Rudy Giuliani isn’t “playing” the January 6th Committee – but he may be playing himself

It’s of no relevance that Rudy Giuliani is telling mainstream audiences that he’s fully cooperating with the January 6th Committee. It’s also of no relevance that he’s telling right wing audiences that the committee is illegitimate. None of this gives us any insight into whether Rudy is legitimately cooperating or playing games. There’s only one factor when it comes down to that.

Rudy Giuliani may or may not understand this, given his declining cognitive abilities, but he’s going to prison. The courts recently gave the DOJ the majority of the communications that the FBI seized when it raided Rudy’s house nine months ago (yes, federal courts move that slowly). Rudy’s only hope of avoiding indictment for his dirty foreign money scandal was if this evidence got tossed out or put in limbo forever. But the DOJ now finally has it, meaning Rudy is going to prison for the financial stuff, regardless of when or if he’s ever indicted for January 6th or election fraud.

The only factor is whether Rudy understands that he’s now a lock for prison. If Rudy delusionally thinks he can still get away with it all, then sure, he’s just playing games. If Rudy now understands that he has to sell out Donald Trump in order to avoid prison, then he’ll sell Trump out in a heartbeat – no games, no nonsense, just the kind of straightforward cooperating that a former prosecutor like Rudy understands is necessary in order to get (and keep) a leniency or immunity deal.

There aren’t going to be any other factors in Rudy’s decision making. If he understands he needs to sell out Trump, he’ll selfishly do it. If he doesn’t understand that, then this is some kind of scheme on his part. But the crucial part in all of this is that anyone who’s watched Giuliani in public over the past year knows full well that he’s not within a million miles of being able to successfully carry out a coherent two-timing scheme.

So even if Rudy is trying to “play” the January 6th Committee, it won’t go well for him. Just to get the committee to so much as say that he’s cooperating, Rudy has to have already given the committee valuable evidence against Trump. So even if Rudy flakes from here, this will be a minor victory for the committee. Then we get to the part where it could backfire on Rudy.

Let’s say Rudy is merely “cooperating” with the committee as a way of scaring Donald Trump into paying Rudy’s legal bills. Once Rudy breaks off his cooperation, the committee will make a priority of ringing him up for contempt. In such case Rudy will probably end up getting indicted and arrested by the DOJ sooner than he otherwise would have, which would mean even more legal bills for Rudy. This would point to Rudy being so broke, he’s in danger of losing his lawyers any day now, and so he’d incur even more insurmountable legal fees a bit down the road just so he can make it to the end of the week.

In other words, if Rudy Giuliani is trying to play the January 6th Committee, then he’s really only playing himself. He’s giving up evidence against Trump just to get his hands on Trump money in the short term, in a way that’ll end up working against him in the medium term and won’t save him in the long term.

Again, nothing that Rudy is saying right now matters – except what he’s saying to the committee. You can safely ignore anything that comes out of Rudy’s mouth on television, or anything that Rudy’s lawyers say to a newspaper. That’s all just posturing, which is 90% of politics. All that matters is that if Rudy understands he has to give up Trump to stay out of prison, he will absolutely and legitimately do it for selfish reasons. And if Rudy is playing games because he thinks he can BS his way out this, then he’s really only playing himself. Either way, the committee can’t lose.