Has Anyone Seen Ghouliani Sober?

[Becky]

No, no AmazonGrace!  He was just being "sarcastic!" No need to investigate whether he is hiding anything illegal....?

[Gobsmacked]

The pee tapes! He has the pee tapes!!

[fraurosena]

Ghouliani is in bigger trouble than previously known:

 

[fraurosena]

This made me laugh, it's so ridiculous. His attorney insisted he make the call...

Giuliani calls Trump to tell him he was joking about having an 'insurance policy'

Quote

President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, called the president this week to reassure him that he had been joking when he told media outlets he had “insurance” if Trump turned on him in the Ukraine scandal, Giuliani’s lawyer said on Wednesday.

The attorney, Robert Costello, said Giuliani “at my insistence” had called Trump “within the last day” to emphasize that he had not been serious when he said he had an “insurance policy, if thrown under the bus.”

“He shouldn’t joke, he is not a funny guy. I told him, ‘Ten thousand comedians are out of work, and you make a joke. It doesn’t work that way,’” Costello told Reuters.Giuliani has already said that he was being sarcastic when he made the comments. Trump, too, has brushed them off, telling reporters in the Oval Office this week that “Rudy is a great guy.” The White House declined to comment on Costello’s remarks.

Giuliani has emerged as a central figure in the Democratic-led House of Representatives impeachment inquiry against Trump who is accused of abusing his office for personal political gain by pressing Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son, Hunter, a former board member of a Ukrainian energy company.

Current and former U.S. officials have testified at the inquiry that Giuliani carried out a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine and that it became clear to them that a White House meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Trump and a phone call between the two leaders was contingent on Ukraine carrying out Trump’s wishes.

U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, testified that Trump directed him, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and former Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker to work closely with Giuliani on Ukraine matters, a request that he viewed with alarm as Giuliani was a private citizen.

Sondland, a Trump donor, said Giuliani told him that Trump wanted Zelenskiy to make a public statement on investigating corruption, and was particularly concerned about probing Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, and a debunked theory that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 U.S. election.

Costello denied there had been any link between the investigations Trump sought and the White House meeting.

Trump, in an interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday, sought to distance himself from Giuliani’s activities on Ukraine, saying that he had not directed him to work on Ukraine matters.

“No, I didn’t direct him, but he is a warrior,” Trump told O’Reilly, adding Giuliani “possibly saw something” and “he’s done work in Ukraine for years.”

Costello declined to comment on what directions Trump had given Giuliani on Ukraine, citing attorney-client privilege.

He said there had been no change in Trump and Giuliani’s relationship. “They speak all the time,” Costello said.

 

[fraurosena]

Giuliani was in talks to be paid by Ukraine’s top prosecutor as they together sought damaging information on Democrats

Quote

President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, negotiated this year to represent Ukraine’s top prosecutor for at least $200,000 during the same months that Giuliani was working with the prosecutor to dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The people said that Giuliani began negotiations with Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Yuri Lutsenko, about a possible agreement in February. In the agreement, Giuliani’s company would receive payment to represent Lutsenko as the Ukrainian sought to recover assets he believed had been stolen from the government in Kyiv, those familiar with the discussions said.

The talks occurred as Giuliani met with Lutsenko in New York in January and then in Warsaw in February while he was also gathering information from Lutsenko on two topics Giuliani believed could prove useful to Trump: the involvement of Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine, and allegations that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 election.

Trump ultimately pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations into the two issues during a July 25 phone call between the two leaders, a call that sparked a whistleblower complaint and the congressional impeachment inquiry.

A person familiar with the negotiations described contracts drafted this year in which Giuliani would have worked for Lutsenko or separately, the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice.

For Lutsenko, the agreement would have provided a pipeline to Trump’s lawyer and, through him, potentially to other top U.S. officials. For Giuliani, the agreements would have been a way to accrue financial benefit from a person who was also providing him politically damaging information that could help another client, the president of the United States.

Giuliani has said he doesn’t charge Trump for legal services. Trump directed U.S. diplomats to work with Giuliani on Ukraine issues.

The agreements were never executed, and there is no indication that Giuliani was ultimately paid by Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials. But the negotiations proceeded far enough that legal agreements were drafted under which Giuliani’s company would have received more than $200,000 to work for the Ukrainians, people familiar with the agreements said.

Some versions of the agreements envisioned Washington husband-and-wife lawyers Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova also playing a role and receiving payment, people familiar with the matter said.

A February draft retainer agreement with Lutsenko called for the trio to help recover money allegedly stolen from Ukraine. The draft called for Lutsenko to retain Giuliani Partners as well as diGenova and Toensing, and pay a $200,000 retainer to Giuliani Partners.

The people said that another retainer agreement, drafted in March, called for Giuliani Partners to receive $300,000 from the Ministry of Justice for help locating the supposedly stolen assets. That draft agreement also stated that Toensing and diGenova would be working on the matter. That agreement called for payments to be made to Giuliani Partners.

Yet another proposal called for the Ministry of Justice to hire Toensing and diGenova for asset recovery but did not mention Giuliani.

An attorney for Giuliani declined to comment on the negotiations. Lutsenko, who served as Ukraine’s top prosecutor until August, could not be immediately reached for comment. But in an interview with the publication Ukrainian Truth this month, Lutsenko described how he was eager for Giuliani to help him get a meeting with the U.S. attorney general to discuss evidence he had uncovered that Ukrainian assets had been routed through U.S. bank accounts.

Speaking in Ukrainian, Lutsenko said that Giuliani at first agreed he could help make the connection but that he never did.

“For me, this is an absolute mystery. A few months later, a new United States attorney general was selected. I called back several times with assistants or advisers to Giuliani with the question: ‘Will there be or will not be a meeting?’ ” Lutsenko said.

William P. Barr was confirmed as the attorney general in February, replacing Matthew G. Whitaker, who had been in the position in an acting basis.

Lutsenko said Giuliani told him he would have to hire a lobbyist to get the meeting. “They even offered me such a company,” Lutsenko said. “I said that I am the prosecutor general of Ukraine and will not pay a dime.”

He said that he was told it would be “impossible” for him to get the meeting without paying and that he continued to refuse. “I will not pay money for any meeting,” he said.

In a statement, a spokesman for Toensing and diGenova said the couple previously had said they had agreed to represent people they described as “Ukrainian whistleblowers.” Spokesman Mark Corallo confirmed those discussions included possible representation of Lutsenko.

“All the other names are attorney-client privileged, and it is unfortunate that some unethical person chose to violate that privilege,” he said. Corallo said that all of the retainer letters under consideration included “the necessary notice of FARA registration,” referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That suggests the couple had planned to register as foreign lobbyists if the agreements had been executed.

However, Corallo said that no representation was ever finalized because a trip that Toensing planned to Kyiv in May was canceled after the New York Times reported that she was accompanying Giuliani, who had hoped to meet with Ukrainian officials to press them to open an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.

“No money was ever received, and no legal work was ever performed because the trip was canceled,” Corallo said.

Federal prosecutors in New York have been investigating Giuliani and two associates he tapped to help him conduct investigations in Ukraine for a wide range of possible crimes, including wire fraud and failure to register as a foreign agent, people familiar with the matter have said. The two associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were charged this year in a campaign finance case.

Prosecutors alleged Parnas and Fruman used foreign money to buy political influence in the United States, directing large donations to American politicians as they “sought to advance their personal and financial interests and the political interests of at least one Ukrainian government official with whom they were working.”

In particular, the indictment alleged the pair tried to force the ouster of then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch “at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.” Though no Ukrainian government official is named in the indictment, people familiar with the matter say the references refer to Lutsenko.

The indictment made no mention of Giuliani. But Toensing and diGenova have said they hired Parnas to act as a translator when they began work in July as lawyers for Ukrainian oil tycoon Dmytro Firtash, who was indicted in Chicago in a bribery conspiracy and has been fighting extradition to the United States.

Witnesses in the House impeachment inquiry have testified in recent weeks that the president’s personal lawyer seemed to be driving a campaign to remove Yovanovitch from her post. Witnesses also identified Lutsenko as the Ukrainian official who appeared to be advocating for Yovanovitch’s removal.

Lutsenko had publicly clashed with the U.S. ambassador. In March, Lutsenko gave an interview to conservative columnist John Solomon, alleging that Yovanovitch had interfered with Ukrainian prosecutions. The State Department issued a statement calling the allegation an “outright fabrication.”

In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Yovanovitch said that she believed Lutsenko was corrupt and targeted her because she threatened his financial interests. She said Giuliani should have questioned the Ukrainians making claims against her, “coming, as they reportedly did, from individuals with questionable motives and with reason to believe that their political and financial ambitions would be stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”

At the time, Solomon was working closely with Giuliani, Toensing and diGenova on matters related to Ukraine. Joseph A. Bondy, a lawyer for Parnas, has said that the group met frequently in spring 2019 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington to trade information and discuss strategy. Bondy did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The contracts — even if not ultimately executed — could be a piece of evidence to help advance prosecutors’ investigation into whether Giuliani failed to submit the required paperwork under FARA to work for a foreign power, said Matthew Sanderson, an attorney at Caplin & Drysdale who specializes in such issues.

Sanderson said it is normal that lobbying firms start performing work for clients before contracts are finalized — and even in those instances, those firms must register under the act. Draft contracts, he said, “can further establish that there are relationships” that necessitate registration.

While Giuliani has argued that he was seeking Yovanovitch’s ouster to help Trump, the contracts might help demonstrate that his efforts were actually on behalf of Ukraine — and he thus should have registered as a foreign agent.

“It doesn’t get you all the way to saying that his efforts to influence and effect the ouster of Yovanovitch were on behalf of Ukrainians, but it certainly does establish that there was some relationship or contemplated relationship along those lines,” Sanderson said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

WTAF? "Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, says he is ‘more of a Jew’ than George Soros, who survived the Holocaust"

Spoiler

Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, claimed in an interview that he is “more of a Jew” than Hungarian-born philanthropist George Soros, who survived the Holocaust.

The comment came amid a larger, seemingly boundless interview with New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi, in which Giuliani reportedly claimed, without evidence, that former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was “controlled” by Soros. He went on to call Soros, a Jewish billionaire and influential Democratic donor, an “enemy of Israel.”

“He put all four ambassadors there. And he’s employing the FBI agents,” Giuliani said, before continuing the conspiracy-theory-laden diatribe.

“Don’t tell me I’m anti-Semitic if I oppose him. Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is,” said Giuliani, who is Roman Catholic. “I probably know more about — he doesn’t go to church, he doesn’t go to religion — synagogue. He doesn’t belong to a synagogue, he doesn’t support Israel, he’s an enemy of Israel. He’s elected eight anarchist DA’s in the United States.”

“He’s a horrible human being,” Giuliani concluded.

Soros, 89, has long been featured in conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world and media. One 2018 theory asserted that Soros paid thousands of Central American migrants to travel toward the United States last year in what became known as the “migrant caravan.” That claim, for which there is no evidence, was echoed by President Trump.

In September, Giuliani appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and implicated Soros in a debunked conspiracy theory that suggests Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 presidential election. He asserted without proof that “Soros was behind it.”

“November of 2016, [the Ukrainians] first came to me, and they said, ‘We have shocking evidence that the collusion that they claim happened in Russia, which didn’t happen, happened in Ukraine, and it happened with Hillary Clinton,” he said. “George Soros was behind it. George Soros’s company was funding it.'”

Nuzzi reported that she told Giuliani he sounded crazy, but he “insisted he wasn’t.” Asked by NBC News whether his comments about being more Jewish than Soros were a joke, Giuliani said: “I’m more Jewish than half my friends.”

In an interview with the network earlier this month, Laura Silber, a spokeswoman for Soros’s network, the Open Society Foundations, decried the conspiracy theories about Soros peddled by Giuliani.

“The anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and false allegations espoused by Rudolph Giuliani and his cronies are aimed at fomenting hatred, undermining democracy, as well as distracting from the impeachment process and the critically important national security and constitutional questions before Congress,” Silber told NBC.

Replying to Giuliani’s comments in a Monday tweet, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League said opposing Soros isn’t anti-Semitic, but “saying that he controls ambassadors, employs FBI agents and isn’t ‘Jewish enough’ to be demonized is.”

Giuliani, who was mayor of New York during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has emerged as a major player in the impeachment inquiry. During the hearings, diplomats who testified said Giuliani spearheaded the effort to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce investigations into Democrats before Zelensky could visit the Oval Office. He is mentioned four times in the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky.

The Washington Post has previously reported that Giuliani played a central role in ousting Yovanovitch from her post in April. Earlier this month, he bragged about his efforts in an interview with Fox News, asserting “I forced her out because she’s corrupt.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This made me laugh:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Giuliani goes full conspiracy theory in insane ‘Fox & Friends’ appearance"

Spoiler

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and his fellow House managers have received positive media reviews for the arguments they’ve presented in President Trump’s impeachment trial. But do not take the word of journalists as proof of Schiff’s brilliance.

Take the performance of Rudy Giuliani on Friday morning’s edition of “Fox & Friends.”

Giuliani worked as the president’s personal lawyer and the engine behind the abuse-of-power scheme. An indefatigable advocate, Giuliani was in charge of placing the terms of Trump’s quid pro quo before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his aides: Please announce an investigation into the Bidens, and you’ll get what you need from the Trump administration. He also spearheaded the smear campaign leading to the ouster of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

To judge from Giuliani’s demeanor on his 7 a.m. appearance, he hasn’t enjoyed his depiction in the Senate proceedings. “The Senate is listening to a totally phony group of stories about non-impeachable offenses,” said Giuliani to the “Fox & Friends” crew. “It’s like trying somebody for not a crime. It’s a total waste of money. It’s a complete show on the part of the Democrats … They should pay for that hearing.”

From there, Giuliani rummaged through every strand of Ukraine-related conspiracy theory on the planet. Check that: He was still ranting at the end of his 12-minute-plus appearance, though co-host Steve Doocy attempted to cut him off: “We’re done.”

The ranting from Giuliani was so unhinged that Schiff & Co. would do well to stitch the footage into their impeachment arguments before the Senate: Let’s have a look at the fellow who was orchestrating this whole affair. One telling moment in the “Fox & Friends” interview came when co-host Brian Kilmeade asked why Giuliani hadn’t availed himself of the U.S. law enforcement “apparatus” to pursue his corruption allegations against former vice president Joe Biden.

Giuliani’s response was epic conspiratorial bluster, such that we won’t even try to abridge it:

Brian, you’re being totally naïve…The apparatus to look at this refused to look at it. Witnesses will tell you they tried to get this information to us for a year. They were blocked by the embassy. They hired a lawyer to go to the Justice Department to tell them about Ukrainian collusion and since they didn’t know anything about Russian collusion, they were basically thrown out. They will tell you that at least one of the FBI agents was corrupt and they didn’t trust any longer the FBI or Justice Department because they were convinced that they were still being controlled by Hillary Clinton partisans. Now, these are foreigners, but not a bad conclusion.

Time limitations don’t register with a fellow like Giuliani anyhow. He just kept talking as the co-hosts attempted to wrap things up, kind of the way his client — Trump — has done in memorable “Fox & Friends” appearances. When Doocy remarked that he could keep going on for hours, Giuliani riffed: “That’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are other people involved. There’s a lot more money involved. There was a pattern of corruption.”

Got it. “Fox & Friends” has secured an influential spot in U.S. media because of its loyal conservative audience, the guests who are happy to be treated so nicely and its love affair with Trump, who uses the program as a briefing binder. It has an even more privileged perch during the impeachment proceedings, which wrap up too late at night for most of cable news’ prime-time programming. Giuliani knew exactly where to go as he sought to promote his shadow trial.

As for the specifics of Biden family wrongdoing, they were a bit hard to suss out in Giuliani’s frantic presentation. There was apparently more than one bribe, with Biden allegedly vacuuming up $8 million; lots of Democratic collusion and profiteering in Ukraine; and one instance of alleged mercury poisoning, though the culprit isn’t clear. But more specifics are in the offing: Giuliani said that starting at noon on Friday, he would be rolling out his case. “I’m going to present over the next two to three weeks shocking crimes at the highest levels of both governments," he said. There will be witnesses and evidence and everything. And it won’t be subject to a 24-hour limitation!

 

[GreyhoundFan]

WTAF?

 

[JMarie]

https://www.bing.com/search?q=giuliani+ukraine&form=EDGTCT&qs=SC&cvid=6105644037454014bcc5d7db30b8f10b&refig=2d45742e9b1543d9ee791950f10724c9&cc=US&setlang=en-US&elv=AY3!uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfOvsjwMa3aMab!KZctDEdtdWLcjyKIFSOJMQnuxfAoWqKc6ALqmpFzuPrwi98SmQ85iNp!8byorgMLFebYLPQLa&plvar=0&PC=DCTS

Quote

Emboldened after his impeachment acquittal, President Donald Trump now openly admits to sending his attorney Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to find damaging information about his political opponents, even though he strongly denied it during the impeachment inquiry.

The reversal came Thursday in a podcast interview Trump did with journalist Geraldo Rivera, who asked, "Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer? Are you sorry you did that?" Trump responded, "No, not at all," and praised Giuliani's role as a "crime fighter."

"Here's my choice: I deal with the Comeys of the world, or I deal with Rudy," Trump said, referring to former FBI Director James Comey. Trump explained that he has "a very bad taste" of the US intelligence community, because of the Russia investigation, so he turned to Giuliani.

"So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor," Trump said. "But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers."

Trump had previously denied that he sent Giuliani to Ukraine. Asked in November if he directed Giuliani to "do anything" in Ukraine, Trump said, "No, I didn't direct him," but went on to call Giuliani a "great corruption fighter." Giuliani says he's exposing legitimate corruption in Ukraine, even though his claims about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden have been widely debunked.

In the new interview, Trump defended the decision to "use" Giuliani, even though US diplomats previously testified that Giuliani had undermined long-standing US policy toward Ukraine.

Giuliani was a central player in the scandal that got Trump impeached, though the President was acquitted by the Senate last week. Multiple witnesses described how Giuliani met with former Ukrainian officials in search of dirt against Joe and Hunter Biden. Other key players described how Giuliani and his allies pressured Ukraine to announce investigations into the Bidens.

Trump's past denials came in November, when the House of Representatives was investigating the President's conduct with Ukraine. Multiple US diplomats and national security officials testified that Giuliani was a central figure in the pressure campaign to secure political favors from Ukraine. Trump also mentioned Giuliani in his phone call last summer with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In the week since his acquittal, Trump has taken a series of bold steps to punish his opponents and reward his supporters. He fired several US officials who had testified against him in the impeachment inquiry, and he successfully lobbied the Justice Department to water down its request that his longtime adviser Roger Stone face as many as nine years in prison for lying to Congress.

We've all been hoping the two words Trump learns are climate change.  Looks like the two words he did learn were double indemnity.

[47of74]

As I said before there will likely be whole law school courses on why law students should not emulate Ghouliani in any way. Or Barr. Or any other lawyers working for fuck face.

[fraurosena]

7 hours ago, JMarie said:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=giuliani+ukraine&form=EDGTCT&qs=SC&cvid=6105644037454014bcc5d7db30b8f10b&refig=2d45742e9b1543d9ee791950f10724c9&cc=US&setlang=en-US&elv=AY3!uAY7tbNNZGZ2yiGNjfOvsjwMa3aMab!KZctDEdtdWLcjyKIFSOJMQnuxfAoWqKc6ALqmpFzuPrwi98SmQ85iNp!8byorgMLFebYLPQLa&plvar=0&PC=DCTS

We've all been hoping the two words Trump learns are climate change.  Looks like the two words he did learn were double indemnity.

This just goes to show that he doesn't care anymore. Now he's been given carte blanche by the Senate trumplicans, it doesn't matter what he says or does. He knows he'll get away with it anyway. Why bother covering it up?

[fraurosena]

More charges against Parnas could be retribution for his speaking out against Trump in public. However, if this investigation would get too close to Giuliani, I'm sure Barr will step in and swiftly put a lid on it.

Federal prosecutors weighing new charges that would bring Parnas investigation closer to Giuliani

Quote

New charges federal prosecutors are weighing against Lev Parnas could place Rudy Giuliani closer to the ongoing investigation of his associates, CNN reported Monday.

Prosecutors are weighing charges against Parnas and at least one of his business partners on misleading investors for Fraud Guarantee, a company co-founded by Parnas that paid Giuliani $500,000, people familiar with the investigation told CNN. 

The payment to Giuliani came around the time that Parnas and his associate Igor Fruman began aiding Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, in arranging meetings in Ukraine to get information on Trump’s political rival and former Vice President Joe Biden, according to CNN.

The pressure campaign in Ukraine was at the center of the impeachment articles filed by the House that ultimately ended with Trump’s acquittal in the Senate.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York are weighing the charges against Parnas as investors examine if the businessmen duped investors about the value of Fraud Guarantee, people familiar with the investigation told CNN. 

A lawyer for Giuliani told CNN his client had never had any conversations about investor pitches or marketing with Parnas or his business partner David Correia. 

Fraud Guarantee was set up in 2013 by Parnas and Correia, with the men pitching it as an insurance policy for companies to protect against fraud, according to CNN, which notes it isn’t clear if they had any clients. 

Parnas, Correia, Fruman and Andrey Kukushkin have been charged by Manhattan federal prosecutors with campaign finance violations. All have pleaded not guilty. 

Prosecutors have said new charges in the case are likely but have not said which charges or when they will be filed. 

"We have taken into account prosecutors' statements that they might bring additional charges against Mr. Parnas and others since the inception of this case. We are therefore not surprised, and remain prepared to defend Mr. Parnas against any such charges," Joseph Bondy, a lawyer for Parnas, told CNN. 

Lawyers for Correia and Fruman declined to comment to CNN. 

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan was not available when contacted by The Hill. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rudy has a degree in dumbassery:

 

[thoughtful]

I was wondering when we'd hear from Rudy about Covid-19. Why am I not surprised at what he said?

Go hug Trump, Rudy.

[GreyhoundFan]

I wish he would be banned permanently:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh boy, Doctor Rudy is on the case... "Giuliani, a familiar voice in Trump’s ear, promotes experimental coronavirus treatments"

Spoiler

Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was in the center of the impeachment storm earlier this year as an unpaid private attorney for President Trump, has cast himself in a new role: as personal science adviser to a president eager to find ways to short circuit the coronavirus epidemic.

In one-on-one phone calls with Trump, Giuliani said, he has been touting the use of an anti-malarial drug cocktail that has shown some early promise in treating covid-19, but whose effectiveness has not yet been proved. He said he now spends his days on the phone with doctors, coronavirus patients and hospital executives promoting the treatment, which Trump has also publicly lauded.

“I discussed it with the president after he talked about it,” Giuliani said in an interview. “I told him what I had on the drugs.”

Giuliani’s advice to Trump echoes comments the former New York mayor has made on his popular Twitter feed and a podcast that he records in a makeshift radio studio installed at his New York City apartment, where he has repeatedly pushed the drug combination, as well as a stem cell therapy that involves the extraction of what Giuliani termed “placenta ‘killer cells.’ ”

The former New York mayor is part of a chorus of prominent pro-Trump voices who at first downplayed the severity of the virus and then embraced possible cures — worrying health experts who fear such comments undermine efforts to slow the virus’s spread and downplay the risks of the unproven treatments.

Giuliani’s controversial comments have helped him regain a bit of the prominence he had during impeachment — last week, he was back in the spotlight when Twitter briefly locked his account for promoting misinformation about covid-19.

“He’s been out of the news and out of the limelight since the end of the impeachment drama,” said Andrew Kirtzman, a Giuliani biographer who is currently writing his second book about the former New York mayor. “What you’re seeing is an effort to regain relevance.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the president’s conversations with Giuliani.

Giuliani’s name has not come up during meetings of the administration’s coronavirus task force, according to two members of the group, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal dynamics.

However, Giuliani said he has spoken directly to Trump “three or four times” about the potential coronavirus treatment, describing to him the results of an initial small-scale study in France that suggested the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine may help treat covid-19. Giuliani said he has not spoken to other White House officials about his views.

“There are obviously other people around him who agree with me,” Giuliani said.

The drug cocktail has been touted on Fox News and One America News Network, a cable news favorite of the president, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has said there is a “good basis” to believe the treatment could work and said the drugs were in the pipeline for New York patients.

At his daily briefings, Trump has praised the drug combo, saying it could be one of “the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.”

Last week, the FDA issued emergency authorization for the use of the anti-malarial drug for some covid-19 patients.

FDA spokesman Michael Felberbaum said decision was made by expert career staff, after extensive discussions with officials at other government agencies and based on the scientific evidence available.

“The known and potential benefits to treat this serious or life-threatening virus outweigh the known and potential risks when used under the conditions described in [the order],” he said.

On Saturday, Trump said the drug had passed the “safety test” and that he had seen results that were positive.

“I hope they use it, because I’ll tell you what, what do you have to lose?” the president said, adding: “I may take it. I’ll have to ask my doctors about that.”

'Looking at a slaughter'

In his newly fashioned role, Giuliani — who was widely praised for steering New York City with a steady hand through the 2001 terrorist attacks — has solicited medical tips from a controversial Long Island family doctor with a following in the conservative media, as well as a former pharmacist who once pleaded guilty to conspiring to extort the actor Steven Seagal.

“Got lots of positive reports on hydroxy and Zithromax,” Giuliani tweeted on March 26.

It was one of at least 14 messages Giuliani posted during the past three weeks referring to the combination of the anti-malarial drug and the antibiotic azithromycin.

“The Hydroxy treatment, first introduced by POTUS, appears to be working so far!” he tweeted two days later. Another message blasted the “demented left” that he claimed wished to ban the therapy.

Giuliani said that while he is hoping to turn his podcast into a moneymaking venture, he is not working for any of the companies involved with the treatments he has promoted. He said he last worked for medical companies a decade ago, when he represented Pfizer and Purdue.

“I’m not trying to get a dime out of this,” he said.

Some doctors say the anti-malarial treatment has appeared anecdotally to help some covid-19 patients, but it has not yet been proven effective in valid clinical trials.

Anthony S. Fauci, the White House task force’s infectious disease expert, has repeatedly counseled caution until more research is completed. Fauci warned in an interview on Fox and Friends on Friday that there is not yet any “strong” evidence that it is effective in treating covid-19, and he has been aggressive in making that argument internally, officials said.

Giuliani said that he has not discussed the treatment with Fauci, but said that Trump agrees with him. “I’m sure he thinks I am an ignoramus,” he said of Fauci.

“They’ve thrown cold water on it because they are academics,” he said of scientists like Fauci. “ ‘You can’t blind test it.’ I know you can’t blind test it. But we’ve got thousands of people dying, sweetheart. And by the time you blind test it, we’ll have 100,000 people who are dead. Why don’t we get in the real world of being a doctor instead of being an academic?”

“We’ve got to take a little risk, god dammit, if we want to save lives,” he added. “We are looking at a slaughter.”

Giuliani said he knew the medicine had side effects, but he said that even if it is “marginally” helpful, it should be used.

Joel F. Farley, a professor at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy, said it concerned him to hear prominent political figures publicly advocate for FDA action on any specific covid-19 treatment.

“It worries me that political pressure could be applied and potentially distract from other possible treatments,” Farley said.

The avid promotion of the unproven treatment by nonmedical experts has worried scientists, who are concerned they downplay some known side effects of the medications and could lead to hoarding of drugs used to treat other ailments, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

“You should be listening to credible scientists, ideally physicians and researchers who approach this issue with a respect for the scientific method. Rudolph W. Giuliani is the opposite of that kind of person,” said David Juurlink, an internist and head of the division of clinical pharmacology at the University of Toronto. Juurlink said that some of Giuliani’s “statements are dangerous and are not to be believed.”

Last Friday, Twitter locked Giuliani’s account until he deleted one of his messages that indicated the treatment had been “100 percent effective” in treating covid-19, part of an effort to crack down on misinformation about the virus being spread on the platform, a company spokeswoman said.

Giuliani said he “didn’t think” he knew of the action by Twitter. He says he has been consulting widely with medical professionals on the treatment and that at least 20 have told him they are enthusiastic about its promise.

While some doctors in China and France have said they have used hydroxychloroquine on patients with covid-19 and seen improvements, Juurlink said the studies have been small and contradictory.

And the medicine does in rare cases have serious side effects, including lethal cardiac complications. Its interactions when used in combination with azithromycin, as Giuliani has promoted, are particularly not well understood, he said.

“The issue is that these are powerful medications that may or may not work for the desired efficacy but nevertheless have a side-effect package,” said Michael Ackerman, a genetic cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic who published an article last week in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings warning health-care providers about hydroxycholoroquine’s cardiac side effects.

Still, he said it may not hurt for figures like Giuliani and Trump to share their enthusiasm over the early reports the medicine has helped some people.

“Hope is a powerful medicine,” he said, cautioning against drawing political battle lines over treatments that could work.

Changing his focus

Many of Trump’s allies had hoped Giuliani’s influence over Trump might end with the impeachment crisis — a drama he helped spark with his efforts to find damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in Ukraine.

Two Giuliani associates who assisted in the project were arrested and charged with campaign finance violations. Late last year, federal prosecutors in New York sought information that indicated that they were scrutinizing Giuliani’s consulting and legal work on behalf of foreign clients. He has not been charged, and Giuliani has denied wrongdoing.

In early February, when Trump was acquitted by the Senate of charges he had abused his office, Giuliani declared vindication. (“Acquitted for life!” he tweeted just after the vote). He then spent weeks continuing to press his case against Biden in his podcast “Common Sense,” which he debuted in January.

By March, as the virus spread across the globe, Giuliani changed his focus to the growing crisis — at times calling for unity and comparing the moment to how the U.S. pulled together after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at other times issuing biting attacks against Trump’s perceived enemies.

In early March, he posted a sobering interview about the virus with Joe Lhota, a former mayoral aide who now serves as a top executive at New York University’s Langone Health center. Lhota explained that researchers increasingly believed that people with no symptoms at all could be spreading the deadly virus.

“They may not even know they have it?” Giuliani responded, exclaiming, “Oh my goodness!”

But days later, like other Trump supporters who at the time believed the virus was being exaggerated by Democrats to hurt the president’s poll numbers, Giuliani appeared to play down the threat.

On March 10, he tweeted statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Infection showing how many people die of various ailments in the U.S. each year. “Heart Disease: 635,260; Cancer: 598,038,” the list began, followed by four other common causes of death, including the flu. “Likely at the very bottom, Coronavirus: 27,” he wrote.

On March 26, he tweeted a quote from prominent Trump supporter Candace Owens: “Approximately 7500 people die every day in the United States. That’s approximately 645,000 people so far this year. Coronavirus has killed about 1,000 Americans this year. Just a little perspective.”

Giuliani said his tweets were referring to the fact that only a small percentage of people who contract coronavirus will die. “I was right,” he said. He did not address projections that more than 100,000 people in the United States could die from the virus.

His messages echoed arguments made at the time by Trump, who repeatedly compared the coronavirus to the flu and played down its severity as he resisted efforts to shut down the economy.

Among those with whom Giuliani has consulted about the virus are Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko, a family doctor from Monroe, N.Y., who has repeatedly been featured in conservative media after reporting he successfully treated hundreds of suspected covid-19 patients with what he called a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc sulfate. Experts say his results are anecdotal and need to be validated through controlled scientific studies.

“We text,” Zelenko said in an interview when asked about his communication with Giuliani.

Zelenko has also been in touch with White House officials, including Trump’s new chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as The Post previously reported.

Giuliani said he met the New York doctor through a rabbi and now speaks with him several times a day to compare notes. Appearing on Giuliani’s podcast last week, Zelenko said that no one under 60 should be given the medications because they would overcome infections from the coronavirus without them.

“Your immune system is strong enough. Statistically, it’s been proven. You will recover,” Zelenko said.

While younger people are less at risk, Juurlink said it is “just not true” that people under 60 all recover.

'The right channels'

On March 27, Giuliani hosted Robert Hariri, a doctor and chief executive of a New Jersey biotech firm Celularity that has been experimenting with using stem cells harvested from placentas to treat various forms of cancer.

Hariri said he believes the treatment could be effective with covid-19. Giuliani pressed to know when Hariri’s company would receive approval to begin administering the experimental treatment to covid-19 patients.

“The general reputation of the FDA — and I don’t mean to be critical at a time like this — but that it’s very slow,” Giuliani said. “I’ve represented pharmaceutical companies in very, very difficult situations, and it was my observation that they just took forever.”

Hariri told Giuliani that he expected to hear from the FDA on a request to conduct an early clinical trial within days; Five days later, the company announced that the FDA had greenlighted a study using the therapy in up to 86 covid-19 patients.

Felberbaum, the FDA spokesman, said the agency cannot by law comment on pending applications, but he said they are subject to “internal scientific review” to determine whether it is “reasonably safe to move forward with testing the drug in humans.”

Through a spokeswoman, Hariri declined to comment.

He told the New York Times last week that he has known Giuliani for years. He described the podcast appearance as “a friendly chat between people who know each other and who share a common interest in this particular response to this disease.” He said Giuliani had no financial relationship with him or his company.

Another recent podcast guest, Julius R. Nasso, who runs a company that supplies medical equipment to the shipping and cruise industries, used his March 25 appearance to pitch U.S. and state authorities on his idea for them to lease empty cruise ships to care for covid-19 patients.

“You can’t have any higher than the president’s personal attorney,” Nasso said in an interview. “He’s the one that basically gets it to the right channels.”

Nasso said he had been in touch with federal officials about his idea.

He also credited himself with prompting Trump’s March 26 suggestion that cruise companies repatriate their holdings from tax havens to receive state aid. “That was all a result of my interview with Rudolph W. Giuliani,” Nasso said. He declined to provide additional details.

Giuliani denied connecting Nasso with the White House. But, he said, “I did put him on my podcast, and I know people there listen.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

On the broadcast, Giuliani praised Nasso’s cruise ship idea.

“Frankly, a lot of these people are not that sick. It’d be kind of a nice environment for them, too,” Giuliani said, adding: “Could they use the pool?”

The former mayor described Nasso as a Brooklyn-raised pharmacist and shipping industry figure who was “another one of those great American success stories.”

In August 2003, Nasso pleaded guilty to conspiring to extort Seagal, the actor, and was sentenced to a year in prison. In 2008, he received a payment from Seagal in a civil legal settlement to resolve a business dispute.

The year before he was indicted, Nasso launched a film-production company whose board members included Paul Manafort, the political strategist who would go on to chair Trump’s presidential campaign. Manafort is now serving a 7.5-year federal prison sentence for financial crimes.

In a telephone interview, Nasso said he had known Giuliani for 35 years but said that they had no business relationship. Nasso declined to comment on his criminal conviction.

Waiting out the crisis

Before the pandemic, Giuliani would spend long hours with friends at exclusive cigar bars and traveled the world tending to foreign clients.

These days, Giuliani said he “keeps up with the six-foot thing,” but spends time with his usual “six or seven people around him,” including Denny Young, his former chief counsel at City Hall, who is now living with him.

The former mayor says he goes on drives every other day to inspect New York. When he records his podcast in his apartment, ambulance sounds often intrude.

“I don’t think the Grand Havana Room is open,” he said of one of his favorite cigar haunts in New York City. “If it was open, nobody would be there. I can dream of it coming back. That’s what I did after 9/11. I dreamed of all the things coming back.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rudy crawled out of his cave again:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Um, Rudy, you made a little typo there, you mean the Trump Crime Family.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, I'm guessing Rudes is going to be the next to announce he has tested positive.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Rudy is a superspreader:

[onekidanddone]

44 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Rudy is a superspreader:

Didn’t he have a coughing fit on camera the other day?

[GreyhoundFan]

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, you should not be accusing other people of being confused.