Rudy Giuliani was back running laps on the Sunday show circuit this week, saying things that have us all scratching our heads and asking: What is he up to?
After all, he inadvertently reveals information that Donald Trump might prefer not to be revealed, shifts his story and timeline, and raises more new questions than he answers.
This has the potential to harm his client in both the legal and the political sphere. Back in May, David A. Graham mused that “Giuliani’s failings as a spokesman would be irrelevant if he were primarily hired for his legal expertise, but that seems unlikely.”
Part of the problem is that Giuliani’s style—a style that might make sense when arguing the law before a judge—comes across as inherently shifty.
For example, on ABC’s This Week, Giuliani first told George Stephanopoulos that Trump confidant Roger Stone hadn’t given the president a heads-up about Wikileaks, before noting that even “if Roger Stone gave anybody a heads-up about WikiLeaks’ leaks, that’s not a crime. It would be like giving him a heads-up that the Times is going to print something.”
An obvious question arises: If you are sure your client was not given a heads-up, why would you bother to stress that doing so would be (hypothetically) legal?
Likewise, when Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace was digging into whether Trump was aware that the head of the National Enquirer had paid off Karen McDougal, Giuliani didn’t waste time defending Trump’s reputation, arguing instead that even if Trump did know, it wouldn’t be illegal.
"You're moving shells around on me. Either it happened or it didn't happen,” Wallace insisted.
"But that's what lawyers do all the time. You argue in the alternative,” Giuliani explained.
“But I'm asking you for the truth, sir,” Wallace shot back.
Reading between the lines, Wallace is saying, “Hey, I’m asking you what happened,” and Giuliani is saying, “My job is to bullshit you.”
In fairness, Giuliani has been transparent about this. “It's a very, very familiar lawyer's argument that… in the alternative: ‘My client didn’t do it, and even if he did it, it’s not a crime,’ ” Giuliani explained in July.
The inherent problem being that this is exactly the way you might talk and act if you knew your client were guilty and lying about it.
He’s flailing. Lashing out. Changing topics. Moving goal posts. Going after critics. Going after people who testified against Trump. There’s no persuasive case made for innocence―just attempts to explain away the latest lie.
When you’re telling an honest story, it tends to be simple and coherent. But when someone engages in “arguing in the alternative,” as Giuliani constantly does, it suggests to normal people that the original story, inasmuch as there even is a narrative, wasn’t strong enough to stand on its own merits. It has to be buttressed by supporting theories that might stand as a bulwark in case the original architecture collapses.
Of course, few real people are closely keeping tabs on the details. There are so many threads that you would need a flowchart and six months to diagram the various contradictory arguments Giuliani has postulated. Still, there is a visceral sense that what we are witnessing is intellectually dishonest.
My guess is there are two explanations for this strategy. First, this is the way Giuliani can have his cake and eat it, too. If Trump survives, he was the loyal aide who [fill in the blank]. If Trump goes down, Giuliani was merely acting as a professional attorney on behalf of his “client.”
Second, take him at his word, that Giuliani is acting like a defense attorney. In this paradigm, you don’t have to prove O.J. Simpson was a Boy Scout―you just have to muddy the waters, raise alternate hypothetical theories, and poke holes in any charges. In other words, put the LAPD on trial, and raise some questions about why the glove doesn’t fit. Oh yeah, and don’t forget about jury nullification.
As long as Trump and Giuliani can keep Republicans on board, Trump is probably safe and can’t be removed from office. However, I’m still not convinced that Giuliani’s strategy is the best way to accomplish that goal. The fact is that Trump’s base doesn’t require one air-tight, coherent story where Trump comes out looking like an angel—and that’s a good thing, since no such scenario exists.
The larger question is: What does this say about the institution of the presidency? Things presidents (and their lawyers) do and say set precedent. Future corrupt presidents (and their apologists) will point to Trump and Rudy's behavior in self-defense. So the damage being done here doesn't end with Trump. There's no telling where this ends. We've opened a can of worms.
