On Fox News, Rudy Giuliani repeatedly calls Mueller probe 'illegitimate'

published 9 August 2018

If you took a shot every time Rudy Giuliani said the word "illegitimate" during his appearance on Fox News Wednesday night, your liver has my sympathies.

During a conversation with Sean Hannity, President Trump's personal lawyer called Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and potential obstruction of justice by Trump "illegitimate," "totally illegitimate," and "completely illegitimate." Giuliani declared that he's "never been involved in an investigation that's more illegitimate than this one, that is so obviously more illegitimate, and I wonder where's the sense of justice on the part of Mueller, on the part of the Justice Department."

Giuliani went on to say that if Mueller's investigation isn't over by September, "then we have a very serious violation of the Justice Department rules, they shouldn't be conducting one of these investigations in the 60-day period [ahead of an election]." Hannity told Giuliani if he was trying to negotiate an interview between Mueller's team and Trump, "I wouldn't give him a thing. You don't owe him a thing. If he wants a fight, then there's gonna be a fight." Giuliani laughed and shared his prediction: "The real story here is not that this case isn't going to fizzle, it's going to blow up on them."

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Mueller wants Trump to testify under oath so he'll perjure himself, Giuliani said. "You think we're fools?" he asked. "We're not going to let you do that." Mueller doesn't need to "ask a single question on obstruction," Giuliani added. "He has all the answers." Thankfully, Giuliani said, Trump is "strong," as "a lesser president would have been really cracked by this." Watch the video below. Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.