Late last week, days before the Fox News Sunday host broke the news, The Daily called Beast diGenova simply to ask — still an informal Trump legal adviser and one of the president`s most trusted cable news advocates — for his general thoughts on the latest Trump-Ukraine-Giuliani-Biden news. Rudy Giuliani, the latest addition to President Donald Trump`s legal team, said Wednesday night that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey last May because, among other things, Comey wouldn`t say he wasn`t a target in the investigation. At the top of his Sunday morning show, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace dropped a bombshell when he reported that the husband-wife team, who are frequent guests on Fox News opinion shows, had secretly collaborated with Giuliani to secure Ukrainian research on Trump`s potential Democratic rival in 2020. The diGenova-Toensing wrinkle in this latest scandal — a mess stemming from a whistleblower complaint that has since become the biggest impeachment campaign of this presidency — is another example of how influential and well-known figures around the world and the Trump administration are being drawn into the fight. Giuliani said he planned to take “Vicki” Toensing on the aborted trip to Ukraine earlier this year to offer Ukrainians his services as an independent lawyer. Asked if he had spoken to the president after the trip collapsed, Trump`s personal lawyer said, “I`m not going to tell you what I said to the president,” citing the privilege. Rudy Giuliani has spent most of the year waging a savage and embarrassing battle against Robert Mueller on behalf of Donald Trump. And yet, his tactics — accusing investigators of wrongdoing and giving half-baked denials — apparently did little to help the president. As the special counsel approached, Giuliani walked out Wednesday with another of his delicate half-confessions. Sure, the campaign may have conspired, Trump`s lawyer acknowledged, but I promise Trump didn`t! This content may also be displayed on the website from which it originated. Asked by host Bryan Nehman about Fox`s coverage, diGenova reiterated that he had never traveled to Ukraine or spoken to Ukrainian “whistleblowers,” saying the network had been informed.
He concluded by saying that Trump never paid him or his law firm, and that the only conversations he had with Giuliani were about possible whistleblower representation. The lawyer supporting Trump then claimed that the “trip to Ukraine had been cancelled,” adding that no one from his law firm had ever been there or represented so-called whistleblowers. He also noted that “any conversations we`ve had with someone before this time are obviously privileged.” Moreover, Giuliani`s claim that Trump simply wanted Comey to say publicly that he was not a target in the Russia investigation lends new weight to Trump`s firing letter to the FBI director. In it, Trump announced what Comey himself was apparently supposed to say: “While I very much appreciate you informing me three times that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless agree with the Justice Department`s decision that you are unable to effectively manage the office.” “By the way, he also said that only the president — citing an anonymous U.S. official, an anonymous official — that only the president knew what we were doing,” he said. “First of all, it`s completely false. The president was not involved in any of this. On Monday morning, Giuliani told The Daily Beast that “Joe is absolutely right” and that President Trump “didn`t know it at the time. I don`t think I informed him again [on this particular issue]. They did not work with me on the investigation. I did the investigation with my people. It was not a matter that was referred to the president” during the planning of the trip.
Claiming that Giuliani initially received a tip from a “former federal investigator” that people in Ukraine were trying to slander Trump over collusion with Russia — presumably referring to the Democratic/Ukraine National Committee`s conspiracy theory — diGenova went on to say that Giuliani stumbled upon allegedly incriminating information about Hunter and Joe Biden. Giuliani also mentioned that he sent Wallace “a lengthy text” after the Fox News Sunday article aired, informing the host of the “disappointment” that he was “disappointed” to buy “the Biden line.” Trump`s promoters have not denied that they were involved in a controversial and aborted trip to Ukraine. However, they deny that Trump knew anything about it in advance. Rudy Giuliani: Trump fired Comey because he didn`t want to say publicly what he had said privately, namely that Trump was not a target in Russia, investigation.@MZHemingway noted in their must-have article: t.co/8AnTehLek3 pic.twitter.com/k1OieDOFyk Of course, the idea that Trump can only be indicted if Mueller proves that he personally helped Putin hack the DNC foolishness. Richard Nixon did not personally break into the D.N.C. headquarters. in the Watergate building, but he still faced a possible burglary charge. It`s unclear what Trump might expect as a result of the Russia investigation.
But in the end, neither the president nor his lawyer will be able to decide what constitutes a crime. Even if Trump didn`t break the law, the report could still cause him significant political problems — and even trigger impeachment. Comey oversaw the Russia investigation launched to uncover the facts of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies discovered in early 2017 that the Kremlin had conducted large-scale influence campaigns, largely rooted in social media, aimed at swinging the election in Trump`s favor. U.S. investigators under Comey`s supervision — and later under the direction of special counsel Robert Mueller — also sought to determine whether the Trump campaign had cooperated with Russia in its interference efforts. This, of course, was an extraordinary withdrawal from almost everything Giuliani and his client claimed throughout the Russia investigation — an admission, it seems, of potential campaign misconduct that contradicted both his vehement denials and those of Trump.