Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump hires Giuliani as his attorney
Ex-NYC mayor praises president, special counsel
Move comes as Justice Department releases some Comey memos.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump hired former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as his new lawyer on Thursday, turning to one of his oldest political allies as two federal investigations reached deep into his inner circle.
Trump said Giuliani would help him lift the cloud of investigations that has hung over the White House almost since he took office last year.
“Rudy is great,” Trump said in a statement. “He has been my friend for a long time and wants to get this matter quickly resolved for the good of the country.”
Giuliani told The Washington Post on Thursday that he was joining the president’s legal team 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 (special counsel) Bob Mueller.”
Giuliani’s reputation as a hard-charging federal prosecutor in New York in the 1980s launched his political career, and he served two terms as mayor before he made an unsuccessful bid for the White House in 2008. He will take a leave of absence from the law firm Greenberg Traurig.
Trump also hired former prosecutors Jane Serene Raskin and Marty Raskin. Jay Sekulow, the president’s only personal lawyer since John Dowd resigned in March, said the married couple have “a nationwide practice and reputation for excellence and integrity.”
The decision to hire Giuliani represents a potential turning point in the president’s legal defense, placing a high-profile lawyer at the center of Trump’s multiplying legal dilemmas.
Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told Trump last week that he isn’t a target of any part of Mueller’s investigation or the probe into his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, according to several people familiar with the matter. Rosenstein, who brought up the investigations himself, offered the assurance during a meeting with Trump at the White House on April 12, a development that helped tamp down the president’s desire to remove Rosenstein or Mueller, the people said.
The change in attitude by the president comes after weeks of attacks on the special counsel and the Justice Department, raising questions about whether he might take drastic steps to shut down the probe.
The shift gives some breathing room to Mueller, as well as Rosenstein, who had been criticized strongly by House Republicans for being slow to comply with requests for classified documents. Last week’s meeting was set up in part to allow Rosenstein to assuage Trump’s frustration with his decisions.
On Thursday, the Justice Department agreed to provide three House committees with copies of several memos written by former FBI Director James Comey, according to a person familiar with the agreement.
Justice officials had allowed some lawmakers to view the memos but had never provided copies to the House committees.
Comey is on a publicity tour to promote his new book, “A Higher Loyalty.” He revealed last year that he had written the memos after conversations with Trump, who later fired him.
During a hearing Thursday in federal court in Washington, prosecutors with Mueller’s office defended their investigation into former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort by saying his longstanding ties to Russianbacked politicians, financiers and others warranted a probe into whether any served as “back channels to Russia.”
Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben said the focus on Manafort fell well within Mueller’s authorization to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, including “any links” or coordination between Trump campaign associates and the Russian government.
Seeking to have criminal charges against Manafort dismissed, his attorneys argued that Mueller exceeded his authority by charging their client with numerous felonies, including conspiracy, bank and tax fraud, and money laundering, related to work before 2014 on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.
Also, lawyers for Cohen have withdrawn defamation lawsuits against BuzzFeed and the political research firm Fusion GPS related to a dossier that included claims Cohen helped organize Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election.
The lawsuits, withdrawn late Wednesday, would have required Cohen to submit to an evidence discovery process, forcing him to produce documentation and sworn testimony about his activities before the closely contested election.