Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who as a prosecutor effectively targeted the Mafia and as a mayor cleaned up the city of New York before becoming an advisor to Donald Trump, made a statement on Wednesday morning before leaving for Georgia, where he will surrender at the Fulton County jail after being charged with attempting to subvert the 2020 election results.
Charging documents claimed Giuliani promoted unsupported allegations of election fraud in Georgia. Prosecutors have claimed he participated in a scheme to have 16 Georgia Republicans calling themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors and swear Trump had won the 2020 presidential election.
“I don’t know if I plead today, but if I do, I plead not guilty and I get photographed,” Giuliani said. “Isn’t that nice? A mug shot for the man who probably put the worst criminals of the 20th century in jail? You find a prosecutor who has a better record than mine in the last hundred years — I bet you don’t, or a mayor. And they’re going to degrade themselves by doing a mug shot of me, like people will recognize me. And then of course, they can fingerprint me, but I’ve been fingerprinted 150 times. So this will turn out exactly like the FBI search turned out. They’re lying; I’m telling the truth.”
“I’m going down to Georgia and I’m feeling very, very good about it because I feel like I’m defending the rights of all Americans as I did so many times as a United States attorney,” Giuliani stated. “People like to say I’m different; I’m the same Rudy Giuliani that took down the Mafia, that made New York City the safest city in America, reduced crime more than any mayor in the history of any city, anywhere. And I’m fighting for justice; I have been for the first moment I represented Donald Trump.”
“I’m feeling very, very good about it because I feel like I am defending the rights of all Americans, as I did so many times as a United States attorney,” Rudy Giuliani says as he heads to Georgia to surrender. pic.twitter.com/C122gGnXn0
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 23, 2023
“And as a man who has now been proven innocent several times, I don’t know how many times he (Trump) has to be proven innocent and they have to be proven to be liars, actually enemies of our Republic who are destroying rights, sacred rights,” he continued, before alleging, “They’re destroying my right to counsel, my right to be a lawyer. They’re destroying his right to counsel. It’s not accidental that they’ve indicted all his lawyers. Never heard of that before in America, all the lawyers indicted.”
Giuliani then echoed Trump’s claim that the targeting of Trump portended the federal government coming after the average citizen, saying, “Now whether you dislike or you like Donald Trump, let me give you a warning: they’re gonna come for you. When the political winds shift, as they always do, let us pray that Republicans are more honest, more trustworthy, and more American than these people in charge of this government. Because if our government is conducted this way, and the system of justice is politicized and criminalized for politics, your rights are in jeopardy and your children’s.”
“Donald Trump told you this: they weren’t just coming for him, or me,” Giuliani asserted. “Now they’ve indicted people, in this case I don’t even know who they are. These are just regular people making a normal living. They’re going to bankrupt them. They won’t convict them.”