August 20, 2018

I told you that Trumpers would insist Rudy Giuliani's "truth isn't truth" was a reasonable statement and not a gaffe. Now, via the right-wing blog Freedom's Lighthouse, here's alleged liberal Alan Dershowitz defending Giuliani on Fox Business Monday (above).

DERSHOWITZ: Can I talk a little bit about Rudy Giuliani, though? You know, Rudy may have used an inartful phrase when he said, "Truth isn't truth," but he was absolutely right in the point he was making, and that is: say the president were to be asked the question "Did you discuss Flynn with Comey?" and he says no. And let's assume that's truthful for a moment. But Comey says yes. Or let's assume he's asked, "Did you know about the meeting in the Trump Towers?" [sic] and he says no, and then Cohen says yes. So you have two statements. Now, they can't both be true, that's for sure. But we're human beings and we're not sure we can determine what's true or not. The prosecutors may decide that the truth is with Cohen and Comey and not with the president. And that's why we defense lawyers call that a perjury trap. You never allow your client to answer a question truthfully if someone else will answer the question differently and that person may be believed over the truthful answer. That's what Rudy was trying to say. Inartfully put, but the point of it was something every defense attorney would agree to.

Dershowitz is refraining from saying, "Trump may tell the truth and be deemed a perjurer because the lies of Comey or Cohen will be believed instead," but that's what he means. That's certainly what Giuliani meant. Giuliani assumes his audience believes that the Mueller investigation is being conducted completely in bad faith by people who'd lie if you asked them what day of the week it is. They call it a "perjury trap" because poor, innocent, completely truthful Donald Trump will be nailed to the cross for lies that were actually the truth.

It's a Bizarro World point of view, but that's what Giuliani was trying to convey, and it's what rank-and-file Trumpers believe.

(Originally published at No More Mr. Nice Blog

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