“Even If He Did Do It, It Wouldn’t Be a Crime”: Rudy Giuliani on President Trump

 By Isaac Chotiner

On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani, one of President Trump’s lawyers, made a startling admission to the Times and NBC’s “Meet the Press”: that Trump had been involved in discussions to build a Trump Tower Moscow throughout the 2016 campaign, contradicting Trump’s public statements and raising ever more serious questions about the President’s ties to Vladimir Putin. Giuliani told the Times that Trump had said the discussions were “going on from the day I announced to the day I won.”

Giuliani also said that Trump may have spoken to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, before Cohen gave false testimony to Congress about the timing of the Moscow discussions, claiming that they had ended in January, 2016.

When, in November, Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, he told prosecutors that they continued at least through June, 2016. Giuliani told the Times that Trump may have acknowledged these conversations in the written answers that he gave to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, late last year. “There was no question that he was asked by the special counsel a question that said, ‘Did you talk to him before he testified?’ ” Giuliani told the Times. The issue of whether Trump influenced Cohen’s false testimony was raised when BuzzFeed reported, on Thursday night, that according to two federal law-enforcement officials, Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress. In response, Mueller’s office issued a rare statement, saying that BuzzFeed’s descriptions of statements, documents, and testimony obtained by the office “are not accurate.” (BuzzFeed has stood by its story.)

Later on Sunday, Giuliani walked back his statements about the timing of the Trump Tower Moscow discussions, saying that they were “hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.” On Monday afternoon, I called Giuliani to try to understand what he was saying about the Moscow negotiations. After telling me that he had only a minute before getting into the shower, he agreed to a conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity. In it, we discussed what he told the Times about the Trump Tower Moscow project, his feelings about Mueller’s office, and if he ever worries about his legacy.

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