It is an incredible thing to watch old men in obvious cognitive decline run around the highest levels of our politics, incriminating themselves almost constantly with, so far, zero consequences. The most outlandish example is Rudy Giuliani, who is working pro bono as a "lawyer" for the President of the United States. At first, it seemed like the Artist Formerly Known as America's Mayor might have taken the job because he missed the bright lights. But recently we've learned Giuliani also has some alternative revenue streams. For instance, he was paid half a million bucks by the company run by one of his since-indicted henchmen in the Ukraine caper—a company that's actually called "Fraud Guarantee."

Giuliani is now the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which he ought to know is not a good development, for his ratfucking activities on behalf of Donald Trump in Ukraine. And yet he has steadfastly refused to exercise his right to remain silent, maybe because his and his client's strategy seems to be that if you say you did the shady stuff in public, it's harder for the public to process it as shady. Or maybe he just has brain disease. After all, the indications are that he's been getting high on his own supply, and really believes the conspiracy theories he's peddling about a server in Ukraine. That's one of the things, along with a company tied to the Bidens, that he and Trump were pressuring the Ukrainians to announce an "investigation" into when they got caught.

Here's Giuliani defending his client on Wednesday night.

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Frenzied Dems propose impeachment based on @realDonaldTrump acting under Art 2, sec III of our Constitution, asking for an investigation of serious crime committed in 2016 that did great damage to US and Ukraine.



Dems are covering up because it’s bigger than you think! — Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) October 31, 2019

This is, in a number of ways, incredible. First of all, it appears Giuliani deleted a very similar tweet earlier in the night. Folks assumed this was because he realized it was kind of incriminating, but then he basically just reposted it.

Second, he's openly admitting that Trump pressured a foreign government to open an investigation that would benefit his personal political interests. This was not about general corruption in Ukraine: Giuliani himself pushed for the Ukrainians to mention the company tied to Hunter Biden, Burisma, in the prospective announcement. We learned yesterday that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky was well aware of what exactly Trump was demanding in that infamous phone call. This was an abuse of power and a betrayal of the president's oath of office, and itself constitutes an impeachable offense. No quid pro quo is necessary, although there was a quid pro quo, which Trump's other henchman on Ukraine, Gordon Sondland, admitted to in front of Congress.

Third, Giuliani cites Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution as justification for Trump's behavior. Let's go to the videotape:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

So to justify the president's international ratfucking operation, Giuliani cites his duty to give a State of the Union address? This is the presidential barrister's legal work? Actually, maybe Trump should just be thankful he didn't point to Section 4.

This is up there, in terms of competence level, with Giuliani's past forays into the cyber realm. The ex-mayor for years ran a security firm when he was not getting booed at Yankee games, and that firm claimed expertise in cybersecurity. In 2017, he was named a cybersecurity adviser to the president. And yet, last November, there was this:

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Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message. The same thing-period no space-occurred later and it didn’t happen. Don’t tell me they are not committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers. Time Magazine also may fit that description. FAIRNESS PLEASE — Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) December 5, 2018

Giuliani failed to put a space between a period and the next sentence, which, per every tweet ever, created a link. Someone bought the domain he mistakenly linked to and trolled it with an anti-Trump message. Rudy Giuliani, Cyber Expert, interpreted this as an "invasion" of his tweet.

There are many ways in which we are living under the tyranny of the olds, but forcing the nation to watch as brain-diseased viejos stumble across the landscape in their bathrobes, committing crimes and ranting about The Server, is a particular injustice. Rather than confront the various world-historical crises facing our species, we are all strapped in, Clockwork Orange-style, as Rudy and Don and all the others smash the glass, grab everything they can, and faceplant on their way out. And yet, somehow, the cops still haven't shown up to the jewelry store. We've got to work on that response time.

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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