NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani isn’t shedding any tears over Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman’s firing.
Giuliani — who remains under investigation by Berman’s office — suggested Saturday President Trump may have axed the Manhattan fed because he didn’t manage his staff properly and pursued some “(expletive)” criminal inquiries.
In a phone interview with The New York Daily News just after the ouster was announced, Giuliani, the personal attorney for Trump, said he remains dumbfounded as to how Berman could’ve allowed information to leak that his office was investigating him over potential foreign lobbying violations.
“I’m offended when I see people write that,” Giuliani said of being under investigation. “If they’re investigating me, they’re doing it in the most surreptitious way possible. It’s the strangest investigation I’ve ever heard of… I’m upset that someone’s giving away this information. I have nothing against Berman, but I would like him to clarify what the hell is going on.”
Berman’s office is investigating Giuliani over potentially running afoul of foreign lobbying requirements over his dealings in Ukraine, some of which prompted Trump’s impeachment, according to reports.
But Giuliani said he has “documents” to prove his innocence.
“I got documents to show I never acted as a foreign agent,” the ex-mayor said.
He added of Berman’s office: “There are some people there who like to play around with the reputations of people around the president.”
Giuliani, who held Berman’s job in the late 1980s, said he had not heard from Trump why he fired Berman.
But he suggested the reason may lie in the fact that Berman’s office got involved in what he described as baseless investigations.
Beyond the investigation involving himself, Giuliani took issue with the probe into ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen, which implicated the president in federal campaign finance crimes.
“That crime was complete (expletive),” Giuliani said. “We don’t prosecute people for personal sex things — you don’t do that (expletive).”
Cohen was convicted of paying off two of Trump’s alleged paramours shortly before the 2016 election in order to keep them from going public with allegations that the soon-to-be president had cheated on his wife. Trump — referred to as “Individual-1? — is described in Cohen’s indictment as having directed the payoff scheme in order to not harm his election chances.
Some legal experts have speculated Berman’s office could charge Trump with crimes relating to the Cohen payoffs after he’s out of office.
But Giuliani disagreed.
“I don’t see them indicting the president after he’s out of office for something personal — it’s (expletive) personal,” he said.
