Speaking of Giuliani running his trap...

The Washington Post has the definitive story.

He may have had a strategy, but Rudolph W. Giuliani hatched it almost entirely in secret.

The White House counsel had no idea. Neither did the White House chief of staff, nor the White House press secretary, nor the new White House lawyer overseeing its handling of the Russia investigation.

They watched, agog, as Giuliani, the president’s recently-installed personal attorney, freestyled on live television Wednesday night about the president’s legal troubles and unveiled an explosive new fact: that Trump reimbursed his longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, the $130,000 paid to adult-films actress Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

  WaPo

Brilliant move.

Aides and advisers to the president — who were scrambling Thursday morning to manage the fallout of Giuliani’s interview with Sean Hannity, a Trump-friendly Fox News Channel host — expressed a mixture of exasperation and horror. One White House official texted a reporter a string of emoji characters in response, including a tiny container of popcorn.

LOL. Somebody's gonna get FIRED! if he/she is discovered.

In this case, Giuliani said he was trying to solve one problem for Trump — by establishing that the payment to Daniels came from personal funds and was “funneled” through a law firm, arguing it therefore did not violate campaign finance laws.

Giuliani said in an interview with The Washington Post that he discussed the issue with Trump a few days ago and they agreed that he would reveal details about the reimbursement.

With advice like that from his own lawyer, Trump is sunk.

Asked whether he might be fired for what he told Hannity, Giuliani replied, “No, no, no! I’m not going to get fired.” Laughing, he added, “But if I do, I do. It wouldn’t be the first time it ever happened. But I don’t think so, no.”

Tony Carbonetti, a longtime friend and adviser to Giuliani, said he was dining with the former New York mayor on Manhattan’s Upper East Side Thursday night before he went on Fox. “We thought it was a quick hit and he was coming right back,” Carbonetti said, adding that Giuliani returned to the dinner table around 10:15 p.m. and seemed pleased with how the interview went.

And I read somewhere else (can't recall where*) that Giuliani and Trump discussed the same after Rudy spilled the beans, but before smarter people started commenting on what a dumb fucking thing to do it was, and that Trump was just as stupidly smug as Giuliani.

Carbonetti warned that those lampooning Giuliani are mistaken.

“If you’ve been around Rudy, there’s always a reason for it,” he said. “If you knew a narrative was coming out, wouldn’t you want to tell the story on your terms?. . .He wanted to get ahead of it.”

In other words, it's even worse than Giuliani portrayed it??

In a trio of tweets Thursday morning, Trump attempted to do some damage control, writing in a notably restrained style — complete with honorifics, although marred by one misspelling — that Cohen had received a monthly retainer that did not come from the campaign and insisted that no campaign finance laws had been violated.

Anyone want to bet that Giuliani drafted those tweets?

Aides speculated that the tweets may have been drafted by members of the president’s legal team, noting that they did not seem to be written in Trump’s singular Twitter voice.

Those aides are sharp.

Andrew Kirtzman, a Giuliani biographer, said he did not see any “strategic sense” to Giuliani’s comments. “While he has always been bombastic, there has always been a logic to that bombast,” Kirtzman said. “I don’t see the logic here.”

I'll tell you what the logic is: Giuliani is as panicked as Trump. Giuliani is up to his eyeballs in collulsion with the Trump campaign and Russian mobsters.

[I]f Trump was upset with his lawyer’s performance, he did not show it. Indeed, the president was party to hatching the strategy, according to three people involved in the discussions. In recent weeks — over phone calls, dinners and private Oval Office huddles — Giuliani and Trump have talked through the thicket of legal issues facing the president beyond the Russia investigation, these people said.

No doubt. What a brilliant move to hire a lawyer that's as dumb as you are.

“Giuliani’s value to Trump is not just that he’s got gravitas in the room with Mueller,” said Kirtzman, author of “Emperor of the City.” “It’s not just that he is a television celebrity. He’s a confidante. Trump needs a confidante more than ever. He hasn’t been able to find a confidante among the lawyers he hired. The question is whether Giuliani winds him up or calms him down.”

Oh, I think the former. Without a doubt. And Trump can't find a confidante among lawyers because they're not also in a world of legal hurt. That is, except for Michael Cohen. And Trump sure can't talk to him now.

"Gravitas"? Have you met Rudy Giuliani?

Cohen’s attorney, Steve Ryan, has been aware of Trump’s repayment for several weeks, possibly months, according to a person familiar with Cohen’s account. Cohen was averse to sharing this information publicly because he didn’t want to appear to be contradicting Trump’s denial in early April that he knew about the payment.

And then along comes Rudy.

Neither White House counsel Donald McGahn nor Emmet Flood, the White House attorney recently hired to handle the Russia investigation, knew that Trump had reimbursed Cohen before Giuliani revealed it on television Wednesday night, according to a person familiar with their knowledge.

McGahn and Flood also were not informed in advance of Giuliani’s plan to disclose the repayment information in his Fox interview, nor were other senior aides in the White House.

We know McGahn is working his way out. How long will Flood last?

The communications and press staff run by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not book Giuliani’s appearance on Hannity’s show and were not involved in helping him strategize his talking points.

Nope. Just Rudy and Donnie with their little heads together.

The gravitas is overwhelming.

Later Thursday morning, Trump made his first public appearance of the day, standing with religious leaders in the resplendent Rose Garden of the White House to celebrate the National Day of Prayer.

Perfect timing.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.



Probably got the job with some help from his mafia friends.  Not all attorneys are smart.  Not even all US Attorneys.



*UPDATE:

Here it is: