Lindsey Graham Compared Rudy Giuliani’s Legal Work To That Of A Third Grader

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham wanted Trump to win a second term, but he wasn’t persuaded at all by the so-called “evidence” that Rudy Giuliani presented to him. According to a new book by Bob Woodward, Graham likened the work done by Giuliani to that of a third grader, and those close to Graham who also looked at the material described it as “sloppy” and questioned whether any of it was even real. Farron Cousins explains what happened.

 

*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.
According to Bob Woodward’s new book peril. Lindsey Graham was one of the individuals brought in to the white house on January 2nd. We’re Rudy Giuliani talked to everybody there about how the election was allegedly stolen. And Lindsey Graham, according to the book was pressing Rudy Giuliani. Give me names, right? Give us the evidence you say you’ve got all this evidence. Give it to us. I’m the chair of the Senate judiciary committee, at least for a couple more days, Rudy. So let’s get on this buddy. Give me what you got. Well, a couple days later, Rudy Giuliani came through and he gave Lindsey Graham a packet, a packet that Lindsey Graham passed over to Lee Holmes, who was then the, uh, lead attorney for the Senate judiciary committee. And homes described the work as shoddy homes. When, as far as to question whether or not the sources that Giuliana used were even real, if they even existed. And once Lindsay Graham got his hands on the packet and he looks through it, he likened the work to that of a third grader, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham basically said that Rudy Giuliani’s legal work here because this is what it was. He was setting up the legal challenges, uh, could have been done by a third grader because it was so, so bad. This is Rudy Giuliani folks. And again, all of this is according to Woodward’s new book, but this is Rudy Giuliani, right? This was a man on the cover of time magazine, following nine 11. This was America’s mayor, right? The guy who came close, I guess you would say to, you know, possibly being a president of the United States. This is the guy who just in 2006, went to bat for, uh, you know, the, the big opioid companies and won in court for them. And he had been reduced to basically, you know what? We can surmise from this information, making stuff up to make Donald Trump happy and let’s not get this wrong. Lindsay Graham wanted Donald Trump to win Lindsey. Graham was at the white house that day because he thought there was a chance they could overturn the election. Lindsey Graham didn’t just happen to stumble into the oval office and say, oh shoot, is there a meeting here? Oh, okay. Yeah, I’ll sit and listen. Why not? Right? No. He was invited there and he accepted the invitation because he thought there was a chance, but Giuliani was so fricking terrible at what he does. And he had no evidence at all that Lindsay Graham was like, wow, this could have been put together by an elementary school student. Rudy Giuliani has ruined his reputation. Rudy Giuliani ruined any chance of having a decent legacy all because he decided to throw his lot in with Donald Trump. That was a choice he made because at one point he believed he was going to be rewarded. And now Trump won’t even return his phone calls. Trump won’t help him pay his massive legal bills that continue to Mount Giuliani has been left out in the cold. Donald Trump could not care less about what happens to Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham. Even though you didn’t go along with Giuliani’s plan here, you need to take note of that because you’ve also been a, a loyal lapdog to Donald Trump. And you need to realize that that loyalty is not a two way street, buddy. The second you are no longer useful to him or the second you are in need, you’re going to be cast out and you’re going to find yourself pretty lonely with the exception of course, of having Rudy Giuliani for company. Because Trump won’t talk to him either.

SHOW LESS

So this is why Trump doesn’t want officials to testify

Now we see why the Trump administration doesn’t want officials to testify in the impeachment inquiry.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) released the first batch of transcripts Monday from the closed-door depositions, including that of Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine removed from her post by President Trump at the urging of his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

If this is a sign of what’s to come, Republicans will soon regret forcing Democrats to make impeachment proceedings public. Over 10 hours, the transcript shows, they stumbled about in search of a counter-narrative to her damning account.

Yovanovitch detailed a Hollywood-ready tale about how Giuliani and two of his now-indicted goons hijacked U.S. foreign policy as part of a clownish consortium that also included Sean Hannity and a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor. Their mission: to oust the tough-on-corruption U.S. ambassador who threatened to frustrate Giuliani’s plans to get Ukraine to come up with compromising material on Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

Mike Pompeo has a cameo as the feckless secretary of state who refuses to stand up for his diplomat out of fear of setting off an unstable Trump. It all culminated in a 1 a.m. call from State’s personnel director telling Yovanovitch to get on the next flight out of Kyiv. Why? “She said, ‘I don’t know, but this is about your security. You need to come home immediately.’ ”

Yovanovitch, overcome with emotion at one point in her testimony, said she later learned that the threat to her security was from none other than Trump, who, State officials feared, would attack her on Twitter if she didn’t flee Ukraine quickly.

Confronted with this Keystone Kops way of governing, Republicans didn’t really attempt to defend Trump’s actions. Instead, they pursued one conspiracy theory after another involving the Bidens, George Soros, the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton, the Obama administration, deep state social-media “tracking” and mishandling classified information. They ate up a good chunk of time merely complaining that Yovanovitch’s opening statement had been made public (which under the rules was allowed).

“Ambassador,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) interjected, “are you aware of anyone connected to you that might have given that to The Washington Post?”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) interjected: “Did you talk to the State Department about the possibility of releasing your opening statement to the press?”

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) jumped in: “Ambassador Yovanovitch, do you believe that it is appropriate for your opening statement to be provided to The Washington Post?”

But Trump will need more than complaints about leaks to counter the narrative that Yovanovitch — and others — have documented.

Ukrainian officials had told her to “watch [her] back” because Yuri Lutsenko, a Ukrainian prosecutor with an unsavory reputation, was “looking to hurt” her and had several meetings with Giuliani toward that end. Lutsenko “was not pleased” that she continued to push for cleaning up Lutsenko’s office, and he tried to meet with Trump’s Justice Department to spread misinformation about her — including the now-recanted falsehood that she had given him a “do-not-prosecute list.”

She testified that wary Ukrainian officials knew as early as January or February that Giuliani was seeking damaging information on the Bidens and the Democrats — perhaps in exchange for Trump’s endorsement of the then-president’s reelection.

When Yovanovitch was attacked by Giuliani and Donald Trump Jr., among others, she asked for Pompeo to make a statement supporting her, but he didn’t do it because it might be “undermined” by a presidential tweet. (Pompeo did, apparently, have a private conversation asking Hannity to cease his attack on her.) Instead of support, she got career advice: Tweet nice things about Trump.

Notably, Republicans didn’t respond to her testimony by trying to make Trump’s behavior look good; they probed for ways to make Yovanovitch look bad.

They suggested she was part of a diplomatic conspiracy to monitor Trump allies such as Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs and Sebastian Gorka. They probed for damaging details on the Bidens (“Were you aware of just how much money Hunter Biden was getting paid by Burisma?”) and for ways to damage her credibility (“What was the closest that you’ve worked with Vice President Biden?”). Maybe Ukraine really did try to help Hillary Clinton in 2016, they posited. Maybe Ukrainian officials were “trying to sabotage Trump.” They asked if she ever said anything that might have led somebody to “infer a negative connotation regarding” Trump.

Meadows, struggling mightily to prove some wrongdoing by Yovanovitch, found he couldn’t pronounce the names he had been given — so he spelled them out. “I’m sorry, I’m not Ukrainian,” he said.

“Neither am I,” she replied.

No, she’s what threatens Trump most: an honest American.