Is President Donald Trump getting framed? That’s what former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — now Trump’s lawyer — told an audience in Tel Aviv, Israel on Wednesday.
Speaking to a friendly audience at the Globes capital market conference, Giuliani insisted that Trump is “innocent” of whatever special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is looking into. Further, he suggested the whole investigation has become a setup.
“There are a group of 13 highly partisan Democrats that make up the Mueller team, excluding him [and] are trying very, very hard to frame him, to get him in trouble when he hasn’t done anything wrong,” Giuliani said.
Mueller and his team have been investigating Trump and his campaign for nearly two years to see if there was any illegal collusion with the Russian government to rig the 2016 election in his favor. One year into the investigation, the FBI broadened their scope to include potential financial crimes unrelated to the election.
“They can’t emotionally come to grips with the fact that this whole thing with Russian collusion didn’t happen,” Giuliani went on to say. “They are trying to invent theories of obstruction of justice.”
Giuliani has been a vocal critic of the Mueller probe since he joined Team Trump — though not all his attacks have been successful. During a media interview — with Fox News, no less — Giuliani made several claims that must have baffled his boss. The former mayor alleged that — contrary to what Trump had been saying — the president did pay off porn star Stormy Daniels.
That was in early May. One month later, Giuliani now claims that Trump can’t “be subpoenaed or indicted” and that “If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” but he couldn’t be indicted until after impeachment.
Over at Hot Air, Allahpundit brings up a good question regarding Giuliani: “Does … he have reason to believe that Trump’s about to be formally accused of something by Mueller?”
The only new information from Mueller’s Russia probe is that Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, may have tampered with witnesses involved in his tax evasion and bank fraud case, for which Mueller indicted him. The charges don’t even seem to be that strong.
So far, Mueller has indicted four former campaign aides on charges unrelated to the campaign. Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, was charged with 32 counts of tax evasion and bank fraud relating to his lobbying business from 2010-2014. Rick Gates, Manafort’s business partner and former deputy on the Trump 2016 campaign, was included in the indictment as well. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign George Papadopoulos both pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. A Dutch attorney, a California man and 13 Russian nationals were also indicted, but they were unconnected to Trump.
Ashe Schow is a reporter and columnist with bylines at the Federalist and the New York Observer. She also co-hosts a weekly podcast, The Snark Factor. She has previously worked for the Washington Examiner and the Heritage Foundation. She lives in Virginia with her two cats, Shadow and Charlie.
You can follow Ashe’s wacky adventures in politicking, cat-owning and video-gaming at @AsheSchow
