As the most public member of Donald Trump’s legal team, Rudy Giuliani’s assigned role is apparently to make what seem to be “slips”—incidents in which he reveals jaw-dropping information that appear to undermine Trump’s position concerning Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, and Russian collusion. But in each case the position that Giuliani lets drop during some Sunday morning interview, things that seemed shocking when first uttered, have quickly become the standard position for Trump. Giuliani is Trump’s ice breaker.
This Sunday, in an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Giuliani appeared to be caught out in another lie, and to drop another in his series of bombshells. Asked about Trump’s request to former FBI director James Comey that he “give a break” to former national security advisor Michael Flynn, Giuliani at first claimed there had never been such a conversation.
Jake Tapper: So you’re saying that President Trump and James Comey never discussed Michael Flynn?
Giuliani: That is what [Trump] will testify to if he is asked that question.
Then, reminded that he had already discussed the conversation he was claiming never happened, Giuliani attempted to deny that conversation.
Giuliani: I never … I never told ABC that. That’s crazy. I never said that.
Which is when CNN went to the tape. However, while forced to admit—after watching himself discuss it—that he had previously accepted the reality of the conversation between Trump and Comey, Giuliani this week shifted his claim to say that was only “talking about their version of it.”
But that wasn’t the end of Giuliani’s reshaping of this particular part of Trump’s clumsy attempts at obstruction. Because given a chance to sit down with some “And Friends” over on “Fox,” Giuliani moved straight on to the next phase of this historical rewrite. The “So what?” phase.