On CNN Wednesday, national security analyst Susan Hennessey discussed how President Donald Trump's apparent new attempts to throw his attorney Rudy Giuliani under the bus could end very badly for him.
"It isn't plausible here at all that the president wasn't directing or aware of what Giuliani was doing," said Hennessey. "We know that because Giuliani's name came up multiple times in that phone call between Trump and Selensky. Now, that said, it does appear that Rudy Giuliani was also pursuing his own financial interest. This is a pattern we see in less developed democracies in which you have corrupt governments, individuals both carrying out the abuse of conduct of leaders and also trying to make a buck on the side."
"Now, I do think it's significant to see the president sort of trying to distance himself, in part because Giuliani — to the extent his media interviews are to be believed — his strategy here is to say that his legal defense is he is doing what the president of the United States told him to do. If the president is now saying, I didn't tell Giuliani what to do, that might one, increase the legal exposure or potential legal exposure for Giuliani, and incentivize Giuliani ... to reveal communications with the president."
"One of the reasons you could claim attorney-client privilege is you could say, I was representing my client, right?" agreed correspondent Evan Perez. "And one of the excuses you could use for not providing any information on that. But if you're now — if the president is now saying, look, I don't know what he was doing, he wasn't just representing me, then I think that opens certainly a little bit of — cracks open the door for prosecutors or someone to want to know, so who were you doing this for? This doesn't wash anymore."
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