“I did [think the probe was legitimate] when I came in, but now I see Spygate,”
Giuliani used Trump’s misleading term on CNN’s State of the Union in describing the FBI’s use of an informant. As we all know by now, the informant spoke with three Trump campaign officials in 2016 as part of the counter-intelligence investigation into Russian election meddling. In other words, the FBI did their jobs with respect to protecting us from Russian influence-peddling. Those FBI agents are distinct from those in the NYC Office under Rudy’s thumb who acted as informants themselves to the Trump campaign (as we’ve already reported), giving Rudy the classified information ahead of time and waiting until just the right time to release it.
Rudy was just getting worked up with respect to “choice” use of words and circumstances. “Either it’s evidence or not. And if it’s not, it goes along with what they found already, which is no collusion with the Russians.” The “they” Rudy refers to are those Republicans on the Oversight Committee, led by chief Trump protection-racketeer Devin Nunes. It takes some brass balls to ignore the fact that someone who has achieved statute far above Rudy – Robert Mueller – is still in fact investigating the matter and come to no conclusions, and cite the Republican committee as if established fact.
Sweet baby Jesus, even Marco Rubio – no antagonist to Republican agendas – recognizes that there’s not a thing to this “spygate” stuff, as he said on ABC’s This Week that he has “seen no evidence” that the FBI had an informant seeking evidence about the Trump campaign itself to use politically. Rubio said the FBI merely protected this country by looking “individuals with a history of links to Russia that were concerning.” When even Marco Flippin Rubio can set one straight, well, that’s something:
“When individuals like that are in the orbit of a major political campaign in America, the FBI, who is in charge of counter-intelligence investigations, should look at people like that.”
Any time a Republican Senator wants to stomp all over the Team Trump narrative, I’m all for it.
Meanwhile, Rudy got his roles confused again, as he set forth “conditions” upon which Trump would speak to the special investigator – yes, you read that right.
“We sure as heck are not going to testify unless this is all straightened out, unless we learn the basis of that Russia investigation—they’re not going to tell us because the basis is going to turn out, when it’s spread to Trump, to be unethical or illegal,” he said. “Gee, maybe they should wake up and realize the president is innocent. That’s why he wants to testify. And because of them, we don’t want him to testify because they’re not fair. They have rigged this investigation against him.”
“They have ‘rigged’ the investigation against Trump”? “Learned the basis of the investigation”? (Here he is referring to ‘seeing the evidence the FBI has against Trump.)
Seriously?
How the hell does Rudy know anything about anything given that Mueller hasn’t presented any findings yet, and given that Mueller’s team keeps their traps shut and doesn’t tweet once an hour? Yes, yes, we all know what he’s doing, setting the “brand” and expectations.
Rudy then tells us that the investigation into Russia must stop, because “there’s no collusion,” (god almighty there must be shitload of collusion given the number of times we’ve heard there’s no collusion), but Trump is less confident on the whole “obstruction of justice” thing. Perhaps, because, Trump knows he obstructed justice on TV in an interview. And, you know, Comey.
Some good news? Rudy noted on ABC’s This Week, that Trump would not be firing Mueller …”because that would play right into the hands” of his opponents. I suppose getting to the truth isn’t part of the “thing” here.
