Rudy Giuliani has gone from America’s mayor to “Co-conspirator 1.”
The former New York City mayor plays a leading role in the gripping story laid out by special counsel Jack Smith in his indictment of former President Donald Trump in the Jan. 6 probe.
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But it’s not yet clear if he will face the music for his role in the alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 election, or alternately might even flip and cooperate against Trump.
Rudy Giuliani has gone from America’s mayor to co-conspirator 1. In this photo, Giuliani is seen arriving at the courthouse in Manhattan on Sept. 8, 2022. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)
Giuliani is described in the indictment as “an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and … pursue strategies that [Trump’s] campaign attorneys would not.” Evidence matching actions that Giuliani took as part of the alleged scheme corroborate the connection.
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The Trump personal lawyer is accused of being a pointman in the effort to cajole state legislators to overturn the results in individual battleground states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
He pushed debunked conspiracy theories about supposed fraud claims in public hearings, notably in Georgia.
Giuliani and any of the other five co-conspirators named in the indictment could be charged at any time either together with Trump in a superseding indictment or separately.
It’s likely that Smith didn’t already charge Giuliani or others because he wants to move ahead faster with a trial of Trump without unnecessary delays.
The former NYC mayor plays a leading role in the story laid out by special counsel Jack Smith in his indictment of former President Donald Trump in the Jan. 6 probe. In this file photo, Trump arrives to speak at the Moms for Liberty meeting in Philadelphia on June 30, 2023. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Hours after the indictment dropped, Giuliani thundered that Smith is an “unethical lawyer” driven to get the ex-president at any cost.
“You don’t get to violate people’s First Amendment right, Smith, no matter who the hell you are or no matter how sick you are with Trump-derangement syndrome,” Giuliani said on the far-right-wing Newsmax channel.
Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Giuliani, said the indictment “eviscerates the First Amendment and criminalizes the ruling regime’s No. 1 one political opponent for daring to ask questions about the 2020 election results.”
Despite the bluster, Giuliani has taken steps toward exploring cooperating with Smith’s team.
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He recently sat for a so-called “proffer session” at which targets of a probe are given the opportunity to tell prosecutors what they know in hopes of winning leniency or an agreement to testify against Trump.
Such a formal deal would usually come with an immunity deal, which Giuliani might jump at given his apparent serious criminal exposure in the case.
Even before the Jan. 6 case, Giuliani faced a raft of legal woes.
A Washington, D.C., bar panel is considering a push to disbar him for making bogus claims in court about Trump’s election lies.
He is facing a defamation lawsuit filed by Atlanta election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. He recently admitted that he lied about the women, leaving him vulnerable to being found liable.
Giuliani was also hit with a lurid sex-harassment lawsuit in which a former aide says he made her sleep with him and perform oral sex on him when he was talking with Trump on the phone, acts he said made him “feel like Bill Clinton.” He denies that she was an employee and says they were dating.