Former New York City Mayor and current personal attorney to the President, Rudy Giuliani has been hard at work doing damage control in response to a heavily redacted sentencing memo regarding former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report noted "substantial assistance" from Flynn and recommended no jail time, details that seem foreboding for President Donald Trump.
Like his client, Giuliani — risking at the peril of his own public perception — has repeatedly brayed that the Russia investigation is nothing but a partisan "witch hunt," despite the numerous indictments and guilty pleas the investigation has yielded.
When emphasizing the stress that the investigation has put on the White House, Giuliani said of Trump's attempts to submit written answers to questions from the Special Counsel:
“Answering those questions was a nightmare. It took him about three weeks to do what would normally take two days.”
Unfortunately, Giuliani's client loves to brag. Trump said of the questions:
"I was asked a series of questions. I've answered them very easily."
Previous reports on the President—such as Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward and the New York Times op-ed written by an anonymous high-ranking White House official—give a description of Trump not unlike that of an unruly child. While it may be easy for the child to run amok, it's the babysitter—in this case, Giuliani—who bears the brunt of the work.
Upon release of the contradictory answers from attorney and client, Twitter users drew a similar conclusion.
Some pointed out that Trump answering the questions under oath likely was a nightmare after all. Approximately 70% of statements made by the President range from mostly false to blatantly false as monitored by Politifact.
While spouting unchallenged falsehoods at a rally of supporters is easy, answering written questions under oath for a federal investigation complicates things, especially for lawyers.
Since becoming Donald Trump's personal attorney in April of this year, Giuliani and Trump have repeatedly contradicted each other, painting a picture for the public of a clumsy crusade to save a guilty man.
In the roughly nine months that Giuliani has been acting as Trump's attorney, his steps to defend the President have often wound up humiliating him or making tough situations even worse.
It was Giuliani who let spill on television interviews that Trump was repaying Michael Cohen for hush payments made to adult film performer Stormy Daniels, contradicting statements made by Cohen implying that he had used his own money without being reimbursed, as well as statements made by Donald Trump who said he "didn't know anything" about the entire matter.
Giuliani also stated in May that Donald Trump had fired former FBI Director James Comey—whom Giuliani referred to as a "disgusting liar"—for refusing to say that the President wasn't under investigation. This flew in the face of the White House's longtime stated reason for the firing: Comey's handling of the Clinton investigation.
To some, the dissonance between attorney and client is comedic and pathetic at the same time.
With regard to any fallout from the duo's communication problem, this latest instance is not particularly consequential. It's possible that Trump's answers to the questions will come to public light as soon as next year. Until then, the correspondence between Trump and Giuliani indicates to some that Robert Mueller will make short work of a bumbling defense.
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