The habit of pitting his employees against each other, has been a dog-eared page in Donald Trump’s playbook for decades. He has bragged about using this tactic to find out who’s loyal to him, and who isn’t.
Plus, he’s a bit of a sadist at heart. He appears to enjoy hurting people. Putting them in their place. Making them into losers. And………….watching them hurt each other.
Trouble is, this tactic doesn’t pan out so well, when you’re all being investigated by a Special Counsel’s Office of the United States Department of Justice.
When that’s happening, it’s every man, woman, and toddler for themselves.
And Rudy Giuliani just poured a gasoline tanker full of flammables onto the situation yesterday
Last night Rudy Giuliani dramatically shifted his defense of the President, claiming that he’d never denied there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. That’s obviously false. He claimed it a million times. The point though is what he’s now claiming, or rather unwilling to claim. Giuliani now only claims that the President himself did not collude with Russia. Indeed, he makes a further, related claim that the only potential crime would be if President Trump was personally involved in the hacking of DNC servers and email accounts or paid those who did.
First the quote
"I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign. I said the President of the United States. There is not a single bit of evidence the President of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC."
— Rudolph “the Red-nosed liar” Giuliani, Jan. 16, 2019
Proven false:
Fox News' Guy Benson: "Regardless of whether collusion would be a crime, is it still the position of you and your client that there was no collusion with the Russians whatsoever on behalf of the Trump campaign?"
Giuliani: "Correct."
— Rudolph “the Red-nosed Liar” Giuliani, July 2018
"I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign.”
Sounds like an admission (or, rather, a condemnation) to me.
And so it did, to others, as well.
…...one former Trump campaign official wrote to POLITICO when asked if Giuliani was trying to protect the president at the expense of everyone who worked for him.
This could very well burn down whatever alliances Donnie thought still existed, except for possibly Paul Manafort, who continues to lie for both himself and for Donnie, likely expecting a pardon in the coming months.
But others have already been carelessly jettisoned into the flames……..and they’re quite vociferous about saving their own skin.
Along with Michael Cohen, Trump’s greatest critic, Sam Nunberg has been giving it his all
“Nobody is really on the same team anymore when you’ve worked with Donald Trump,”
said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump 2016 campaign aide who has been questioned multiple times by Mueller and congressional investigators.
“Trump puts everyone against each other when you work for him,” he added. “While he demands loyalty, he doesn’t return it. Loyalty is not a two-way street, especially when you’ve got special counsel involved in it.”
Michael Zeldin, a former Mueller DOJ aide, likened the current divisions inside Trump world to the mafia.
[...]
Several other ex-Trump aides have turned on their former colleagues.
[...]
Gates snitched on Manafort’s clandestine effort to get people appointed to Trump’s new administration in January 2017.
[...]
The feuding among Trump associates isn’t just happening among people who have already been charged.
Stone has repeatedly derided New York-based liberal talk show host Randy Credico, placing the blame for any WikiLeaks backchannel communication on his ex-pal.
In an Instagram post last month, Stone accused Corsi of “working with Mueller to sandbag me on a fabricated perjury charge.”
Open warfare in Trump’s orbit has produced its share of schadenfreude, as well.
“Justice was well served today,”
former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said in an NPR interview last August after Cohen pleaded guilty and Manafort was convicted on the same day.
“Organized crime and international money laundering are a dirty business. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest as the ship is sinking the rats are jumping out.”
former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told POLITICO.
Burn, baby, burn