Rim Country Gazette: See Rudy lie. Lie, Rudy, lie. See Rudy give three different versions of reality for one question.

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

See Rudy lie. Lie, Rudy, lie. See Rudy give three different versions of reality for one question.

As the most public member of Donald Trump’s legal team, Rudy Giuliani’s assigned role is apparently to make what seem to be “slips”—incidents in which he reveals jaw-dropping information that appear to undermine Trump’s position concerning Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, and Russian collusion. But in each case the position that Giuliani lets drop during some Sunday morning interview, things that seemed shocking when first uttered, have quickly become the standard position for Trump. Giuliani is Trump’s ice breaker.

This Sunday, in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Giuliani appeared to be caught out in another lie, and to drop another in his series of bombshells. Asked about Trump’s request to former FBI director James Comey that he “give a break” to former national security advisor Michael Flynn, Giuliani at first claimed there had never been such a conversation.

Jake Tapper: So you’re saying that President Trump and James Comey never discussed Michael Flynn?

Giuliani: That is what [Trump] will testify to if he is asked that question.

Then, reminded that he had already discussed the conversation he was claiming never happened, Giuliani attempted to deny that conversation.

Giuliani: I never … I never told ABC that. That’s crazy. I never said that.

Which is when CNN went to the tape. However, while forced to admit—after watching himself discuss it—that he had previously accepted the reality of the conversation between Trump and Comey, Giuliani this week shifted his claim to say that was only “talking about their version of it.”

But that wasn’t the end of Giuliani’s reshaping of this particular part of Trump’s clumsy attempts at obstruction. Because given a chance to sit down with some “And Friends” over on “Fox,” Giuliani moved straight on to the next phase of this historical rewrite. The “So what?” phase.

Giuliani: Here’s what happened. The president says, I never said to Flynn anything…

Friend: Said to Comey.

Giuliani: Yep, said to Comey anything about Flynn. Comey says, and he adds this at the very end, Comey says he told me to see if he, If I’d give him a break. Basically. So, we have three defenses to that. Under Article Two of the Constitution, you can’t really question why the president would say something, he has the power to say it. Two, what he was saying was perfectly justifiable. He didn’t say you must, you have to, I’ll fire you if you don’t. He said, consider it. Number three, he never said it. You can call it argument of the alternative.

Friend: So it doesn’t matter, because you say the president never said it.

Giuliani’s opening here that it’s—quite intentionally—difficult to determine what he says was being said by Trump, and what he says was being said by Comey. Then, in a routine that would be comically unbelievable were it not a mirror image of the way Giuliani has addressed a whole series of issues, he first claims that “you can’t really question why the president would say something.” Then says it’s all fine … then jumps back to it never happened.

In one statement, Giuliani has mapped out the three stages of every Trump crisis: It never happened, if it happened Trump had a right to make it happen, and it was all “perfectly justifiable” anyway.

The only interesting part of this whole thing will be if Giuliani, or Trump, attempts to continue the “it never happened” aspect. Because, just as when Giuliani provided a detailed list of attendees of the Trump Tower pre-meeting meeting … it clearly happened.

Giuliani also claims that Special Counsel Robert Mueller told him that the investigation report would be completed by September 1. That information can be assumed to be just as factual as everything else Giuliani says … and you can expect that claim to be repeated.