Rudy Giuliani (by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia)
At what point will Rudy Giuliani have deteriorated to such an extent that we’ll have to stop laughing at him out of basic decency? Is America’s Mayor so demented that we must now tut-tut and furrow our brows with concern? Let’s go with not yet! And thank goodness, because we could all use a laugh in times like these.
This week, facing news that he is either the subject or the target of a grand jury investigation by his old office at the Southern District of New York, Rudy Giuliani, the world’s worst client, fired his lawyer.
It’s “silly to have a lawyer when I don’t need one,” Giuliani told The New York Daily News, just hours after announcing his decision to defy a congressional subpoena. “If they decide to do an enforcement, I’ll need someone to go to court with, and we’ll figure that out at the time.”
UH HUH. Well, as long as he’s confident that Adam Schiff won’t “do an enforcement” like he did to Don McGahn, then Rudy’s in the clear.
Giuliani’s two clients cum business associates were just arrested trying to leave the country and charged with multiple campaign finance violations. He’s smack in the middle of the massive impeachment scandal engulfing the White House, State Department, DOJ, and Energy Department. And CNN reports that a grand jury is looking at his finances while counterintelligence agents are all the way up in his business trying to determine “whether a foreign influence operation was trying to take advantage of Giuliani’s business ties in Ukraine and with wealthy foreigners to make inroads with the White House.”
Could be that Rudy will “need someone to go to court with” after all. Seems like a distinct possibility!
So it’s frankly insane that he parted ways with his law school classmate Jon A. Sale of Nelson Mullins after getting him to tap out this postcard to Congress saying Rudy can’t come to their impeachment party because he’s too busy applying brown Sharpie to his eight remaining hairs.
What in the world is this nonsense?
Sale is a highly experienced white-collar defense attorney who assisted Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski before serving as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Which makes this two-paragraph note incorporating White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s letter, vaguely alluding to privilege, and then gettin’ outta Dodge all the weirder.
For his part, Sale insists he wasn’t fired — the representation just came to a natural end when Rudy decided not to appear before Congress.
Rudy agrees that the parting was amicable, saying, “We’re still close friends. He’s still an adviser.” And anyway, he’s not worried about defying a congressional subpoena because, “It’s not authorized what they’re doing in secret. It’s an abomination of due process. I can’t imagine a court would tolerate what they’ve done.”
Paging Don McGahn …
Shine on you crazy-but-probably-not-to-a-clinical-extent-yet diamond. And don’t forget to bring that iPad with the million point font next time you want to go on Hannity and share all your privileged texts.
Rudy Giuliani says he won’t comply in ‘abomination’ impeachment inquiry, parts ways with his lawyer ‘for now’ [New York Daily News]
Federal investigation of Rudy Giuliani includes counterintelligence probe [CNN]
Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.