Trump may turn to Giuliani again to defend against impeachment

By Karen Freifeld and Steve Holland

 

Chapman University law professor John Eastman, next to U.S. President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, gestures as he speaks while Trump supporters gather ahead of his speech to contest the certification by the U.S. Congress of the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

 

(Reuters) - President Donald Trump may turn to Rudy Giuliani to defend him against possible impeachment over his role in last week’s violent siege of the U.S. Capitol, according to two people familiar with the matter.

 

One of the sources, an outside adviser to the White House, said Giuliani was expected to play a lead role in any impeachment effort. The other source familiar with the situation said Giuliani, a personal attorney of the president, would likely provide the kind of representation Trump wants.

 

Giuliani, 76, led the legal team that tried unsuccessfully to overturn Trump's election defeat. It failed to produce any evidence of significant fraud and lost dozens of court cases in key battleground states and at the Supreme Court before President-elect Joe Biden's victory was confirmed.

 

Giuliani's own reputation was battered during the often chaotic legal campaign. In one news conference, brown dye dripped down his face as he laid out false claims of election fraud, and he was ridiculed for another event held in the parking lot of a Pennsylvania landscaping company next to a sex shop.

 

The former mayor of New York City did not respond to requests for comment on his role in a possible impeachment trial, and the White House declined to comment.

 

Democratic members of the House of Representatives are expected to introduce articles of impeachment this week, accusing Trump of inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday.

 

If the House votes to impeach Trump, he would then face a trial in the Senate. While a House vote could come quickly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested that there would be no Senate trial until after Trump leaves office.

 

House Majority Whip James Clyburn also said on CNN that lawmakers might wait to send the impeachment article to the U.S. Senate for a trial to give Congress time to approve Biden’s Cabinet nominees and other agenda items.

 

Trump's choice of lawyers to defend him may be limited.

 

He has had trouble attracting top-notch legal talent dating back to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the widespread condemnation of the violence at the Capitol may discourage others from signing up.

 

White House counsel Pat Cipollone helped lead the defense team during an impeachment trial last year, when Trump was accused of abusing his power by asking Ukraine's government to announce investigations to discredit Biden, his Democratic political rival.

 

But Cipollone considered resigning last week after the siege at the Capitol, according to a source, and he and other White House lawyers will be out of their jobs anyway when Trump leaves office on January 20.

 

Longtime personal lawyers for Trump such as Jay Sekulow are not expected to defend the president, people familiar with the matter said, although Sekulow has been involved in everything from the Mueller probe to the impeachment over Ukraine to fighting a subpoena for Trump's tax returns.

 

Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard Law professor emeritus who argued as part of the defense in Trump's impeachment trial last year, told Reuters on Friday that he would be honored to help defend Trump given the First Amendment issues, if asked.

 

But on Sunday, he said he had not made a decision. He also said he did not think there would be a meaningful role for a lawyer this time around, with a quick impeachment in the House and unlikely trial in the Senate.

 

Giuliani has been an outspoken Trump supporter since his first run for president. He became a personal lawyer for him during the Mueller probe, which found that Trump impeded the investigation but stopped short of concluding he had committed a crime.

 

Giuliani's own pressure on Ukraine helped lead to Trump's impeachment trial last year and he also played a role in events leading to the violence at the Capitol, which led to the deaths of five people, including a police officer.

 

At a rally before the riot, Trump repeated his false claim that he had won the election and told supporters to march to the Capitol and "stop the steal." Giuliani also gave a speech at the rally, saying, "Let's have trial by combat."

 

Some lawmakers have said Giuliani should be disbarred.

 

Other lawyers who defended Trump in the earlier impeachment including Ken Starr, Jane Raskin and Robert Ray would not say whether they would do so again.

 

Ray, a former independent counsel, said he saw inciting violence as a viable legal theory, but that Trump’s defense would likely be that he was trying to make a political point, not harm anyone or incite violence.

 

"Reasonable people could disagree about that," said Ray. But, he added, going forward with impeachment was "not in the country’s best interest."

 

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; additional reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Diane Craft)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-11

 

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It's obviously a good idea to choose a professional for that important job. ????

 

19 minutes ago, webfact said:

Trump's choice of lawyers to defend him may be limited

 

Understatement if ever there was one .. what about that Sydney Powell , couldn't she summon up some sort of

" aliens made him do it " defence .. 

 

... bet 4 seasons landscaping will be pleased too when he rents their backyard again, 555 ...

 

Oh PLEASE do you idiot it was fun watching him melt last time the only problem is he may be disbarred by then 

The client is known for erratic judgement, can't be trusted, possibly guilty of treason, and doesn't pay his debts, could make it hard to find a lawyer. 

With these people he digs up, like Powell, Kellyanne, and whatever loonies he picks up from Fox, it really is a reality show, casted and scripted.  The show has been running since June 2015 and is known to the entire world.  I'm sure he's proud of himself. 

coming up this season:  Impeachment 2

a lot of attention coming his way, again.  He bathes in it.

 

 

Hopefully he makes a better choice of hair dye this time..

Given the need to move fast with the defense, Giuliani is a perfectly logical choice, Trump doesn’t have to waist time briefing Giuliani because Giuliani was himself involved in the seditious conspiracy.

 

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/rudy-giuliani-called-on-trump-supporters-for-trial-by-combat-2021-1

 

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Trump's choice of lawyers to defend him may be limited.

Trump already knows he's going to stiff him on the bill....why not get some extra mileage......

Given his  success rate on behalf of Trump  let it begin! If impeachment progressed to a vote  Trump would likely be convicted !

Isn't he a co-conspirator, "trial by combat" and all that?

 

dershowitz, wow, never thought we'd see him pop up again.

Can’t wait to see more of Rudi’s star witnesses.  

Talk about the Keystone Cops.  Trump, Rudy and Powell.  Oh....forget Powell.  She's being sued for $1 billion for her slander against the voting machines.  LOL

Does rudy have any credibility nowadays?

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

Does rudy have any credibility nowadays?

No.  That's raises another question; does Trump want to get impeached and convicted this time?

I think that Trump my be given a way out to not face charges.  Go quietly and go now and all the crimes and misdemeanors will be swept under the carpet.  It may sound far fetched but I am sure the power in America just wants to draw a line under all this.   What has happened with Trump is staggeringly embarrassing for the USA on the world stage.  To go through months of court cases which will be followed with relish by the world's media would just prolong the agony of whole Trump fiasco.

 

Personally I think he should be shamed and blamed to the the full extent of the law but unfortunately I think that is unlikely to happen.

13 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

 

Understatement if ever there was one .. what about that Sydney Powell , couldn't she summon up some sort of

" aliens made him do it " defence .. 

 

nancy will be introducing articles of impeachment possibly as early as this afternoon.

 

time is short!  powell better get kraken!

47 minutes ago, dunroaming said:

I think that Trump my be given a way out to not face charges.  Go quietly and go now and all the crimes and misdemeanors will be swept under the carpet.  It may sound far fetched but I am sure the power in America just wants to draw a line under all this.   What has happened with Trump is staggeringly embarrassing for the USA on the world stage.  To go through months of court cases which will be followed with relish by the world's media would just prolong the agony of whole Trump fiasco.

 

Personally I think he should be shamed and blamed to the the full extent of the law but unfortunately I think that is unlikely to happen.

 

I think that before we are 6 month further from today, Trump will regret he ever ran for POTUS.

2 hours ago, dunroaming said:

I think that Trump my be given a way out to not face charges.  Go quietly and go now and all the crimes and misdemeanors will be swept under the carpet.  It may sound far fetched but I am sure the power in America just wants to draw a line under all this.   What has happened with Trump is staggeringly embarrassing for the USA on the world stage.  To go through months of court cases which will be followed with relish by the world's media would just prolong the agony of whole Trump fiasco.

 

Personally I think he should be shamed and blamed to the the full extent of the law but unfortunately I think that is unlikely to happen.

 

I held that opinion after the first impeachment died a predictable death. I saw the US quietly sidelining him like the incontinent, senile old grandpa who's kept out of sight at the wedding party. However, that failure only emboldened him into more radical acts and policy decisions that were driven by his ignorance, avarice and narcissism. His increasingly divisive comments were allowed by a bending or blurring of free speech lines since he's still the POTUS after all. A lot of people voted for him and those people are Americans so couldn't possibly have been so wrong. When the pre-election polls saw him slipping behind Biden, over the corresponding 6 to 8 months, he simply "went postal" and Pompeo, Barr, Grassley, McConnell, Graham et al just kept marching along like bobble heads on the bloody dashboard.

 

At least Nixon had the sense to see the writing on the wall and avoided impeachment but surrounded as he is by a dwindling bunch of sycophants, Trump cannot begin to appreciate how he's royally messing things up. When the VP has to call out the National Guard because the President was not of a mind to defend the sacking of the Capitol, there's not much left that can be excused here or simply put down to good people being infiltrated by a handful of antifa, BLM or just plain old lefties.

 

Social media companies that have been blamed for providing the bandwidth for Trump and the menagerie of misguided conspiracy theorists, white supremacists and other lost souls that ride on his coattails. They have acted decisively by cutting off his microphone so now we hear the air-raid siren of the free speech zealots getting all wound up again. If I was a Zuckerberg or a Dorsey and the VP or the House doesn't man-up to LEGALLY snuff out this one-man aberration of the US political system, this ugly blot on America's storied history, then I would say to hell with the lot of you and go ahead and let all the rest of the lunatics out of the asylum.

 

To paraphrase Dean Vernon Wormer in National Lampoon's Animal House, "It's time to put the foot down and that foot is me!"

Unleash the Kraken, I would pay to watch it. 

9 hours ago, dunroaming said:

I think that Trump my be given a way out to not face charges.  Go quietly and go now and all the crimes and misdemeanors will be swept under the carpet.  It may sound far fetched but I am sure the power in America just wants to draw a line under all this.   What has happened with Trump is staggeringly embarrassing for the USA on the world stage.  To go through months of court cases which will be followed with relish by the world's media would just prolong the agony of whole Trump fiasco.

 

Personally I think he should be shamed and blamed to the the full extent of the law but unfortunately I think that is unlikely to happen.

It's unrealistic to think Trump would ever do anything quietly. 

Funny, all the Trump fans on this forum seem to have gone quiet. I guess even they are finally embarrassed by the clown show now.

21 minutes ago, charmonman said:

Funny, all the Trump fans on this forum seem to have gone quiet. I guess even they are finally embarrassed by the clown show now.

 

Just waiting for talking points from FN, OAN and RT. They'll be back whining about something soon enough.

22 minutes ago, charmonman said:

Funny, all the Trump fans on this forum seem to have gone quiet. I guess even they are finally embarrassed by the clown show now.

I think many are beginning to realize how silly they sound defending Trump, if not downright stupid.  But some are still at it.  

On 1/11/2021 at 5:59 AM, webfact said:

Trump may turn to Giuliani again to defend against impeachment

Rrrring

DT: Rudy, it's Donald... Come on, pick up... Rudy

 

"Can't come to the phone right now. Please leave your name and message after the beep."

Beeep

DC attorney general is considering riot incitement charges for invasion of the US Capitol against Giuliani, etc.

Senate should require Giuliani to speak under oath during Trump's Senate trial. Democrats should cross examine him as a witness to Trump's appearance at the rally before the invasion.

i can't believe this is america , year 2021! what is happening in that country i've admiring so much is simply grostesque!

1 hour ago, mtls2005 said:

1 hour ago, charmonman said:

Funny, all the Trump fans on this forum seem to have gone quiet. I guess even they are finally embarrassed by the clown show now.

 

Just waiting for talking points from FN, OAN and RT. They'll be back whining about something soon enough.

 

Exactly. Just like their dear leader, they haven't given in or given up. They've just dug in deeper and are quietly awaiting reinforcements. They are shameless, unapologetic and still angry.

16 hours ago, dunroaming said:

I think that Trump my be given a way out to not face charges.  Go quietly and go now and all the crimes and misdemeanors will be swept under the carpet.  It may sound far fetched but I am sure the power in America just wants to draw a line under all this.   What has happened with Trump is staggeringly embarrassing for the USA on the world stage.  To go through months of court cases which will be followed with relish by the world's media would just prolong the agony of whole Trump fiasco.

 

Trump could resign and maybe get a pardon from Pence, assuming that the VP does not take it personally that Trump just sent a mob to lynch him.  Other than that he has no path to avoid prosecution.  The DoJ is about to be under new and unsympathetic management.  The local prosecutors in New York and Washington have no incentive to negotiate with Trump and could not be held to any agreement in any case.

 

The Republicans want to "move on" and overlook Trump's crimes, but the Democrats who just elected the new president will certainly not stand for it.

I am not sure how Giuliani's eligibility to defend Trump in an impeachment would be affected, but the New York State Bar Association is about to disbar him.