Fact Checker - Rudy Giuliani's Pinocchio-laden interview on NBC's 'Meet the Press'
By Glenn Kessler
The Fact Checker
August 21 at 3:00 AM
“The meeting [at the Trump Tower in 2016] was originally for the purpose of getting information about Clinton. …That was the original intention of the meeting. It turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all.”
“Any meeting with regard to getting information on your opponent is something any candidate’s staff would take. If someone said, ‘I have information about your opponent,’ you would take that meeting.”
“She didn’t represent the Russian government. She’s a private citizen. I don’t even know if they knew she was Russian at the time. All they had was her name. … They didn’t know she was a representative of the Russian government.”
-- Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Aug. 19, 2018
-snip-
The Pinocchio Test
Giuliani’s efforts at subterfuge fall flat. The Trump campaign originally said there were no contacts with Russians. When contacts were found, officials said it was not about the campaign. When that talking point was proven wrong, the story changed yet again.
Now Giuliani tries to claim that any campaign would have taken such a meeting. But that’s legally dubious – and contrary to the way modern-day presidential campaigns should conduct themselves. Finally, there’s no way to spin the fact that Trump Jr. was told repeatedly that he was meeting with a representative of the Russian government. Giuliani earns Four Pinocchios.
Four Pinocchios
Full article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/08/21/rudy-giulianis-pinocchio-laden-interview-nbcs-meet-press/