Tag: Rudy Giuliani

Leaked emails suggest Giuliani dangled a pardon in front of Cohen: ‘You have friends in high places’

CNN reports that Robert Costello, an attorney for former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen, told him that he could “sleep well” at night after his office was raided by the FBI last year because he had “friends in high places.”

Costello’s attempts to reassure Cohen came directly after he spoke with Rudy Giuliani, the attorney representing President Donald Trump.

In an interview with CNN, however, Costello insisted that Cohen had asked him to bring up the possibility of a pardon to Giuliani, and he denied that either Giuliani or Trump had “dangled” a pardon for him.

View the complete March 13 article by Brad Reed of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

“Even If He Did Do It, It Wouldn’t Be A Crime”: Rudy Giuliani On President Trump

Credit: CNN Screen Shot

On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani, one of President Trump’s lawyers, made a startling admission to the Times and NBC’s “Meet the Press”: that Trump had been involved in discussions to build a Trump Tower Moscow throughout the 2016 campaign, contradicting Trump’s public statements and raising ever more serious questions about the President’s ties to Vladimir Putin. Giuliani told the Times that Trump had said the discussions were “going on from the day I announced to the day I won.”

Giuliani also said that Trump may have spoken to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, before Cohen gave false testimony to Congress about the timing of the Moscow discussions, claiming that they had ended in January, 2016. When, in November, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, he told prosecutors that they continued at least through June, 2016. Giuliani told the Times that Trump may have acknowledged these conversations in the written answers that he gave to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, late last year. “There was no question that he was asked by the special counsel a question that said, ‘Did you talk to him before he testified?’ ” Giuliani told the Times. The issue of whether Trump influenced Cohen’s false testimony was raised when BuzzFeed reported, on Thursday night, that according to two federal law-enforcement officials, Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress. In response, Mueller’s office issued a rare statement, saying that BuzzFeed’s descriptions of statements, documents, and testimony obtained by the office “are not accurate.” (BuzzFeed has stood by its story.) Continue reading ““Even If He Did Do It, It Wouldn’t Be A Crime”: Rudy Giuliani On President Trump”

George Conway Mocks Rudy Giuliani’s Backpedaling With Brutal 5-Word ‘Translation’

Kellyanne Conway’s husband called out the president’s attorney.

George Conway, attorney and husband to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, isn’t buying Rudy Giuliani’s latest defense of President Donald Trump.

On Monday, Giuliani tried to walk back his previous claim that Trump had conversations about a possible Trump Tower project in Moscow throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. On “Meet the Press,” the former New York City mayor said that Trump can “remember having conversations” on the subject with disgraced former attorney Michael Cohen throughout 2016.

“There weren’t a lot of them, but there were conversations,” said Giuliani, who is an attorney for Trump. “Can’t be sure the exact date. … Probably up to ― could be up to as far as October, November.”

View the complete January 22 article by Ed Mazza on the Huffington Post website here.

 

Moscow Skyscraper Talks Continued Through ‘the Day I Won,’ Trump Is Said to Acknowledge

Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, said Mr. Trump recalled that the discussions about building a Trump Tower in Moscow were “going from the day I announced to the day I won.” Credit: Erin Schaff, The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump was involved in discussions to build a skyscraper in Moscow throughout the entire 2016 presidential campaign, his personal lawyer said on Sunday, a longer and more significant role for Mr. Trump than he had previously acknowledged.

The comments by his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani indicated that Mr. Trump’s efforts to complete a business deal in Russia waned only after Americans cast ballots in the presidential election.

The new timetable means that Mr. Trump was seeking a deal at the time he was calling for an end to economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration. He was seeking a deal when he gave interviews questioning the legitimacy of NATO, a favorite talking point of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. And he was seeking a deal when, in July 2016, he called on Russia to release hacked Democratic emails that Mr. Putin’s government was rumored at the time to have stolen.

View the complete January 20 article by Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt on The New York TImes website here.

Giuliani’s bizarre bragging about the Manafort-Trump alliance highlights new obstruction questions

This post has been updated.

The first two paragraphs of this New York Times story are remarkable enough: Despite Paul Manafort having agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, his lawyer, Kevin Downing, continued to brief President Trump’s legal team. That’s a highly unusual setup, and one that is generally frowned upon in legal circles.

The next two paragraphs, though, might take the cake. In them, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani practically brags about having pulled one over on Mueller by gleaning key information from the arrangement.

Via Times reporters Michael S. Schmidt, Sharon LaFraniere and Maggie Haberman: Continue reading “Giuliani’s bizarre bragging about the Manafort-Trump alliance highlights new obstruction questions”

Human Rights Group Calls For Investigation Of Giuliani, Trump Money-Laundering Scheme

Prosecutors Asked to Probe Dutch Middlemen Washing Billions in Dirty Kazakh Cash for Real Estate Deals in US and Europe

A human rights organization has asked Dutch prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into multi-billion dollar money laundering schemes that they say were aided by Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his old law firm.

The complaint is clearly aimed at examining how much money stolen from a former Soviet satellite ended up benefitting Trump. He is named 16 times in the complaint’s footnotes.

The complaint describes “one of the biggest fraud cases ever” in which “some of these money flows ultimately ended up in the Netherlands” because “Dutch service providers helped to cover up the money laundering acts.”

View the complete October 31 article by David Cay Johnston on the DCReport.org website here.

Giuliani criticizes Romanian anti-corruption crackdown in open letter: report

The following article by Emily Birnbaum was posted on the Hill website August 29, 2018:

President Trump‘s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, wrote a letter to Romania’s president criticizing the country’s anti-corruption efforts, according to a report from The New York Times.

In the open letter dated Aug. 22 to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Giuliani expressed concern about the “continuing damage to the rule of law being done under the guise of effective law enforcement,” according to the Times.

Giuliani said the letter was sent as part of his work for his security company, Giuliani Security & Safety, with the former New York City mayor telling the Times he was “still an independent lawyer and consultant.”

View the complete article here.

“Trump is nuts. This time really feels different”: Trump rejects “war council” intervention, goes it alone

The following article by Gabriel Sherman was posted on the Vanity Fair website August 27, 2018:

With his closest allies defecting, the president increasingly trusts only his instincts. He “got joy” from stripping former C.I.A. director John Brennan’s security clearance. And after betrayals by Allen Weisselberg and David Pecker, a former White House official says, Trump “spent the weekend calling people and screaming.”

After Michael Cohen’s plea deal last week, Donald Trump spiraled out of control, firing wildly in all directions. He railed against “flippers” in a rambling Fox & Friends interview, and lashed out on Twitter at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department, and Robert Mueller. In the wake of his outbursts, White House officials have discussed whether Trump would listen to his closest New York City friends in an effort to rein him in. Two sources briefed on the matter told me that senior officials talked about inviting Rudy Giuliani and a group of Trump’s New York real-estate friends including Tom Barrack, Richard LeFrak, and Howard Lorber to the White House to stage an “intervention” last week. “It was supposed to be a war council,” one source explained. But Trump refused to take the meeting, sources said. “You know Trump—he hates being lectured to,” the source added. (Spokespeople for LeFrak and Lorber say they have no knowledge of a meeting. A spokesperson for Barrack didn’t comment.) Continue reading ““Trump is nuts. This time really feels different”: Trump rejects “war council” intervention, goes it alone”

Trump recently sought his lawyers’ advice on possibility of pardoning Manafort, Giuliani says

The following article by Carol D. Leonnig and Josh Dawsey was posted on the Washington Post website August 23, 2018:

President Trump has made many high-profile pardons, and is considering more. Here’s what his pardoning strategy says about his view of the legal system. (Video: Jenny Starrs /Photo: Jabon Botsford/The Washington Post)

President Trump recently asked his lawyers for their advice on the possibility of pardoning Paul Manafort and other aides accused of crimes, his lawyer said Thursday.

The subject of pardoning Manafort came as Trump’s former campaign chairman faced multiple charges of bank fraud and tax evasion in an Alexandria criminal case, Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani said in an interview.

Trump’s lawyers counseled the president against the idea of pardoning anyone linked to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to Giuliani, saying Trump should at least wait until special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has concluded his probe. Giuliani said the president agreed and did not push the issue further.

View the complete article here.

Rudy Giuliani’s Pinocchio-laden interview on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’

The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website August 21, 2018:

How is Fusion GPS connected to the Trump dossier, Donald Trump Jr.’s Trump Tower meeting and the 2016 election? The Fact Checker explains. Video: Meg Kelly/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

“The meeting [at the Trump Tower in 2016] was originally for the purpose of getting information about Clinton. …That was the original intention of the meeting. It turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all.”

“Any meeting with regard to getting information on your opponent is something any candidate’s staff would take. If someone said, ‘I have information about your opponent,’ you would take that meeting.”

“She didn’t represent the Russian government. She’s a private citizen. I don’t even know if they knew she was Russian at the time. All they had was her name. … They didn’t know she was a representative of the Russian government.”

— Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Aug. 19, 2018

View the complete article here.