MSNBC legal analyst says Rudy Giuliani may be implicated in ‘many different possible criminal conspiracies’
MSNBC legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah argued Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s ballooning Ukraine crisis doesn’t just appear to implicate himself in wrongdoing — but his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and potentially others.
Even long before the president’s damning call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25th pressing the new leader to go after Joe Biden and his family, Giuliani had been urging the country to investigate the former vice president on Trump’s behalf. And unlike Trump, if Giuliani broke laws in this effort, there’s no Justice Department policy protecting him from prosecution.
Rocah noted that, even though Giuliani now claims he was working in conjunction with the State Department — the truth of which is not clear — this wouldn’t exonerate him.
“Even if that is true, that somehow someone — we don’t know who — at the State Department, reached out to Giuliani, that doesn’t somehow take Giuliani out of many different possible criminal conspiracies,” she said. “But it rather might implicate people in the State Department. I mean, this is worthy of an investigation, is the point, and frankly, a criminal investigation that an impartial Department of Justice would do, which we don’t have right now.”
In a piece for NBC Think, Rocah detailed several of the crimes she thinks Giuliani could be implicated in. They include violating the Logan Act, federal criminal bribery and extortion, violating the Hobbs Act, and running afoul of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
“While Attorney General William Barr has made it clear that he will not prosecute Trump due to current DOJ policy, Giuliani enjoys no such privilege or immunity,” she wrote. “And, while the factual record is not fully developed, federal investigations are opened every day against people with far less known and incriminating information.”
Though she was careful to add: “This isn’t to say Giuliani should or shouldn’t be charged with a crime — and I am not calling for any certain outcome. This is to say that, based on my experience as a federal prosecutor, I believe the facts support the kind of investigation that would have been undertaken by former U.S. attorneys in the Department of Justice under Republican and Democratic presidents.”
Watch the clip below: