At a time when Donald Trump obviously needs all the legal help he can get, this wouldn’t be a very good time to start trashing his lawyers — but Trump has once again made a move that’s going to screw him.
In an interview with the New York Times that was published last night, Trump bashed his unhinged lawyer Rudy Giuliani for the attorney’s comments on Russia. During the interview, Trump spoke about the Trump Tower Moscow project that had been exposed by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Trump had been called out for lying, as the president had denied business dealings with Russia during his bid for the White House — when the truth was he had signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Now to save his own ass, he’s blaming the whole thing on Giuliani for mismanaging the info. Here’s what Trump said:
Rudy was incorrect. No. 1, he was incorrect, and we’ve explained that, he was wrong. Rudy has been wrong. A little bit. But what has happened is this. I didn’t care. That deal was not important. It was essentially a letter of intent or an option. I’m not even sure that they had a site. And if you look at where that was sent to, that was a Michael Cohen thing. If you look, I always say, Why don’t you bring this up, to Jay Sekulow, good guy. I think it was sent to almost like a public address for Moscow. If you take a look at it. Take a good solid look. The original letter or something was sent. They didn’t even have anybody to send it to. But that deal is just like other deals. I was doing other deals. I was running for president, but I was also running a business.”
Reporter Peter Baker tried to fact check the president and reminded him that he HAD lied. Baker said, “But you told people that you didn’t have any business there. People might have misunderstood.”
Trump lied again, “That wasn’t business. Peter, that wasn’t business.” When Baker asked, “Isn’t that misleading to say you weren’t pursuing business there, right?” Trump responded:
I had no money invested. It was a letter of intent, or option. It was a free option. It was a nothing. And I wasn’t doing anything. I don’t consider that even business. And frankly, that wasn’t even on my radar. If you take a look at that, take a look at the deal. There was no money put up. There was no transfer. I don’t think they had a location. I’m not even sure if they had a location.”
Soon after, he blamed the whole thing on Giuliani again, saying “Rudy was wrong in that he went — I think what Rudy was looking at, I think, was that in the statement I made to the Mueller group, we talked about during that period of a year, up until the election, we talked about that. So he may have been referring to that.”
Now, Giuliani isn’t a good lawyer by any means — in fact, he’s done a lot of damage to Trump’s case for innocence. But to trash him is a very dangerous move by Trump — and one that no intelligent person would make. You can read the whole interview here.
Featured image via screen capture
