Sunday was another banner day for spokesfabricators in service to Donald Trump, American president. Face the Nation played host to Stephen Miller, the Santa Monica Gargamel, who apparently came directly from his new barbershop in an industrial paint plant. Meanwhile, Presidential Super Lawyer and Cyber Expert Rudy Giuliani, still recovering from having his tweet "invaded" by someone with "a disgusting anti-President message," joined George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week. What followed was a spectacular series of own goals.

First, Giuliani went out of his way to admit the President of the United States has been lying constantly about the hush-money payments his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to Trump's various alleged mistresses at the height of the 2016 election. But it's no big deal, Giuliani kindly explained, because the president isn't under oath when he's lying, then continually changing his story when his lies are exposed by further investigation.

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GIULIANI: "[Cohen] will say whatever he has to say. He has changed his story 4 or 5 times."



ABC: "So has the president."



GIULIANI: "The president is not under oath." pic.twitter.com/MBVkvoaSsE — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2018

The subtext here is that the United States president has no obligation to tell the truth unless legally compelled to do so. This doesn't seem like a great standard for the leader of the country, especially when federal prosecutors have assessed that these were crimes Cohen committed at Trump's direction, and a federal judge accepted Cohen's guilty pleas on that basis. Giuliani continued along this line in a separate Sunday interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, in which he declared Trump would sit for an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller "over my dead body." The message seems to be that Giuliani would die before putting the president in a situation where he was under oath and, as a result, had to tell the truth for any extended period of time.

Also, have you noticed that the president and his associates continually talk about whether people are going to "flip" or, in this case, "sing"? Is it supposed to reassure the public everything is above-board when you continually use mob lingo when talking about your business and your running buddies?

Giuliani said more than once that the hush-money payments were not crimes, which first of all just flies in the face of reality: Again, federal prosecutors and a federal court have assessed them to be crimes. Cohen is going to jail for, among other crimes, those crimes. But do you remember when Trump denied the affairs, then denied knowledge of the payoffs, then denied any involvement in the payoffs? It wasn't that long ago. Now he happily admits they were "simple, private transactions," and his lawyer has pivoted to claiming they weren't criminal. Which they were.

Elsewhere, Giuliani offered some (presumably expert) advice into how much Trump would pay someone off if they had a real affair, and how much he'd pay off somebody who was just being a nuisance:

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GIULIANI on hush payments: "The amount of $ is consistent w/harassment, not truth...when it's true & you have kind of money that the president has, it's a $1m settlement. When it's not true, you give $130k or $150k. They went away for so little $, it indicates their case is weak" pic.twitter.com/BmY8SoIri2 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2018

Again, all class from the Presidential Lawyer here. But there's no reason to believe a word of this: Giuliani has already admitted they've continually lied to the public about these payoffs. Why would anyone believe them now?

The hush-money deals weren't the only topic on which Giuliani sought to move the goalposts. In vintage fashion, he attempted to claim that there was no collusion and also that collusion is not a crime, anyway, so what's the big deal? You've got to cover all your bases. But in the process, he also spilled that "The Moscow Project" continued into November 2016—the farthest into the election anyone has yet claimed that negotiations to build a Trump Tower Moscow went on:

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🚨 ABC: "Did Roger Stone give the president a heads up on WikiLeaks' leaks concerning Clinton & the DNC?"



GIULIANI: "No he didn't... uh, *I don't believe so*. But again, if he did, it's not a crime." 🚨 pic.twitter.com/nHd1uTtNCL — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2018

This has the feel of a prior Giuliani performance, when he blurted out on Sean Hannity's show that Trump reimbursed Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment. Before that, the Trump camp had maintained he knew nothing about the payment. But it's hard to know nothing about it when you're paying someone back for it.

In this case, the Trump people initially claimed their pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project ended in January 2016. Then Cohen, in court filings at the end of last month, indicated it continued well into the summer of 2016—and he was even planning trips to Russia for himself and Trump on either side of the Republican National Convention. Now Giuliani has openly volunteered that the deal continued all the way to around Election Day, as Trump constantly and lavishly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on the campaign trail. We're forced to ask whether Trump's eagerness to work with the Russians was confined to his private business dealings and his public statements, or whether there was another dimension to the relationship.

It's difficult to have complete faith in Giuliani here, and not just because he continually lies on purpose. He doesn't seem to have a very firm grasp on the date, and his description is...sketchy.

According to the answer that he gave, it would have covered all the way up to November of 2016. Said he had conversations with him about it. The president didn't hide this.

He didn't hide it? Well he certainly didn't advertise that he was pursuing a lucrative deal with a hostile foreign oligarchy while running for President of the United States. But also, why does Giuliani phrase it this way: "it would have covered all the way up to November"? This sounds like an answer crafted to maximize a legal defense, not offer the truth to the public. Maximizing the president's defense is Giuliani's job when corresponding with the special counsel, but his job here—at least putatively—is to assuage any concern that Trump is acting in his own interests before those of the country.

Because that is what's at the root of it here. These conflicts of interest have popped up repeatedly—see also: Saudi Arabia—and raise the question of whether Trump is fulfilling his oath of office. This is why presidents divest from their businesses upon taking power. Jimmy Carter had to give up his peanut farm, but Donald Trump has kept de facto control over a business with tentacles stretching all over the world. (He put his sons in charge, and Tweedledee and Tweedlemoron immediately admitted they'd be updating him regularly on the business. Those updates presumably include who is putting money in their pockets.) All of this is the basis for multiple lawsuits alleging the president has violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which the New York Times dug into today.

It seems almost quaint now, but there's a reason we call government officials "public servants." The idea is they've chosen to put their insatiable appetite for cash to one side for a while as they serve the public. Pursuing private business deals, then lying constantly to the public about them, is not a traditional model for "service." Before he was a Guy Who Gets Raucously Booed at Yankee Games, maybe Rudy Giuliani knew that.



Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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