If there’s one consistent legal theory that Rudy Giuliani has embodied over his entire stint as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, it is this: It can’t be illegal if you’re doing it out in the open. Whether it’s blackmailing a porn star, lying to Congress, or attacking Trump’s previous lawyer, Giuliani is willing not just to defend the action on national television, but to double down on how okay, no, how perfectly legal, no, dammit, how great this move really is. Again and again Giuliani has been Trump’s criminal icebreaker, out in front, making claims that seem incredibly over the top … until they turn out to be just exactly what Trump has been doing all along.
So it seems only right that, in the midst of impeachment proceedings in which the main concern is Donald Trump’s attempt to solicit false information about political opponents from Ukrainian officials, Giuliani is … in Ukraine, soliciting false information about Trump’s political opponents. And no one should be surprised to learn that he’s bragging about it.
Giuliani is meeting with corrupt officials who lost their posts in past anticorruption efforts and pro-Russian legislators who oppose Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to create a “documentary” that openly supports the conspiracy theories that Trump was demanding of Zelensky. But he’s not waiting for that documentary to mount his attacks.
In a series of tweets on Thursday night and Friday morning, Giuliani unspooled a series of attacks on Vice President Joe Biden, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and President Barack Obama. Giuliani claimed that Yovanovitch disbursed billions of dollars in aid to her “favored NGOs” and that she “directed the police not to investigate.” That claim—that Yovanovitch was somehow providing “do not prosecute” lists—was part of the original smear that Giuliani brought against Yovanovitch in his successful campaign to get her removed from the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.
But Giuliani didn’t stop there. He leveled the same charges against Obama and Biden. In his latest series of tweets, Giuliani claims that over $5 billion was “wasted” in Ukraine, with Biden acting as the “point man” in the disbursal and Obama ordering Ukrainian police not to investigate.
Giuliani’s claims are beyond ridiculous, his witnesses are on the far side of disreputable, and what he is doing is impossibly dangerous.
With Giuliani’s actions, Trump has moved beyond backroom demands for claims against his political opponents. This is Trump’s personal attorney, in the open, on the air, in front of the public, conspiring with foreign officials—and foreign criminals—for the express purpose of generating claims meant to hurt Trump’s political opponents.
There’s no doubt that Trump will claim Giuliani is doing this on his own. There’s no doubt that Giuliani will claim his actions are protected. And there’s no doubt that the media will fail to refute either of those claims.
With Russia, Trump learned he could get away with foreign collusion. With Ukraine, Trump confirmed that Republicans would back him no matter what. This is what comes next.