Seeing through the Mud
Yesterday, in a series of seemingly incoherent interviews, Trump attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani put forth the next defense of the President in the Russiagate saga. Giuliani dropped a bomb, stating that there was, or may have been, or was rumored to be (depending on the interview) a second meeting in Trump Tower before the meeting with the Russians on June 9th, 2016. This was a planning session for the actual Russian encounter, with most of the same Trump principals: Don Jr., Kushner, Manafort, Gates and an unknown fifth. To many, Giuliani seems unhinged or demented, pulling theories and events out of thin air. He isn’t. He is performing an important function for the Trump defense.
Watching the Trump Administration deal with the growing Russia crisis, one thing has been consistent. In the past they have denied, denied, denied; then admitted to some things; then finally, when the facts were obvious, say it happened but it didn’t matter. The June 9th meeting is the case in point: it never happened, then it kind of happened, then a letter was written about it misrepresenting what happened, then finally, the emails were released about it and claimed to be “nothing.” This strategy hasn’t served them well.
Giuliani is attempting a different tack: he’s trying to get ahead of the story instead of constantly trying to catch-up. In all likelihood there was a “planning session” before the June 9thmeeting. The Trump lawyers think that information is going to come out, likely through Gates’ statements in cooperation with the Mueller team. Rather than be blindsided with a meeting highlighting the Trump Campaign seriousness about the Russian connection, they feel it would be better to get it out now than later.
The Trump defense strategy shift is clear. Now instead of waiting for the trickle of bad news, they are the ones controlling the release, and getting the “first draft” of the story. Should the candidate, now President, end up being the “unknown” fifth man at the meeting the groundwork has already been laid: Giuliani’s almost incoherent ramblings about not finding collusion in the Federal code creates the basis for the “next reality” of Trump’s personal involvement in the Russian meeting.
The President from the outset of the crisis has stated over and over that there was no “collusion.” Now that it is obvious there was, his team is building a case to claim that “collusion” isn’t against the law, so even though the Trump team (having lied for almost two years) “colluded” it doesn’t matter. They have even gotten the “stamp of approval” from noted Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.
And for those who accept “collusion” as the only definition for their actions, the Trump lawyers are probably correct. However, if what the Trump campaign did was a “conspiracy to defraud the United States” (a Mueller charge in multiple indictments) then Federal law has been violated. Giuliani muddying the terms is simply one more means of confusing the issue.
The third prong of the Trump strategy is to argue that “collusion” with foreigners is a common campaign practice. They draw an “apples to apples” comparison with the Clinton campaign: Trump had his Russians, Clinton had her British former MI-6 Agent in Christopher Steele. If what he did was illegal, then so did she. This angle of the story is being pushed by Trump-friendly media, including the Washington Times.
And on first glance it does sound persuasive. If Hillary did it, why shouldn’t Trump? However, even conceding that the Clinton campaign used the Steele Dossier, a fact still not fully documented; this is not “apples to apples.” Christopher Steele was an independent contractor, working for another US contractor, Fusion GPS, who had been contracted by attorneys for the Clinton campaign to do opposition research. Steele was not an arm of any national intelligence service, nor was he operating for a rival nation.
The most recent Mueller indictments have made it apparent what we all already knew: the Russian government, through their intelligence services, were directly interfering in the 2016 election. The evidence is growing clear that the Trump campaign anticipated getting high-grade opposition information from the June 9thmeeting, and were aware this information was coming from the Russian government. Trump said as much in a speech that week. That’s a long way from Clinton reading the Steele reports (if her campaign did.) It’s not “apples to apples,” it more like “apples to hot dogs:” not much similarity.
But suppose you give the Trump lawyers their comparison, allowing that both Trump and Clinton committed a crime. As many drivers pulled over for speeding have discovered: just because others were breaking the law too doesn’t make you any less guilty.
And finally, Giuliani is participating in the “Democratizing” of the Mueller team, the “seventeen angry Democrats” investigating the President. If he can damage the creditability of the Mueller investigation, then he hopes to invalidate their outcomes.
All of these machinations will have little bearing on the legal actions the Mueller investigation will take. Their arena is the Federal Courts, not Fox and Friends or CNN. And there are other lawyers on the Trump team who are better suited for that, including the newest addition, Emmet Flood, known for helping Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial.
But Giuliani isn’t worried about a case in Federal Court. He anticipates, probably correctly, that Mueller won’t indict a serving American President. Mueller will take the traditional approach, producing a report for the House of Representatives outlining the actions of the President, and leaving it up to the House to determine if those actions reach the standards for impeachment.
And, if the Democrats take control of the House as expected in November, it will be a Democratic Judiciary Committee Chairman who will make that determination. Should they impeach the President, a simple majority vote of the House, then the final outcome will be in control of the Senate.
Here’s where Giuliani’s strategy comes into play: to remove the President from office requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Even if Democrats should gain control, it would likely only be by a one or two vote margin, far from the sixty-seven required. So Giuliani’s long-term strategy is to muddy the issue so much, that a significant part of the American people, Trump’s base, won’t buy anything the Mueller investigation shows. That way, vulnerable Republican Senators can vote “with their constituents” and against removing the President.
It’s not demented, or addled. It’s a realistic view of what could happen in the next year. The one thing the Giuliani depends on is that politicians will be politicians.
In John F. Kennedy’s book, Profiles in Courage, one of the chapters is about Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas. Ross cast the deciding vote that prevented President Andrew Johnson from being removed. That vote went against his own Radical Republican faction, and cost him his Senate seat. It was a time in our history when a politician wasn’t a politician.
We may be arriving at that time again.
