How is Rudy so bad at this? This morning he denied to @jaketapper ever telling @GStephanopoulos that Trump told Comey to give Flynn “a break.” Well, here is the footage showing him saying just that. pic.twitter.com/rCptMZ0r7X
— David Mack (@davidmackau) August 12, 2018
President Donald Trump‘s attorney Rudolph Giuliani contradicted himself on CNN Sunday morning regarding a request Trump allegedly made to former FBI director James Comey.
A video curated by Buzzfeed News’ David Mack makes the contradiction obvious and plain.
Host Jake Tapper poses the following question: “Mr. Mayor, you said, you told ABC News last month that the president told Comey, quote, ‘Can you give him a break?’ Now you’re saying that they never had–”
Giuliani cuts Tapper off and interjects, saying, “I never told ABC that. That’s crazy. I never said that. What I said was, ‘That is what Comey is saying Trump said.’ I’ve always said the president denies it.”
The video cuts forward and Tapper then gives Giuliani another chance to address the discrepancy–or presses him further depending on one’s perspective–by reiterating and asking, “And you’re also saying that a month ago, you didn’t tell ABC News that he said something along the lines of ‘Can you give him a break?'”
To which Giuliani replies, after laughing, “No I did not. I said that is what Comey says.”
Mack’s video then shifts to a clip from a July 8 interview.
On ABC News’ This Week, George Stephanopoulos asks Giuliani, “Is [Comey] a good witness for the president, if he’s saying that the president was asking him, directing him, in his words, to let the Michael Flynn investigation go?”
“He didn’t direct him to do that,” Giuliani responded. “What he said to him was, ‘Can you give him a break.'” After a bit of crosstalk, Giuliani repeated the phrase. Giuliani notes, “The reality is, as a prosecutor, I was told that many times. ‘Can you give the man a break?’ Either by his lawyers, by his relatives, by friends. You take that into consideration, but that doesn’t determine not going forward with it.”
[image via screengrab/CNN]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
