On Thursday Oct 27th, 2016, Rudy Giuliani – an aide to Donald Trump’s campaign – appears on Fox News. At the very end of his section, he tells his host to expect a pretty big surprise. The day after, on Friday Oct 28th, the director of the FBI, James Comey, sends a letter to Congress revealing that the FBI has found, in Anthony Weiner’s computer, new emails related to the previously closed investigation on Hillary Clinton’s private email server which. This disclosure helped damage the Hillary Clinton’s campaign, melting down what used to be a huge lead in the polls in the last 11 days of the election season.
Soon after James Comey’s letter, Ruby Giuliani’s claimed big surprises raised questions concerning a possible collusion between federal agents in the FBI, and a political campaign. To some extent, this question is about a soft-coup.
Although, this topic has been covered extensively over the past week there is one observation about mayor Giuliani’s comments that I have not seen covered anywhere and that has implications: Ruby Giuliani contradicted his own defensive claim about not talking to active FBI agents.
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The HuffingtonPost has a summary video found here that I found useful.
After Comey’s Letter went out, Mayor Giuliani went on a round of talks to the media. On a radio show on Friday October 28th, he said:
“The other rumor that I get is this kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion being completely unjustified. I know that from former agents I know that even from a few active agents.”
So, the former Prosecutor Rudy Giuliani did claim talking to active agents about a revolution at the FBI triggered by the closing of the investigation on Clinton’s emails. But, he mostly claimed the contrary for good reasons: that would be a crime.
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For memory, the issue with Clinton’s email server is that she may have mishandled classified informations. Back in July, James Comey, the head of the FBI, said that the conclusion of the investigation is that there is nothing prosecutable about this case. The claim Rudy Giuliani makes here is that the conclusion infuriated many agents in the FBI and caused a revolution.
To be clear, Mayor Giuliani did not have to talk about a revolution within the FBI when asked about whether or not he received insider’s information concerning the new Clinton emails. He could have stopped at the basic defense that he knows nothing about it. He said on Fox News on Saturday October 29th:
“I don’t know. I’m not… I’m not the fly on the wall.”
This is also what he claimed on Friday November 4th, on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. Then, Mayor Giuliani’s explanation for his excitement at the coming big surprise was that he was referring to an advertising blitz the campaign was preparing:
“And in that particular, uhmm, situation I was talking about the advertising campaign you were referencing earlier that I knew was going to come as a big surprise.”
When, pressed by Blitzer on whether he got insider information about the new found emails stating that members of congress, in a letter to the FBI, accused the former mayor of New York of having received leaks from the FBI, Rudy Giuliani gave a categorical no:
“That’s no correct. I’ve had no conversation with anyone inside the FBI.”
Clearly, that could have been good enough for defense. It’s hard for me to see what in this campaign’s ads was so exciting but I can’t judge what gets that man excited in general. So, why did he feel compelled to show that he knew things about what’s going on within the FBI?
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Remember that there were more than one surprises we had to expect will turn things around. Indeed, before Comey’s disclosure, Rudy Giuliani said on Fox News, and he really was giggly.:
“We got a couple of things up our sleeves that should turn this around.”
I don’t have more from that Radio show than the clip in the video, but I believe it was made soon after Comey’s letter to congress was revealed and it looks like the collusion between Trump’s campaign and the FBI was not an issue yet. So, it is not much of a stretch to say that the FBI’s Revolution was that other surprise we had to wait for. You can see that Mayor Giuliany is very insistent about this being evidence of a corrupted Justice Department:
“I don’t know how you would describe, maybe revolution is too strong a word, but a lot of debate and anger within the uhmm FBI about the way they were being treated by the Justice Department and all of FBI agents feeling that the Justice Department has been corrupted particularly with Loretta Lynch meeting with President Clinton before the interview and the report coming out 4 days later, you could not possibly have written that report in 4 days. It had to be written before. That was over the 4th of July weekend. I’ve been hearing that all summer and all fall. But as far as what actually did, I had no knowledge of that.”
It’s a strong charge that this former prosecutor is making here. If you can make such point to demolish your political opponent, you surely have reasons to be very giggly in the final weeks of a morribond campaign, right? Moreover, he claims that he has known about this FBI Revolution for all summer. It’s just a way to say that they were seating on this bombshell the whole time waiting for the right moment to throw it to Hillary.
Here is the kicker though: They could not throw such a bombshell without either having FBI agents coming out to express the claimed anger at the Justice Department or having a leak to the public concerning the emails investigation.
You can forget about the first option [agents coming out]. So, remains only the option of a leak of material that would bring the invesigation back to light, and this is when Anthony Weiner magically comes on scene.
side comment here: The FBI knew that emails were exchanged between Hillary and Huma from the emails they had. So, there is no question that they knew what to look for in Huma’s husband’s computers.
Therefore, Trump’s campaign certainly knew about these emails before the public and Rudy Giuliani indirectly said so.
One week after Comey’s letter was made public, on Friday November 4th, Rudy Giuliani said on Fox News during one of the most stupid TV shows ever:
“I’m very careful not to talk to any on duty active FBI agent. I don’t want to put them in a compromising position. But I sure have a lot of friends who are retired FBI.”
As far as I’m aware, this is the first time that Rudy Giuliani shows that he is very aware of the critical situation if a collusion between the FBI and a political campaign were to be revealed. Too bad that on the prior Saturday he said [I put it here again]:
“I know that from former agents I know that even from a few active agents.”
I believe that the members of congress demanding an investigation on such possible collusion missed the point. They focused only on the part where Mayor Giuliani says that he heard rumors about angry FBI agents:
“I’m not part of it at all. I did nothing to get it out. I’ve got no role in it. Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it. I can’t even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agent.”
They should have looked at the entire set of claims Rudy Giuliani made. They would have noticed the contradiction about being or not in contact with FBI agents and they would have noticed the necessity Trump’s campaign had to claim that a Revolution was brewing within the FBI.
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Don’t forget t vote...
Saturday, Nov 5, 2016 · 10:26:35 PM +00:00
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tchoupi
Update:
I am Spartacus has a much better collection of statements made by Rudy Giuliani in his post: www.dailykos.com/…
One point I made in reply to his comment is that in the Lars Larson Show at the 3:00 mark Rudy Giuliani says about the risks for Clinton to have Huma as an aide due to her husband:
”This is a point thet Donald Trump actually made 2 or 3 months ago. People ridiculed him. He said: ‘One of the things people should be looking to here is that Huma Abedin was living with an extremely unreliable man, I gess someone you almost describe as a pervert, right? And, we don’t know how much access he’s had to this information whether directly or indirectly.’ ”
Rudy basically says Trump described at least 2 months ahead of time what was going on with Anthony Weiner. It is in line with the side note I made above about the FBI knowning what to look for in Weiner’s devices because they already had emails sent to/by Huma from their investigation.
What is interesting is that Rudy Giuliani suggests that Trump himself was informed 2-3 months ago about that possibility.