MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Rudy Giuliani backtracks, now says he WON'T be on Trump impeachment defense team, dubbed 'co-conspirator'

Earlier today, Giuliani confirmed, 'I am a witness and therefore unable to participate in court or Senate chamber'

The world might have abandoned Donald Trump during his last days as President of the United States, but there was one person hoping to be with him through all ups and downs, till the very end of his presidentship. Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was confident that he would be on the POTUS' impeachment defense team arguing that the president's claims of widespread voter fraud did not incite the mob on January 6, 2021, during the Capitol riots. But all his hopes were crushed as it doesn't look like Trump wants him on board. 

Earlier today, Giuliani confirmed to ABC News that he won't be on Trump's defense team. "Rudy Giuliani now says he won’t be on the Trump impeachment defense team. “Because I gave an earlier speech [at the January 6 Trump rally], I am a witness and therefore unable to participate in court or Senate chamber,” he tells me," ABC's Jonathan Karl tweeted.

The former New York City mayor's plan was to reiterate on the voter fraud claims that Trump has been harping on since November election, regardless of the fact that these claims have been repeatedly failed in court. Many of Trump's lawyers who were involved during the first impeachment trial including White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputies and outside lawyers Jay Sekulow and Jane and Marty Raskin were not returning for a second time around. This had led to Giuliani's confidence that he would be "involved" in the process only to reveal that he is not. 

Since it was reported that Giuliani is actually not on Trump's defense team, the Internet thinks it is a fit treatment, adding that he was a co-conspirator of the attacks and now just a "witness". "Witness? He misspelled "accomplice"," a user tweeted. "He's co-conspirator to the crime. Although, it would've been the best thing to have a nutty lawyer defend his nutty defendant," another user added. 

Giuliani is being called a co-conspirator because he had encouraged supporters to engage in 'trial by combat' shortly before they barged into the Capitol. This has left him in a legal puddle himself. 

Many on the Internet are theorising what actually went down behind the doors. "Meaning... 1. He knows he’s getting arrested for incitement 2. He’s sick of working for s guy who doesn’t pay him 3. He’s afraid they’ll play his cameo from the Borat sequel—or him farting in air, or the video with the sweating hair dye, or..." one tweeted. 

Giuliani, who himself is facing the prospect of disbarment in the state of New York, was anyway going to be the worst candidate for Trump to pick for his defense team. Veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove had also warned on Sunday that there is a "strong likelihood" that Trump would be convicted if Giuliani manages his defense. 

"Rudy Giuliani charted a very bad course for the president in the morning papers when he suggested that the argument was going to be: ‘Well, there couldn’t have been incitement because all the charges of widespread voter fraud are true," he said, adding, "Essentially, that argument is: ‘This was justified, the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to end the congressional hearing on certifying the election was justified, because all these charges are true.’ And frankly, they aren’t".