After his election antics last year, it should be beyond serious debate that Rudy Giuliani is a liar. Even so, it’s startling to read how casually former President Donald Trump’s lawyer admitted to federal agents that he lied to the public during Trump’s earlier election campaign of 2016. The revelations, in newly released Justice Department documents, show how Trump’s inner circle regarded public dishonesty as smart strategy and nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s OK, as Giuliani put it, to “throw a fake.”
What an interesting philosophy from the political camp that popularized the phrase “fake news” to attack factual reporting in mainstream journalism. It should also be of interest to plaintiffs suing Giuliani for his flurry of lies on Trump’s behalf during the 2020 campaign, and to professional organizations considering whether he should lose his law license for that behavior.
In February 2018, the documents show, Giuliani was interviewed by agents with the Justice Department. They were trying to determine if the FBI leaked information to Giuliani in the run-up to the 2016 election, while he was stumping for then-candidate Trump. The reason they suspected it was that Giuliani himself had publicly implied it. Giuliani’s own words lent credence to the suspicion that FBI agents had tipped him off in advance to the decision by then-FBI Director James Comey to reopen an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton shortly before the election.
