On Tuesday night, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that he might sue some House Democrats, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters, for attempting to violate attorney client privilege, obstruction of justice and other offenses in their actions targeting President Trump.
Giuliani told Ingraham,
“I had a couple of talks with civil rights lawyers and constitutional lawyers today, and here’s what they’re recommending: that we should bring a lawsuit on behalf of the president and several people in the administration, maybe even myself as a lawyer, against the members of Congress, individually, for violating constitutional rights, violating civil rights. They’re doing extraordinary things. For example, they’re violating, they’re interfering with the president in exercising his rights under Article II (of the Constitution.) The President of the United States has to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. They’re calling foreign leaders; they’re going to foreign capitals; Senator (Chris) Murphy went and threatened the president of Ukraine with no Democratic support if you cooperate with the investigation …” He added, “I think we have to raise their violation of constitutional and civil rights. This is worse than McCarthy … How about a totally illicit impeachment proceeding about a totally illicit impeachment proceeding?”
Although legislators cannot be prosecuted for remarks made on the floor of the House, Ingraham noted that Waters had stated that Trump should be put in solitary confinement outside the floor of the House.
Schiff, who is the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, joined Rep. Eliot Engel, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, to send a letter to Giuliani which stated:
The Committees are investigating the extent to which President Trump jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere with our 2020 election and by withholding security assistance provided by Congress to help Ukraine counter Russian aggression, as well as any other efforts to cover up these matters.
Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the President in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President. A growing public record, including your own statements, indicates that the President, you, and others appear to have pressed the Ukrainian government to pursue two politically-motivated investigations. The first is a prosecution of Ukrainians who provided evidence against Mr. Trump’s convicted campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. The second relates to former Vice President Joseph Biden Jr., who is challenging President Trump for the presidency in 2020.
The letter cited Giuliani’s appearance on CNN, wherein CNN host Chris Cuomo asked him if he had asked Ukraine to “look into Joe Biden.” Giuliani responded, “Of course I did.” The letter continued, “In addition to this stark admission, you stated more recently that you are in possession of evidence — in the form of text messages, phone records, and other communications — indicating that you were not acting alone and that other Trump Administration officials may have been involved in this scheme.”
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