U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Monday that “collusion is not a crime” while maintaining his client has done nothing wrong.
Appearing on Fox & Friends, the former New York City mayor downplayed any possible connection between the Trump campaign and Russia.
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“I’ve been sitting here looking at the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime,” Giuliani said. “Collusion is not a crime. Everything that’s been released so far shows the president to be absolutely innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
On Sunday, Giuliani said Trump may be open to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller even if it involves some questions about alleged obstruction of justice in the federal investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election. Giuliani said negotiations continue with Mueller’s office regarding the conditions for an interview, which Trump’s legal team spelled out in a proposal this month.
Giuliani’s comments come as Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s trial begins. It’s the first trial stemming from Mueller’s special investigation.
Giuliani also told CNN on Monday that he wasn’t sure that colluding is a crime and that Manafort “was not involved with intimate business relationships with Donald Trump.”
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“Four months, they’re not going to be colluding with Russia, which I don’t even know if that’s a crime, colluding about Russians,” Giuliani told the news network. “You start analyzing the crime — the hacking is the crime. The president didn’t hack.”
Trump has repeatedly insisted that there was no collusion between his campaign with the Russians and that the special investigation into the matter was nothing more than a “witch hunt.”
Mueller’s team has indicted or secured guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies, including the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officials. Of the four former Trump aides ensnared by the probe, Manafort is the only one to go to trial.