C’MON, THIS GUY? REALLY?!
RUDY JOINS TRUMP LEGAL TEAM
RUDY GIULIANI has finally landed a job under President Trump.
The 73-year-old former mayor and prosecutor revealed Thursday he’s joining the legal team defending the President against special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential Russian collusion.
“I’m doing it because I hope we can negotiate an end to this for the good of the country, and because I have high regard for the President and for Bob Mueller,” Giuliani told The Washington Post.
He told CNN he expects the probe to wrap up in “maybe a couple of weeks.”
Trump has struggled to find top-flight lawyers willing to join his diminished legal team.
Lead lawyer John Dowd resigned in late March after growing exasperated over the President refusing to heed his advice.
Trump had tried to recruit at least two legal eagles in recent weeks — Emmet Flood and Theodore Olson — but both turned him down.
And husband-and-wife team Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing, just days after it was announced they were coming aboard, bowed out of the job due to conflicts of interest.
Giuliani said he made the decision in recent days after sharing a dinner with Trump at his Mar-aLago resort in Florida last week.
Trump, speaking through one of his two current lawyers, said: “Rudy is great. He has been my friend for a long time and wants to get this matter quickly resolved for the good of the country.”
Giuliani spoke with Trump on Thursday about his legal strategy in a conversation that included lawyer Jay Sekulow.
Sekulow told The Associated Press that Giuliani will be focusing on the Mueller investigation — not the legal matters raised by the ongoing investigation into Trump attorney Michael Cohen. That probe is being led by the U.S. attorney in Manhattan — a post Giuliani used to hold.
Trump’s other lawyer, Ty Cobb, will remain the lead in dealing with Mueller’s team.
Giuliani declined to weigh in on the most pressing legal question facing Trump — whether to sit for an interview with Mueller and his investigators.
“It’s too early for me to say that,” Giuliani told The Washington Post.
He said he will take a leave from his firm, Greenberg Traurig.
Giuliani was one of Trump’s earliest and loudest supporters during the presidential campaign.
Trump reportedly offered his pal the jobs of attorney general or secretary of homeland security, but Giuliani turned those posts down, in hopes of becoming secretary of state.
He withdrew his name from consideration for that job after it became clear he wasn’t going to be nominated.
He was eventually given a crumb of a role as an informal adviser on the issue of cybersecurity.
A two-term mayor, Giuliani came to prominence as a hardcharging Manhattan federal prosecutor who targeted the city’s top mob bosses and Wall Street fraudsters.
Some legal experts questioned the wisdom of the President hiring the man formerly known as “America’s Mayor.”
“So the President has run out of qualified, active criminal defense attorneys and is basically just asking friends to help out at this point,” tweeted Bradley Moss, a Washingtonbased attorney specializing in national security.
“Giuliani was once a great prosecutor but when was the last time he actually handled complex criminal litigation?”