This tweet thread by George Conway points out something that I haven’t heard anyone else say in the aftermath of the Washington Post and NY Times corrections that Giuliani didn’t actually receive a warning from the FBI:
Corrections are nice, but shouldn’t obscure the point that, at a minimum, Giuliani should have known that it was likely he was being used by the Russians. For example, …
Check out what he said to the Daily Beast last year: “The chance that Derkach is a Russian spy is no better than 50/50.”
And Giuliani’s own client, the former guy, *was* in fact told by the FBI that Russian intelligence officers were using President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani as a conduit for disinformation aimed at undermining Joe Biden’s candidacy.
Both knew or should have known what the Russian game was; neither gave a damn. Both allowed themselves to be turned into Putin’s tools.
Originally tweeted by George Conway (@gtconway3d) on May 1, 2021.
And as for the money, well Giuliani wasn’t being paid by Trump but he wasn’t working for free. It turns out that several people were trying to get marie Yovanovich fired, some of whom were corrupt Ukrainians and some of whom were Russian assets. And they all knew that Trump and Giuliani were trying to sabotage Joe Biden’s campaign. So which ones paid Giuliani? No matter who it was, it’s not too hard to surmise that they were paying him on behalf of Trump at least as much as themselves and Trump and Giuliani almost certainly knew it.
He always gets someone else to pick up his tab. Always.