Donald Trump continues to claim to have won the presidential election. There may be method to his stubbornness, but co-inventor of the lie is Rudy Giuliani – his former lawyer, whisperer and speaker.
Rudy Giuliani was always the man for all odds. As mayor of New York, he transformed the crime-ridden juggernaut back into the glamorous metropolis of yesteryear. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, he presented himself as a big troublemaker and became a legend. Years later, he wanted to become US President and promised in the election campaign that he would overthrow Cuba’s legendary revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and send the first human to Mars. Nothing ever came of either. Neither does his electoral success.
Presidential whisperers and well poisoners
Giuliani, now 78, a native of Brooklyn, was past his heyday, but his role as presidential whisperer and well-poisoner was yet to come. Anyone who has seen the lawyer in public in recent years saw a drooling old man with a little madness in his eyes and even more madness in his mouth: “We can’t allow these crooks to steal the election from the Americans,” he said in November 2020 at a press conference. It was something like the official start of the election fraud show that had been presented for months and with which Donald Trump wanted to undermine confidence in the presidential vote. Now, two years later, a committee of inquiry is dealing with the consequences of the campaign, which would not have been possible without Rudy Giuliani.
For more than a year, members of the US Congress have been investigating how the Capitol in Washington was stormed on January 6, 2021, what role then-President Trump played and his claim that the US election was “stolen”. be. Former Presidential confidants, such as former Attorney General William Barr, have now testified that no one close to the White House believed the stolen election story except Giuliani, who appears to have had an ominous influence on Trump as a lawyer and adviser.
“Apparently drunk” Rudy Giuliani
Rep. Liz Cheney, Republican party member and biggest critic, testified before the committee that Trump did not listen to the moderating voices on election night, but to an “apparently drunk” Rudy Giuliani. “Trump’s campaign legal team knew there was no legitimate argument — fraud or irregularities or anything — to overturn the election.” Although the election result was far from reliable, Giuliani went around and advised Trump to declare himself the winner before the end of the vote count. Which he did. And to this day does; although there is no evidence and countless courts have upheld the legality of both the voting and the counting.
The constant repetition of the tale of the “stolen election” still holds true today. The majority of Republicans believe it, even some non-Trump voters. The “Big Lie,” as the ruling Democrats dub it, is believed to be the key narrative that triggered the storming of the Capitol that killed five and injured countless others. The committee of inquiry is trying to clarify whether there was even a coordinated campaign behind it to overturn the 2020 presidential election and keep Trump in the White House.
In any case, the name of the former New York mayor is omnipresent at the hearings. That’s how it was in the past, when the clouds of dirt around Donald Trump got denser again. For example, in the Ukraine affair, as a result of which the first impeachment proceedings against the former US President were initiated in 2019. As part of a smear campaign, Giuliani had asked representatives of Ukraine to look for incriminating material against current US President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
In a July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump hailed his private attorney as a “very competent guy” and urged Attorney General Barr and Attorney General Barr to liaise with Ukrainian authorities on investigations into Biden. In this context, Giuliani also met a Ukrainian who, as an agent on behalf of Russia, was part of a disinformation campaign against Joe Biden. Although Donald Trump survived the impeachment trial, the Ukraine affair was a disaster. A former government official blamed Giuliani for the mess: “Rudy – he did it all.”
As early as 2016, in Trump’s first election campaign, Giuliani had made himself Trump’s loudspeaker, sometimes with bizarre performances and outright lies. Perhaps he had hoped that his efforts would pay off in the form of a prestigious post, such as that of US Secretary of State. But there is no such thing as gratitude in Trump’s orbit. The New Yorker became a cybersecurity commissioner and later a personal attorney, hearing words like “Rudy’s drunk, Rudy’s fat” from Trump.
After the lost election, the lawyer was in top form at the legendary press conference: alongside the president’s son Eric, he railed against postal voting and alleged fraud. “The votes could come from Mars or from the Democrats themselves, Joe Biden could have voted 50 or 5000 times by letter. It’s voter fraud that Venezuela is behind, a communist conspiracy. Trump won, everywhere and by a large margin,” he lied bluntly in the faces of journalists. The same theater for a few days, but this time in a sad parking lot between a porn shop and a crematorium.
Giuliani’s lie will remain
Rudy Giuliani was knighted by the Queen, has the Ronald Reagan Medal of Freedom, was Times Person of The Year. He’s now barred from practicing law in almost every state in the US, and to top it all off, his gibberish has now made it into the official Republican canon of history. And there is no end in sight to the consequences for the democracy of the United States.
Sources: DPA, AFP, “BazOnline”, “Frankfurter Rundschau”, Munzinger
