Rudy Giuliani: ‘People Had a Right to Know’ the ‘Dirt’ Russians Offered Trump Campaign About Clinton – By Jason Lemon (Newsweek) / April 21 2019
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Guiliani defended his client’s use of information hacked by a foreign adversary to disparage his 2016 political rival, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, saying: “it was all true.”
Guiliani, the former mayor of New York City who represented Trump throughout Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, gave an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday to discuss the probe’s final report, which was released in redacted form on Thursday.
When asked by host Chuck Todd why the president “trumpeted” information shared by WikiLeaks, even though those stolen documents had been provided to the organization by Russian hackers, Guiliani argued it was no different than using any other leaked information.
During the segment, Todd also confronted Guiliani about Donald Trump Jr.’s lack of transparency about being offered “dirt” on Clinton directly by the Russians. Guiliani responded by asking: “I wonder if there isn’t an argument that the people had a right to know that information about Hillary Clinton?”
Earlier in the interview, Todd read a portion directly from Mueller’s report, which said: “The investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”
Guiliani pushed back against this claim, saying he, as someone who had worked on the campaign, saw “no evidence” of anyone talking about Russia, “I knew it was a false accusation,” the former federal prosecutor asserted. But, he argued, there was nothing wrong with Trump using the information published by WikiLeaks.
“They were putting out things that were true and very, very damaging to Hillary Clinton,” he said.
“Everything they put out about Hillary Clinton was true,” the lawyer continued. “In other words, they didn’t make things up. They shouldn’t have stolen it. But the American people were just given more information about how deceptive, how manipulative her people, her campaign were,” he said.
“In other words, if the Russians had stolen the information, and it showed Hillary Clinton to be just a wonderful person and everybody was fine, they were all honest, they were all terrific, it would have helped her,” he argued. “If it hurt at all, it hurt her because the American people got information that was gotten in the wrong way, but it all was true.”
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and president-elect Donald Trump head into the clubhouse for their meeting at Trump International Golf Club on November 20, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Although Trump and his supporters have argued that Mueller’s conclusions are a “complete exoneration” of the president, the report itself states the opposite. While the investigators did not establish that Trump or his campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 election, it did not conclude whether or not the president obstructed justice by interfering in the investigation. It also pointed out that the probe’s conclusions could have potentially been different if campaign officials had not deleted some information and had cooperated fully.
The report did conclude that Russia interfered in the election primarily to disparage Clinton and to support Trump. Russian hackers worked with WikiLeaks to release a slew of emails and documents that revealed details that made Clinton look bad in the eyes of many voters.
Trump repeatedly praised WikiLeaks throughout his campaign, often citing the organization in his campaign events and on Twitter. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump infamously said during a campaign rally in July 2016.
https://www.newsweek.com/giuliani-russians-trump-dirt-clinton-1402227
