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WASHINGTON – When Rudolph W. Giuliani viewed his efforts to fulfill President Trump’s wishes to overturn the 2020 presidential election results as an opportunity for payment – he offered a daily retainer of $ 20,000 for his legal services to the fund Trump’s Booming Campaign Legal – The President rejected it and responded by demanding personal approval of every expense.
Nine weeks and another indictment later, Mr. Trump started the day Thursday by asking his aides to erase any signs of a breakup. Stripped of his Twitter account, Mr Trump praised an adviser, Jason Miller, who tweeted: “I just spoke with President Trump, and he told me that @RudyGiuliani is a great guy and a patriot who has dedicated his service to the country! We all love the American mayor! “
White House officials are universally angry with Mr. Giuliani and blame him for both of Mr. Trump’s indictments. But the president is another story.
Even though he complains that Mr. Giuliani’s latest efforts are unsuccessful, the president remains exceptionally respectful to him in public and private. “Don’t underestimate it,” Trump told advisers.
But only up to a point. While Mr. Trump and his advisers opposed the $ 20,000 request weeks ago, it is unclear whether the president will approve of Mr. Giuliani being paid for anything other than expenses.
Recurring and recurring tensions are a hallmark of a decades-long mutually beneficial relationship between the former New York mayor of Brooklyn and the former Queens real estate developer. While the two have never been particularly close in New York City, Mr Trump appreciated that the former mayor was his personal legal pit bull during the special council’s investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
In return, Mr. Giuliani, who failed his own presidential bid in 2008, was able to spend time with the president in the Oval Office and used his new connections to secure lucrative deals.
Mr. Trump deployed Mr. Giuliani on politically ruinous missions that led to his impeachment – twice. Now isolated and stripped of his usual political megaphones, the president faces the devastation of his business and political affairs for his part by cheering on a pro-Trump mob that continued to attack the Capitol on January 6.
Mr. Giuliani – who, for his part, on that day encouraged a group of the president’s supporters to conduct a “fight trial” – is one of the few people still keen and eager to join Mr. Trump in the foxhole. . While most lawyers are reluctant to represent the president in a second Senate impeachment trial, Trump’s advisers have said Mr. Giuliani remains most likely to be involved. Despite President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s certification as the winner, Mr. Giuliani continued to promote unproven theories about election results and falsely attributed the violence to left-wing anarchists.
A podcast hosted by Stephen K. Banon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, was withdrawn Thursday due to an interview in which Mr. Giuliani repeated false statements about the election. During the interview, Mr. Bannon begged Mr. Giuliani to move on to a new topic.
“I don’t mind being closed for my folly,” Mr Bannon told Mr Giuliani, according to Alexander Panetta, CBC News reporter who listened to the podcast before it was deleted. “I’m not going to be closed for yours.”
Mr. Trump has always had an abundance of yes men and women around him, but Mr. Giuliani occupies a unique space in his orbit. Few have had such durability with the President, and few have been so willing to say and do things for him that others will not.
“Your typical role as legal counsel is to tell your client the harsh truth and steer them away from risk,” Matthew Sanderson, a Washington-based Republican political lawyer, said in an interview. “Rather, Rudy seems to tell his client exactly what he wants to hear and lead him to risk as if they are both moths to a flame.”
This trip left him looking worse for wear. Days after the election, Giuliani hit the road, challenging the results at a much maligned press conference outside a Pennsylvania landscaping company. In another appearance that month, Mr Giuliani stood in front of a camera with black liquid, apparently hair dye, streaming down his face as he denounced the election result.
Few have been so willing to defend the president and, paradoxically, few have been so damaging to his legacy.
Trump’s impeachment ›
Answers to your questions about the impeachment process:
The current impeachment process is testing the limits of the process, raising questions never before considered. Here is what we know.
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- How does the impeachment process work? Members of the House are considering whether to impeach the president – the equivalent of an indictment in a criminal case – and members of the Senate consider whether to remove him, holding a trial in which senators act as a jury. The test, as established by the Constitution, is whether the president has committed “treason, a bribe or other serious crimes and misdemeanors.” The House vote only required a simple majority of lawmakers to agree that the president did, in fact, commit serious crimes and misdemeanors; the Senate vote requires a two-thirds majority.
- Is will impeaching Trump disqualify him again? Conviction in an impeachment trial does not automatically disqualify Mr. Trump from future public office. But if the Senate were to condemn it, the Constitution allows a subsequent vote to prohibit an official from performing “any function of honor, trust or profit under the United States.” This vote would only require a simple majority of senators. There is, however, no precedent for disqualifying a president from future office, and the issue could end up in the Supreme Court.
- Can the Senate hold a trial after Biden becomes president? The Senate could hold a trial for Mr. Trump even after he leaves office, although there is no precedent for this. Democrats who control the House can choose when to send their impeachment article to the Senate, in which case that chamber should immediately move to begin the trial. But even if the House immediately passed the accusation across Capitol Hill, an agreement between Republican and Democratic Senate leadership would be needed to resume it before January 19, a day before Mr Biden’s inauguration. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said on Wednesday that he would not agree to such a deal. Given this timeline, the trial will likely not begin until after Mr Biden’s presidency.
Mr. Giuliani entered the president’s legal affairs in April 2018. His eagerness to attack Robert S. Mueller III, the special advocate, impressed Mr. Trump, who was constantly making changes to his legal team. Most of Trump’s advisers have come to view Mr. Giuliani’s efforts with Mr. Mueller as a success.
“There was never a time when Rudy was unwilling to come down, and that’s what Trump demands,” Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio said. “He proved that actually delivering for Donald wasn’t as important as keeping trying.
In addition to his work with Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani pursued side projects with the added cachet of being the President’s personal advocate. Free from ethics laws that restrict government employees, Mr Giuliani struck lucrative deals even amid the special council’s investigation.
And then came the indictments. When the history of the Trump presidency is written, Mr. Giuliani will be a central figure, first by leading a lobbying campaign against the Ukrainian government to investigate Mr. Biden’s family members, and then by traveling the country. in an attempt to overthrow Mr. Biden. victory.
Mr. Giuliani’s legal problems have multiplied along with those of the President. As Mr Giuliani searched for distinct business opportunities in Ukraine, intelligence agencies warned that it could have been used by Russian intelligence agents seeking to spread disinformation about the election – reports that Mr Trump ignored the shoulders. Mr. Giuliani’s work in Ukraine continues to be a topic of interest as part of an ongoing investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. And his remarks to Trump supporters before the Capitol riot are now the subject of an effort by the New York State Bar Association to expel him.
Mr. Giuliani does not seem discouraged.
In a 37-minute video posted Wednesday night, Mr Giuliani attempted to rewrite the history of the riot on Capitol Hill. Although Mr. Trump urged his supporters to walk towards the building and “show his strength,” Mr. Giuliani suggested in the video that anti-fa activists were involved, a theory repeatedly debunked that has proliferated in circles. pro-Trump online.
“The rally was ultimately used to some extent as a fulcrum to create something totally different that the president had nothing to do with,” Giuliani said.
From now on, his appeals to the president are sometimes blocked by order of the officials of the White House. The advisers claim that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, holds Mr. Giuliani in part responsible for the mess that is currently plaguing the White House.
But Mr. Giuliani clings to the shrinking circle around Mr. Trump.
“He is not alone,” Alan Marcus, a former consultant to the Trump organization, said of the president. “He’s abandoned. Rudy is just the last of a whole bunch of people.
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