Sunday School 12/16/18

He's b-a-a-a-c-k!  Rudy Giuliani made it to a couple of lecture halls this Sunday morning, and boy was he trying to get some attention.

First, let's look at this exchange between Rudy and Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday

Wallace asked about reports that special counsel Robert Mueller was (again) interested in interviewing the president, now that his written responses have been submitted and, I'm sure, reviewed by in detail by the Mueller team.

CW: Has his office reached out to you about sitting own for an in-person interview with the president?

RG: Yes. There are several unpaid parking tickets that night -- back in 1986, 1987 that haven't been explained. You know, we've got to --

CW:Seriously?

RG: Seriously, unpaid parking tickets-- 

CW: No, no no 

RG: it was a movie theater. He didn't pay the proper fee.

CW:  Is the special counsel -- does he want to interview the president?

RG:  Yes, good luck. Good luck. After what they did to Flynn, the way the trapped him into perjury and no sentence for him, 14 days for Papadopoulos. I did better on traffic violations than they did with Papadopoulos.

CW: So, when you say good luck, you're saying no way, no interview?

RG:  They're a joke. Over my dead body, but you know, I could be dead. 

CW: Do they want to speak to the president?

RG: I do have -- I do have other lawyers - I am disgusted with the tactics they have used in this case. What they did to General Flynn should result in discipline. They're the ones who are violating the law. They're looking at non-crime collusion, the other guys are looking at non-crime campaign violations, which are not violations. And they are the ones who are violating the law, the rules, the ethics and nobody wants to look at them. They destroyed Strzok & Page's text, 19,000 texts.

If he had destroyed 19,000 texts, they'd put him in jail

Even though they can't because he's the president. 

Got that? Parking tickets, movie theaters, and talking to Mueller "over my dead body."

Now, let's see what he said in his discussion on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.  It started with George playing video of an interview in which Michael Cohen said he acted at the direction of the president, that the payments to the porn star and Playboy bunny were made to help the campaign, and that Cohen gave loyalty to a man who did not deserve a bit of it.

Giuliani's' approach was to attack Cohen as pathetic, a liar, a many who lied under oath repeatedly, a man who can't be trusted.  Even though the Southern District of NY believes Cohen, and Stephanopoulos pointed out they'd not state what they did without corroborating evidence, Giuliani was not having it.

RG: Yes, but there'd be no way they would know other than taking Cohen's word for it. I mean, the conversations they had, even the tape recorded conversation that we listened to is just the two of them.. they don't have corroborating evidence, I'm sure. They don't have corroborating evidence,. Plus they didn't let Cohen plead guilty to a conspiracy. I ran that office, I know what they do. If I'm going to use a cooperator, I make them plead guilty to a conspiracy...

Stephanopoulos talked about the deal that was cut with David Pecker and AMI (the National Enquirer folks) who helped identify and bury stories and keep them from being published  and who agreed to keep Cohen in the loop. Still, Giuliani was not convinced.

GS: But you just said you ran that office. You know how the Southern District is run. You know exactly how the Southern District is run.

RG: No, I don't know -- actually, I don't know how the Southern District --

GS: They wouldn't have put that in the statement of fact if they didn't believe --

RG: I'm disgusted with the Southern District. I'm going to tell you another things. You see what we're talking about? It's not a crime. It's not a crime...

Which of course is consistent with everything that the Trump team eventually says - by the third of fourth or fifth version of the story, they end up telling us some version of 'even if it did happen, it wasn't a crime.'  The two argued back and forth about whether the payoffs were made to help or protect the campaign (what the filing says), or whether they were made to protect Trump's wife and children (Rudy's answer).

Stephanopoulos asked if there were other payments.

RG: Nobody else asked for -- in the past, I can't speak to. I wasn't his lawyer in the past. But at that point, these were the only two that were asking for money. And the amount of money is consistent with harassment, not truth. I have been involved in cases like this. When it's true and you have the kind of money the president had, it's a $1 million settlement. When it's not true, when it's a harassment settlement and it's not true, you give them $130,000, $150,000. They went away for so little money that it indicates their case was very very weak.

He complained that next it would be parking tickets and jay-walking - those must have been the predetermined speaking points. And then he compared these non-crimes to Obama FEC violations, mischaracterizing the nature of the violation and wildly overstating the fines paid, but you know, what's a lie when you're a liar defending a liar by complaining about a liar? Here's the best line of that segment, about the reporting violations which Obama's campaign admitted to.

No, they were not reporting violations. He has people who donated to him that don't exist. They do not exist. They're not human beings.

On it went, for a while, until Stephanopoulos changed the topic.

GS: CNN and the NY Times reporting this week that you're still in discussion with Robert Mueller about whether the - about an interview with the president, are those discussions still going on?

RG: I'm actually not allowed to -- to say that. But -- but the agreement we had did contemplate that there'd be a period of time after the questions that we would have a discussion about whether there should be any further questions. So I'm not saying we are or we aren't but that's in the agreement.  

I love the distinctly different response to the question about whether the president will have a sit-down with the Mueller team.  I mean, we go from "over my dead body" to "I'm not allowed to say that."

Clearly, Rudy knows which audience he's talking to when he has his little chats, would you agree?

See you around campus.