President Donald Trump’s former lawyer on Friday strongly criticized his current attorney, saying Rudy Giuliani comments on television have harmed the president’s case.
The attorney, Jay Goldberg, who represented Trump in his two divorces, said on CNN that Giuliani is “immeasurably” damaging Trump’s case with conflicting statements concerning the truthfulness of Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer.”
“President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, substantially weakened his case against Michael Cohen by going back and forth as to whether Cohen could tell federal prosecutors the truth, said Jay Goldberg, President Donald Trump’s friend and former lawyer.”
President Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, substantially weakened his case against Michael Cohen by going back and forth as to whether Cohen could tell federal prosecutors the truth, said Jay Goldberg, President Donald Trump's friend and former lawyer https://t.co/T382VnyITz pic.twitter.com/G7t8wDQMpW
— CNN (@CNN) July 28, 2018
“I knew as soon as Giuliani spoke that he was damaging Trump’s case immeasurably,” Goldberg said on CNN. “It ranks near 100 in terms of damage.”
In recent months Giuliani said he had confidence in Cohen, saying he was “truthful” and that he was not worried that Cohen would “flip” on Trump and begin cooperating with prosecutors.
But now it seems that Cohen is indeed positioning himself to start cooperating with prosecutors so Giuliani has changed his tune. After it came out that Cohen had an audio recording of Trump making arrangements a payment to purchase the rights to a former Playboy models’ story of her affair with Trump, Giuliani began criticizing Cohen, and has said that is a “pathological liar.”
CNN reported Thursday that Cohen was prepared to tell prosecutors that Trump had advance knowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and Russian nationals, which the president has claimed he did not know about.
“I expected something like this from Cohen,” Giuliani told CNN on Thursday. “He’s been lying all week. He’s been lying for years.”
“I don’t see how he has any credibility,” he added.
Goldberg told CNN that he didn’t think Giuliani would be a good defense attorney for Trump given his track record as a prosecutor. He said:
“I didn’t think he had knowledge of how to handle the case from the defense perspective. He was a long-time prosecutor. He didn’t know how to set a case up for the possible impeachment of a witness such as Cohen. Now, we don’t know that Cohen would tell the truth. It’s entirely likely that given precedent a person who was in Cohen’s position would tell the government what he believes the government wants to hear. For Giuliani to say that he will tell the truth strips the defense of its main weapon of claiming that he is coloring his testimony to favor the government so he can get a letter of cooperation.”
“It ranks near 100 in terms of damage. In other words, the testimony would be, ‘You’re claiming that Mr. Cohen is not telling the truth. So, on a certain date, you said that Cohen would tell the truth and that he is an honorable person. And the jury would hear that. That would be terribly damaging to someone who is trying to impeach the credibility of Cohen. No defense oriented lawyer would say that.”
Cohen is being investigated by federal and state prosecutors in New York City for many different possible financial crimes. There has been speculation that he will cooperate with the prosecutors to get reduced charges and lenient sentencing ever since the FBI raided his office, home and hotel in April.
Goldberg’s comments about Rudy Giuliani are just the latest evidence that the former New York City mayor is an incompetent blowhard who is a horrible lawyer and is doing Donald Trump more harm than good. The only thing Giuliani is good at is making headlines for his outrageous comments on TV, and apparently that is all that his client cares about.
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