up Trump to the DOJ, and this is why he doesn’t want to give up Trump publicly to the committee.
In any case, these things tend to have a domino effect. Giuliani began talking about cooperating with the January 6th Committee not long after his associate Sidney Powell publicly claimed that she’d begun cooperating with the DOJ. If and when Rudy does begin giving up evidence to the committee, at least some folks he’s giving up may get scared enough to also begin cooperating. Cooperation deals tend to have a pyramid scheme effect, where only the people who get in on them early end up significantly benefiting. And if anyone understands pyramid schemes, it’s the con artists in Trump world.
