Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal attorney, confirmed on Sunday that the president asked former FBI Director James Comey to give former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn a "break" in the Russia investigation, despite Trump's repeated denials that he did such a thing.
While speaking to ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, Giuliani insisted that there was no "incriminating" evidence against the president.
Stephanopoulos reminded Giuliani that Comey's testimony may suggest that Trump obstructed justice by pressuring him to drop the investigation into Flynn.
"His testimony is worth nothing," Giuliani said. "James Comey never found any evidence of collusion and rules out obstruction by saying the president had a right to fire me. So all the rest of it is just politics. I mean, the reality is Comey in some ways ends up being a good witness for us."
"How is he a good witness if he’s saying the president was asking him, in his words, to let the investigation go?" the ABC host asked.
"He didn't direct him to do that," Giuliani insisted.
"Comey says he took it as direction," Stephanopoulos countered.
"That’s okay," Giuliani scoffed. "By that time he had been fired. He said a lot of other things, some of which has turned out to be untrue. The reality is, as a prosecutor, I was told that many times, can you give the man a break, either by his lawyers, his relatives, by friends. You take that into consideration but that doesn’t determine not going forward with it."
During a 2017 press conference, Trump told New York Times correspondent Peter Baker that he never pressured Comey to go easy on Flynn.
“No, no, next question,” Trump said, dismissing the question.
Giuliani just confirmed that Trump said to Comey about Flynn: "Can you give a man a break." Here's what Trump told @peterbakernyt last May: pic.twitter.com/PkGTxDRvtc
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) July 8, 2018
[Nicole add: So is this the "evidence" of criminal activity--i.e., obstruction of justice--that Giuliani insisted he had to have in order to authorize Trump to speak to Mueller? Because it seems he provided it himself.]
