General Discussion

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(107,972 posts) Tue May 22, 2018, 11:39 PM May 2018

Giuliani accidentally reveals the real purpose of Trump's extraordinary Oval Office meeting

On Monday, President Donald Trump summoned Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to the Oval Office and demanded to see documents related to the ongoing investigation of his own campaign.

At issue is the FBI’s use of an informant who communicated with members of the Trump campaign team. Trump has inaccurately described the man, who has been widely reported as Cambridge professor Stefan Halper — a highly regarded veteran of previous Republican administrations — as a “spy.”

Link to tweet

The issue of Halper’s role as an informant has lately been pushed by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, who has consistently worked in tandem with the White House in a broad effort to undermine the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Nunes previously issued a subpoena demanding classified information pertaining to the investigation, including Halper’s identity, from the Department of Justice.

Typically, the president does not interfere with individual investigations conducted by the Department of Justice, the idea being that the Department of Justice should be allowed to impartially apply the law and not get mixed up in the political prerogatives of the chief executive. In this case, Trump appears to be interfering with an investigation that involves, among other things, his own conduct, raising questions about whether or not this constitutes a profound breach of ethics.

Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, made a game attempt to present this Oval Office meeting as legitimate by claiming that Trump called it “in his official capacity as president.” Reached for comment by USA Today, Giuliani insisted that Trump merely “wants to make sure that the relevant members of Congress get a chance to see what they are entitled to see.”

In a separate interview, however, Giuliani made the exact opposite point.

Giuliani told HuffPost that Trump needed the information about the informant before deciding whether to agree to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller. “We can’t let our guy go in and be questioned without knowing this,” he said.

https://thinkprogress.org/rudy-giulianis-glaring-contradiction-about-trumps-extraordinary-oval-office-meeting-c34c7c8179e8/