Rudy Giuliani could prove to be a powerful witness against Donald Trump in the Jan. 6 case, and a former federal prosecutor said he had strongly compelling reasons to cooperate with special counsel Jack Smith.
The former president has already been indicted in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, and he could face similar charges in New Jersey, but The Bulwark columnist Dennis Aftergut said Trump suddenly faces a gathering threat of indictment for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss after Giuliani reportedly made a “proffer” for testimony in that investigation.
“Here’s why I think that Giuliani is indeed seeking to cooperate,” wrote Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor and currently of counsel with Lawyers for American Democracy. “First, however nonsensical Giuliani’s past thinking and public utterances have been, facing prosecution tends to focus the mind. Giuliani likely sees his freedom at risk because he was so central to Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election before January 6th.”
Giuliani and Trump pressured Arizona House speaker Rusty Bowers to reverse the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and the former New York City mayor allegedly led the “fake electors” scheme, and Smith reportedly asked him in the proffer session about that effort and about the command center at the Willard Hotel, where Steve Bannon right-wing attorney John Eastman and others gathered on Jan. 6.
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“Giuliani probably figures that at this point he owes Trump nothing,” Aftergut wrote. “Author Michael Wolff reported that in 2021, after Rudy’s over-the-top labors attacking the 2020 election, Trump gave Rudy ‘the cold shoulder,’ irked that ‘he tried to get paid for his election challenge work.’ Of all things!”
“Third, Giuliani and his lawyers surely feel the prosecutorial vise tightening on him,” Aftergut added. “Two of Nevada’s fake electors have testified before Smith’s grand jury. So has Trump campaign official Gary Michael Brown, who was reportedly connected to the fake-electors scheme, while his boss, Michael Roman, has now reportedly reached a cooperation agreement with Smith. Even Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, who emailed about the need ‘to have someone coordinating the [fake] electors for states,’ is reported to have testified in Smith’s probe.”
Smith has already gotten courts to pierce attorney-client privilege to get testimony from other Trump lawyers, and it’s possible he already did so for Giuliani in a closed proceeding, and he may want to cut his own deal with the special counsel before favorable terms are pulled from the table.
“Giuliani is a target in Georgia,” Aftergut wrote. “Boy, would he love Jack Smith’s help brokering a global deal with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. To tempt prosecutors to make a deal, potential cooperators have every incentive to spill their guts. Prosecutors can use against profferors any facts they omitted.”
“Jack Smith’s prosecutorial team is a freight train barreling down the tracks at full speed, with one destination in mind: Applying the law and the facts to the person or persons atop the chain of command on January 6th,” he added. “Rudy would be smart to get out of the way.”