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WASHINGTON – In a CNN television broadcast on Thursday night, Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, admitted to having acknowledged that his president had tried to put pressure on Ukraine to investigate Joseph. R. Biden, former vice-president and Democratic candidate for the presidency. .
"Of course yes," said Giuliani, urged by CNN's Chris Cuomo, about to know he had asked the Ukrainian authorities to investigate Mr. Biden. , 30 seconds after just having denied it. Mr. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, has the impression that the latest unfortunate revelation raises new questions about an abuse of power by a president who forces a foreign leader to investigate a political rival.
Twitter broke out in real-time with video clips and comments on Mr. Giuliani's 28-minute pugilist exchange with Mr. Cuomo, whom Mr. Giuliani called a "conspiracy" that was "blinded" by "harm" .
But what seemed to be a useless error of Mr. Giuliani might well be the kind of media strategy of suicide mission that he had in mind.
This was reminiscent of an appearance by Mr. Giuliani in Fox News last year, when he revealed that Mr. Trump had repaid to Michael D. Cohen, his long-time lawyer, a payment of $ 130,000 that Mr. Cohen had poured in to keep a pornographic porn star named Stormy Daniels publicly declared his story of an affair with the future President of the United States.
At that time, relatives of Mr. Giuliani privately stated that, although he contradicted Mr. Trump's version of events, it was a strategy designed to prevent his client from being involved. in a charge related to the financing of the campaign. Federal prosecutors said in July that they had "actually concluded" their investigation, although it is unclear whether Mr. Giuliani's strategy was anything to do with it.
Crazy as a fox, or not, the unrestrained appearances of Mr. Giuliani on television have long raised concerns with the rest of Mr. Trump's legal team, as well as officials of the White House, who consider him less like a traditional lawyer and more like a long-time friend. Mr. Trump who has taken on the role of an independent spokesperson, often off-message. And like the president himself, Mr. Giuliani seems emboldened since the report of Robert S. Mueller III, the former special council, was less damaging to the president than expected.
Mr. Giuliani does not check with Mr. Trump or any member of the White House before signing up for television (the White House declined to comment on his last appearance). He sometimes skates out of his lane, answering questions about political deliberations that he may not necessarily be part of, such as the timing of the release of American hostages in North Korea and the end of massive deportations of undocumented immigrants.
But for Giuliani, it's a theatrical game plan that he thinks has helped to change the public opinion record on the Mueller inquiry, and will eventually try to eliminate all allegations of wrongdoing, while raising questions about Mr. Biden.
"A government lawyer would be worried about doing what I am doing," he said in an interview Friday. "I am a private lawyer, I represent my client and I will prove to you that he is innocent. Whether you like it or not, one way or another, I'll eventually convince you to cover it. "
It is far from clear that Mr Giuliani's argument – that a whistleblowing complaint lodged by an intelligence official against Mr Trump "will prove to be even more stupid than Papadopoulos" – will prevail. Mr. Trump, according to several sources, is pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate Mr. Biden's son, Hunter, and urged him to collaborate with Mr. Giuliani in such an investigation. Mr Trump and Mr Giuliani denied having discussed the former mayor's contacts with Ukrainian officials.
Giuliani called his 28-minute cross-talk with Cuomo Thursday night "pretty tough". During the exchange, Mr. Giuliani stated that he did not know whether Mr. Trump had spoken to the Ukrainian President of Mr. Biden, or the former campaign president of Mr. Trump, Paul Manafort. But when he did, Mr. Giuliani said, "He had every right to do it."
"I need a platform to take it out," he said Friday. "The platform requires that they hit me on the head." If it meant that he had to suffer blows, he said, then be it.
Mr Giuliani said that he had been overwhelmed with replies to his interview, calling his "best appearance on television" and noting that he "had exposed the hypocrisy".
Giuliani said supporting Mr. Cuomo's aggressive questioning was the price he was willing to pay to justify his claims that the Obama White House had asked Ukrainians to "dig the ground" on Mr. Trump and Mr. Manafort.
"I did not talk to the president before," he said. "I did not tell him about it later. I will not tell you if I tell him about it today or not.
On Thursday night, Mr. Giuliani seemed upset when Mr. Cuomo finally concluded his interview. "You should not have a good night because what you are doing is very bad for the country," he said.
Outside of camera, Giuliani expressed a more lenient vision of Mr. Cuomo, who also mimics Mr. Trump's symbiotic relationship of love-hate with the media. "I like Chris," he said, thus avoiding his harsher criticisms of Mr. Cuomo's network.
A year ago, Mr. Giuliani's role as a member of the President's legal team was more clearly defined than today. Mr. Trump was a client he represented at meetings with the Mueller team, helping to define the parameters under which Mr. Trump would submit to their questions (he finally agreed to answer the questions solely through written and with limited scope).
This investigation is now over, but the role of Mr. Giuliani in Mr. Trump's orbit is not such that Mr. Giuliani echoes Mr. Trump's attacks on "false news" and suggests that Mr. Trump's presidential powers are so vast that he can not be credibly accused. wrongdoing based on the current set of allegations.
Mr. Giuliani suggested that the whistleblower complaint and its aftermath were related to the work he had been doing for Mr. Trump since April 2018.
"I am still his lawyer for the purposes of this investigation," he said. "I see this as the last chapter of what has really happened."
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