Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for president for Donald Trump, stopped making major television appearances after botching his January 20 appearances, according to a new report from Axios. The outlet cited two sources that said President Donald Trump and White House lawyer Emmet Flood complained about some of the TV spots, and a third person said the president believed Giuliani should stay off TV for some time.
Giuliani hasn’t completely stopped making on-screen appearances. He spoke with The Hill for a March 8 report. He told Axios that he hadn’t heard Trump complain about his TV appearances, and said he decided to stay off TV believing that “the Mueller report was imminent.” He said he didn’t want to “create unnecessary, additional, needless friction” with Mueller’s team.
Giuliani had told NBC’s Chuck Todd in a January 20 appearance that talks regarding a Trump Tower project in Moscow may have continued to take place up until November 2016. He later said his statement was inaccurate.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty last year to lying to Congress about the real extent of the negotiations for a Trump Tower in Moscow. He originally said January 2016, but in his plea said it was actually June of that year. Giuliani seemed to indicate that it could have been even later.
“Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress,” said Cohen in recent testimony to the House Oversight Committee. “That’s not how he operates. In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell 5 me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing In his way, he was telling me to lie.”
The president and his representatives deny wrongdoing, and call Cohen a liar.
[Image via NBC screengrab]