Rudy Giuliani is a walking public gaffe. From his infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference to his unexpected cameo in Borat 2 — and his even more unexpected Cameo, period — the former New York City mayor seems to be his own worst enemy. But it turns out that his unpredictable behavior led some people within the Donald Trump administration to believe that he might be an enemy of the state, too.
As Insider reports, retired U.S. Army lieutenant general H.R. McMaster — who served as Trump’s National Security Advisor for approximately 14 months between 2017 and 2018 — was so convinced that Rudy was acting as a foreign agent that he made sure to be in the room whenever Trump’s pal-turned-personal lawyer came calling around the Oval Office.
That intel comes courtesy of The Divider: Trump in the White House, a new book co-written by The New York Times‘ Peter Baker and The New Yorker‘s Susan Glasser. The book claims that McMaster, who replaced Michael Flynn as security advisor, told others that he was “so concerned about Trump’s friend Rudy Giuliani acting as an ‘influence agent’ on behalf of Turkish or other interests that he had a policy of making sure he was in the Oval Office whenever the former New York mayor visited.”
As Insider’s Sonam Sheth notes, it wasn’t the first time Giuliani had been suspected of operating as a foreign agent:
While working as Trump’s personal defense attorney, Giuliani spearheaded a campaign to dig up dirt on the Bidens ahead of the 2020 US election. His efforts came under prosecutorial scrutiny in 2019 as investigators began examining whether he broke foreign lobbying laws.
Specifically, the Manhattan US attorney’s office wanted to know if Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine were carried out solely in his capacity as Trump’s lawyer or whether he was also working on behalf of foreign interests who believed they would benefit from Trump’s reelection.
In early August, The New York Times reported that the investigation into Giuliani was “winding down with no indictment expected.”
Unfortunately, Rudy’s legal troubles are far from over. He remains the target of a grand jury investigation in Georgia into his and Trump’s alleged election meddling. Marrying his cousin, however, was not illegal.
(Via Insider)