Following the anti-climactic release of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller III into allegations that the campaign of President Donald Trump colluded with Russian operatives to steal the 2016 election, Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Fox and Friends Monday morning to fire off some accusations of his own, according to The Daily Mail .
Specifically, Giuliani wanted to know, if there was no collusion as the reports say, who created the “cockamamie” Russiagate theory as he put it. He also suggested that an investigation into what fueled the investigation in the first place is in order.
“The question now is: If there was no evidence of collusion – three investigations, no evidence of collusion – who made it up? It had to come from somewhere. It just didn’t come out of thin air,’” Giuliani said.
Giuliani was in lockstep with the line the White House has laid down following the report’s release, claiming that the fact that Mueller found no evidence of Russian collusion means the president has been “exonerated.” This talking point has been parroted by numerous White House figures, including the president himself, despite the fact that the report, as stated, “does not conclude that the president has committed a crime [but] also does not exonerate him.”
But to Giuliani and the Fox and Friends roundtable, the fact that the report has finally come out with no definitive charges of conspiracy to subvert the will of the American electorate at the direction of Russian spymasters implies that the entire Russiagate theory was itself a conspiracy and one that needs to be investigated.
“I want to know who did it, who paid for it, who fueled it.”
He added that the report shows that Trump “has been absolved, vindicated, exonerated – you pick the word.”
The conversation from the former mayor of New York City and former presidential candidate continued, as he began hinting that the White House is already looking into who might be to blame for the genesis of Russiagate, enthusiastically supporting a Wall Street Journal editorial that suggested “someone may have conned the FBI into one of the greatest dirty tricks in American political history.”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” Giuliani said when one of the hosts read out that line.
“And you’re going to find out, believe me, who it was.”
When pressed on who he thought might be the supposed ringleader behind creating the Russiagate conspiracy, Giuliani offered no solid answers, only saying “we’re working on it,” and that he has theories. He did offer a more direct jab at one of Trump’s longtime political opponents however, in a not-so-veiled threat to his 2016 campaign rival.
“‘Just because you have a ‘D’ after your name –Democrat, you know – or ‘Clinton’ or something like that, you still can be held to account,” Giuliani said.
Giuliani went on to list off a number of prominent Democrats whom he claims have insisted the president is guilty of collusion with the Kremlin and said that if they are “decent people,” they will come out now and apologize. Calling the 22-month probe “horrible” and “shameless,” Giuliani added that he was heartbroken “as a friend” over the way Trump was treated.
