Rudy Giuliani appeared on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle on Tuesday night, where he kept digging a deeper hole for himself, refuting the State Department’s claim that Giuliani was never on any sanctioned State Department mission as Rudy claimed the day prior. Giuliani insisted he, a private citizen and the president’s personal attorney, was doing State Department business when he met with a Ukrainian official. In that same interview, he stumbled when asked why he was sent, saying that he had to go because he’s Donald Trump’s defense attorney. Oooooohkay.
Hours later, Giuliani was using Twitter to spread false information about the Biden family and with only a few winks, he was back on Fox News, this time appearing on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump’s favorite show. It. Was. A. Disaster.
Ranting, raving Giuliani keeps offering new versions of the Ukraine story and used the Trump-friendly show to keep dishing unsubstantiated and wild conspiracies about the Bidens and, of course, he couldn’t help but bring up President Obama, trying to tarnish his reputation as well.
But, it was this moment that caught my attention. In the second clip below, Giuliani was asked by host Brian Kilmeade, “Did you read the transcript?” This exchange and his response will certainly launch a whole new set of questions.
Kilmeade: Did you read the transcript?
Giuliani: Uhhh, let’s say it was read to me.
Kilmeade: It was read to you. The whole thing.
Giuliani: Uhhh, I hope.
On what planet is it appropriate for Donald Trump’s personal, private attorney to have access to the transcript or to be read-in on the classified transcript when the White House, with an assist from Attorney General William Barr, are blocking Congress from seeing the whistleblower complaint and that transcript (and possibly others)? Congress has a legal right to see it per federal statute. And yet private citizen Rudy Giuliani has been given some sort of access to the official record?
Even with Giuliani’s admission, he still remained cagey. “Let’s say it was read to me.” What does that mean? One possibility is Rudy Giuliani doesn’t need to see the transcript because he was in the room when the call was made.
As I was about to publish this report, the White House released a transcript of the call between President-elect Zelensky and Donald Trump. It is incredibly damning and directly refutes what Rudy Giuliani said on national television this morning. Donald Trump did ask Zelensky to meet with Rudy Giuliani. Trump’s summarized words to Zelensky after Zelensky mentioned his aide had recently spoken with Rudy Giuliani:
I will ask him to call you along with the attorney general. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States,· the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, there's a lot talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.
It’s time for impeachment.