President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said during an interview on "Fox & Friends" that special counsel Robert Mueller should end his investigation of the president's Russian ties, and his argument for why Mueller should is questionable.
"If we had anything to do about it, I would ask the special counsel to put out his report and show us what he's got, you know, show your hand," Giuliani said.
When asked if he meant he wanted Mueller to put out his final report, Giuliani replied:
Final! Get it over with. Make your case to the Justice Department that you have to continue to investigate. I think you'll find that there is no reason. Look, think about this: You could investigate an innocent man forever. If you decided he robbed the bank, and he didn't and he proved to you 50 different ways that he didn't do it, you'll look at 51, and then 52, and then 53. Then you try to get somebody who knows him and prosecute the poor person for tax evasion, so they say he robbed the bank. That's what's going on here!
During the same interview, Giuliani justified his that colluding with a foreign government is not a crime.
“I have been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime,” he said. "Collusion is not a crime. Everything that’s been released so far shows the president to be absolutely innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
The last two tapes, Giuliani added, referring to recordings of conversations between Trump and his former lawyer Michael Cohen "are evidence in his favor":
He wants to do a transaction by check. He wants to do it as a corporate transaction. Perfectly legal. Second one, in great detail he describes the Stormy Daniels deal to Cuomo, and he says the president didn't know about it, the president didn't have money, I paid for it myself, it was only a campaign contribution.
Giuliani later made the rounds on CNN to disparage Cohen's credibility.
"What the heck are you picking on me for saying he was an honest, honorable man, when I didn't know he tape recorded conversations with his clients?"
All of these statements immediately opened up Giuliani to criticism.
Giuliani's comments come after the president attacked Michael Cohen and claimed he did not know about his son Donald Jr.’s meeting with Russians in Trump Tower during the 2016 election campaign.
“I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr. Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam (Taxi cabs maybe?),” Trump tweeted on Friday morning after news outlets reported that Cohen revealed that Trump did, in fact, know about the meeting––and that he’s willing to discuss the matter with special counsel Robert Mueller.
Giuliani, had already denied the reports saying that Cohen “can’t be believed unless it’s corroborated five times” and that Cohen has “been lying all week, he’s been lying for years.”
“I talked to the president about this at length before as well as other witnesses and it’s not true. Why would you expect it would be true from someone like Cohen? A lawyer who would tape their own client is a lawyer without any character,” Giuliani added.
Cohen has found himself at the center of the questions regarding a payment Stephanie Clifford, an adult film actress better known as Stormy Daniels, received from him as part of the non-disclosure agreement to keep her from discussing a sexual encounter with Trump back in 2006, while he was married to his current wife, Melania, and just a few months after Melania gave birth to their son, Barron. A separate lawsuit filed by Clifford contends that Cohen initiated a “bogus arbitration” hearing against her without notifying her beforehand, and a copy of the restraining order against Clifford confirms that the judge made a “one-party” ruling that did not require her to be notified.
Cohen has claimed that he paid Clifford out of his own pocket and that the president never reimbursed him for the settlement. But during a highly publicized 60 Minutes broadcast, Clifford’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, presented documents showing that the payment was sent to Cohen at his Trump Tower location, and communicated through his official Trump Organization email, indicating that he made the payment on Trump’s behalf. Analysts have posited that the exchange of funds could well be an illegal campaign expenditure on Trump’s behalf.
After the president lashed out at his former lawyer when a recording surfaced of then-candidate Trump discussing with Cohen how they would buy the rights to Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story about an alleged affair Trump had with her years earlier, Giuliani claimed that Trump ultimately never made the payment discussed with Cohen on the tape.
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