Donald Trump’s days as president are, quite literally, numbered. On Wednesday at noon Joe Biden will be sworn in as the next president, as is laid out in the constitution after Biden won the 2020 election. There’s already been considerable reporting about how Trump will leave the White House ahead of Biden’s inauguration, but what happens to Trump after is still a bit of a mystery.
Trump was impeached twice while in office, the second time coming after he incited a MAGA riot to lead a failed coup at the US Capitol in order to overturn election results. And though he will leave office before it happens, the Senate plans to hold an impeachment trial for him that will require a considerable legal team. Reports indicated that was true over the weekend, and Giuliani was seen at the White House. But if you ask some Republicans, that means that Trump is doomed to be convicted by the Senate.
Karl Rove says on Fox News that if Rudy Giuliani defends President Trump in his impeachment trial, there is a “strong likelihood” that Trump will be convicted.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) January 17, 2021
That’s probably because Giuliani’s defense is reportedly something that has been thrown out of courtrooms all over America: a baseless conspiracy theory that Trump lost because of widespread, systemic voter fraud.
Rudy Giuliani tells @jonkarl that in his defense of the president, he would introduce allegations of widespread voter fraud that have been raised — and rejected — in dozens of courtrooms across the country. https://t.co/4eozVQJm9u
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 17, 2021
This comes on the same weekend Axios reported in depth about the bizarre scene in the White House in the days after Trump was declared the loser of the 2020 election. While some of the more reasonable members of his staff convened to explore a potential path to winning, albeit low percentage and involving some legal battles in states like Wisconsin, Giuliani reportedly led the charge of a “Giuliani cabal” shouting wild conspiracies. That group included lawyers like Sidney Powell and other conspiracy theorists that Axios reported sent Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in his favor off the deep end.
The story details some intense arguments between Giuliani and others in the White House about conspiracy theories, including one where Giuliani was called a “f*cking asshole” by another aide. Apparently it got to the point that those with more reasonable efforts to subvert democracy in mind had to leave the room and hold another meeting elsewhere while Giuliani and his friends were left behind.
A bizarre routine set in. These meetings would begin with official staff raising plausible legal strategies. Then Giuliani and Powell, a lawyer with a history of floating “deep state” conspiracy theories, would take over, spewing wild allegations of a centralized plot by Democrats — and in Powell’s view, international communists — to steal the election.
Bewildered campaign aides would look around the table at one another, silently asking what the hell was going on. One would invariably shuffle out of the room, followed by another a few minutes later. Then another. Then another. The professional staff would reconvene in Stepien’s office, about 20 yards down the hall.
Eventually, Giuliani would realize that he and his crew were alone in the conference room. He’d walk down the hall and knock on the glass outside Stepien’s office, where about eight aides had squeezed onto a pair of couches. “You guys, where did you go?” Giuliani would say. “This is serious!”
That report, of course, was denied. Just like Giuliani’s defense of Trump for a second impeachment trial was denied by the White House on Saturday.
After Giuliani was seen at the White House: https://t.co/5YCOCjPvne
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) January 17, 2021
But as his presidency comes to an end and the White House continues to empty out, it’s clear that some of the few people left defending Trump are Giuliani and the MyPillow guy.
[via Axios]