President Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is seeking to put pressure on special counsel Robert Mueller to submit his report on whether the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia has found collusion, saying Mueller should “put up or shut up.”
Giluliani joined “Fox and Friends” Sunday morning in an exclusive interview discussing the “witch hunt.” (Video Below)
During his interview, Rudy Guiuliani suggested that key evidence of anti-Trump bias has been deleted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. This comes after Mueller’s official explanation for why the phones belonging to two of his former top deputies were completely wiped just days after they were fired for their anti-Trump bias.
Giuliani also doubled down on his previous statement that Trump would not sit down for a one-on-one interview with Mueller, and explained what he called the “unethical or grossly negligent behavior” of special counsel prosecutors.
In a comprehensive report issued earlier this month, the Department of Justice’s internal watchdog blamed a technical glitch for a swath of missing text messages between anti-Trump ex-FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — and revealed that government phones issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office to Strzok and Page had been wiped completely clean after Strzok was fired from the Russia probe, per Fox News.
Strzok — who in August 2016 texted Page about an “insurance policy” in the event Trump won the election and who secretly discussed a “media leak strategy” concerning the Russia probe — was removed from Mueller’s team in late July 2017 after the FBI discovered he had been sending anti-Trump text messages. He sent many of those messages to Page, with whom he was engaged in an extramarital affair, reported Fox News. (Video Below)
“All those texts from Strzok and Page… deleted?” Giuliani asked.
“After they find out that Strzok is texting that he hates Trump, that he’s going to get him and stop him… and that if he can’t stop him, he has an ‘insurance policy’ to get him out of office. I believe Mueller is the insurance policy to get him out of office. I’m not just saying that… Strzok was his first investigator.” He said.
Fox News reported, the DOJ’s Inspector General (IG) said that, with help from the Department of Defense, it was able to uncover thousands of missing text messages written by Strzok and Page and sent using their FBI-issued Samsung phones from December 15, 2016, through May 17, 2017, “as well as hundreds of other text messages outside the gap time period that had not been produced by the FBI due to technical problems with its text message collection tool.” (Video Below)
But when the IG went looking for the iPhones separately issued to Strzok and Page by the Mueller team, investigators were told that “[Strzok’s] iPhone had been reset to factory settings and was reconfigured for the new user to whom the device was issued.”
“The person who determined what to eliminate was Mueller’s records officer, who says there was nothing of interest there. It’s hard to believe Strzok and Page suddenly decided, ‘We’re not going to text anymore about Donald Trump.’ They seemed to be obsessively and compulsively texting about him. I don’t know what kind of lovers they were if they were texting about that all the time. It’s ridiculous.” Giuliani said.
Giuliani added that it was likely that Strzok, in fact, had been using his Mueller-issued phone to discuss topics like the FBI’s tactics in the investigation of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
In January 2017, then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe pushed Flynn not to have an attorney present during the questioning that ultimately led to his guilty plea on a single charge of lying to federal authorities.
“Just maybe, it would be very embarrassing if he was saying the same things while working for the holier-than-thou special counsel… ‘we’re framing Flynn, we’re not gonna tell him he has the right to counsel,'” Giuliani said.
(Video Below)
When asked if he expects Mueller’s final investigative report to be issued in February, Giuliani suggested he isn’t holding his breath.
(Related Article: Rudy Giuliani Shatters Mueller’s Hopes Of Ever Interviewing President Trump: ‘Over My Dead Body!’)
“Oh gosh, almighty! First he was coming out in March, then in May, we’re now in fourth degree of separation from the non-crime of collusion. We went to the non-crime of obstruction of justice, that didn’t work out for them. Then he moved on to campaign contributions, which by the way are not violations of the campaign finance law. And then they’re looking at now the Russia tower. They should go to Moscow. There is no tower. It didn’t get built. It didn’t get beyond a nonbinding letter of intent, which is like a wish.” Giuliani said.
Then, Giuliani said to Mueller, “My ultimatum is ‘put up or shut up, Bob.’ I mean, what do you have? There are those who believe you don’t have anything on collusion. And, by the way, even if you did it’s not a crime – so what the heck are you doing? Do you have anything that shows the President of the United States was involved in a conspiracy to hack the DNC with Russia? Of course you don’t. If you do, put out a report, or give it to the Justice Department, let them review it, make sure it’s not classified or whatever, put out a report. We’re ready to rebut it. I’ve had the report ready for two months.”
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