Political Wire

  • Front Page
  • Trending
  • Members
    • Subscribe
    • Sign In
  • Contact Us

Pirro Calls for Jailing of Trump’s ‘Traitorous’ Accusers

March 31, 2019 at 8:24 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jeanine Pirro returned to Fox News after two weeks off the air and let loose with a tirade against the “traitorous, treasonous” investigators who probed President Trump’s ties to Russia, claiming another “coup” may be in the works if Trump’s accusers don’t “face behind the bars justice.”

Among her guests was Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who praised her as a “crusader for justice.” Giuliani also called for the Justice Department to investigate those “who tried to perpetrate a fraud against the American people” and said former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe “should be in jail for perjury.”

Filed Under: Media Buzz Tagged With: Jeanine Pirro, Rudy Giuliani

Quote of the Day

March 22, 2019 at 10:49 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“It’s like waiting for a baby… If the report is good, I’ll give out cigars.”

— Rudy Giuliani, quoted by the Washington Post, on the pending Mueller report.

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Judge Tries to Keep Giuliani and Estranged Wife Apart

March 14, 2019 at 6:35 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Daily Beast: “Rudy Giuliani and estranged wife Judith Nathan Giuliani’s divorce has hit such a high level of bitterness that a judge told them not to be in the same room if they run into each other at social clubs.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Had Backchannel to Michael Cohen

March 13, 2019 at 5:33 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

An attorney who said he was speaking with Rudy Giuliani reassured Michael Cohen in an April 2018 email that Cohen could “sleep well tonight” because he had “friends in high places,” according to a copy of an email obtained by CNN.

“Two emails — both dated April 21, 2018, and among documents provided to Congress by the President’s former attorney and fixer — do not specifically mention a pardon. Cohen, in his closed-door congressional testimony, has provided these emails in an effort to corroborate his claim that a pardon was dangled before he decided to cooperate with federal prosecutors.”

Jonathan Chait: “This is a really, really big deal. The power to pardon convicted criminals for federal crimes is a legitimate use of presidential authority. Whether it’s legitimate for the president to use this power to pardon criminals who committed crimes on his behalf, or might have otherwise testified against him, is a subject of intense debate.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani

Lawyers Claiming Ties to Giuliani Approached Cohen

March 6, 2019 at 5:02 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Michael Cohen “was contacted by two New York attorneys who claimed to be in close contact with Rudy Giuliani, the current personal attorney to Trump,” ABC News reports.

“The outreach came just as Cohen, who spent more than a decade advocating for Trump, was wrangling with the most consequential decision of his life; whether to remain in a joint defense agreement with the president and others, or to flip on the man to whom he had pledged immutable loyalty. The sources described the lawyers’ contact with Cohen as an effort to keep him in the tent.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Developed the Playbook to Take Down Trump

March 4, 2019 at 8:40 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Garrett Graff: “Indicting the whole Trump Organization as a ‘corrupt enterprise’ could also help prosecutors address the thorny question of whether the president can be indicted in office; they could lay out a whole pattern of criminal activity, indict numerous players — including perhaps Trump family members — and leave the president himself as a named, unindicted co-conspirator. Such an action would allow investigators to make public all the known activity for Congress and the public to consider as part of impeachment hearings or re-election. It would also activate powerful forfeiture tools for prosecutors that could allow them to seize the Trump Organization’s assets and cut off its income streams.”

“The irony will be that if federal prosecutors decide to move against President Trump’s empire and family together, he’ll have one man’s model to thank: his own TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who perfected the template to tackle precisely that type of criminal enterprise.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Trump Directs Giuliani to Scale Back Interviews

January 24, 2019 at 11:32 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “The president also asked Giuliani to clean up some of his misstatements publicly, complaining he created a weekend of news, including negative cable chyrons, at a time when Trump wanted public attention focused on Mueller disputing a BuzzFeed report that Trump had asked Cohen to lie to Congress.”

“The recent tensions between Trump and Giuliani highlight the unique role he plays for the president. Even though Trump has been frustrated with Giuliani’s performance several times since he became his lawyer in April, he continues to get a longer leash than most of the president’s aides and surrogates. That’s because Giuliani, whom he considers a friend, is doing what Trump wants — serving chiefly as his public defender rather than his pragmatic legal counsel — and because the president would struggle to replace him after being turned down by several high-profile attorneys reluctant to represent the mercurial Trump.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Trump Mulls Sidelining Giuliani

January 23, 2019 at 8:47 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Rudy Giuliani’s latest media blitz, which was filled with a dizzying array of misstatements and hurried clarifications, agitated President Donald Trump and some of his allies, who have raised the possibility that the outspoken presidential lawyer be at least temporarily sidelined from televised interviews,” the AP reports.

“The president told advisers that he felt his lawyer had obscured what he believed was a public relations victory: the special counsel’s rare public statement disputing portions of a BuzzFeed News story that Trump instructed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie before Congress… The president told confidants that Giuliani had ‘changed the headlines’ for the worse and raised the possibility that Giuliani do fewer cable hits, at least for a while.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Suggests ‘Tapes’ Vindicate Trump

January 22, 2019 at 6:40 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rudy Giuliani told the New Yorker he knows the BuzzFeed story about President Trump telling Michael Cohen to lie to Congress is false.

Said Giuliani: “I have been through all the tapes, I have been through all the texts, I have been through all the e-mails, and I knew none existed. And then, basically, when the special counsel said that, just in case there are any others I might not know about, they probably went through others and found the same thing.”

When pressed on the tapes, he backtracked: “I shouldn’t have said tapes. They alleged there were texts and e-mails that corroborated that Cohen was saying the President told him to lie. There were no texts, there were no e-mails, and the President never told him to lie.”

When pressed again: “No tapes. Well, I have listened to tapes, but none of them concern this.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Complicates Trump’s Russia Denials

January 21, 2019 at 9:01 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The New York Times explains why Rudy Giuliani’s admission that President Trump was pursuing a Trump Tower Moscow deal during the presidential campaign is a big deal.

“The new timetable means that Mr. Trump was seeking a deal at the time he was calling for an end to economic sanctions against Russia imposed by the Obama administration. He was seeking a deal when he gave interviews questioning the legitimacy of NATO, a favorite talking point of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. And he was seeking a deal when, in July 2016, he called on Russia to release hacked Democratic emails that Mr. Putin’s government was rumored at the time to have stolen.”

As First Read notes, throughout the campaign Trump denied he had any business relationships in Russia: “I mean I have nothing to do with Russia. I don’t have any jobs in Russia. I’m all over the world but we’re not involved in Russia.”

Filed Under: 2016 Campaign Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

What Was Rudy Thinking?

January 20, 2019 at 7:53 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

In a remarkable CNN interview, Rudy Giuliani suggested it was possible — and would be “perfectly normal” — that Trump talked to Michael Cohen before he testified about him to Congress, Jonathan Swan observes.

“It’s not ‘perfectly normal’ for subjects of or witnesses in a Congressional investigation to discuss testimony directly with each other. If witnesses or subjects are talking to each other, the government can always claim one is trying to influence the others’ testimony. That’s why lawyers counsel against doing it.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Walks Back Comments on Collusion

January 17, 2019 at 12:03 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rudy Giuliani “backtracked on Thursday from a surprising assertion he made a night earlier that left open the possibility that Trump campaign aides might have coordinated with Russia’s election interference in 2016,” the New York Times reports.

Said Giuliani: “There was no collusion by President Trump in any way, shape or form. Likewise, I have no knowledge of any collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked on the campaign.”

He added: “The only knowledge I have in this regard is the collusion of the Clinton campaign with Russia which has so far been ignored.”

Greg Sargent: Giuliani’s absurd walk back signals serious worry about Trump’s vulnerability.

Filed Under: 2016 Campaign Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Did Giuliani Hint Something Big Is Coming?

December 17, 2018 at 2:36 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

This piece is only available to Political Wire members.

Earlier this year, Rudy Giuliani admitted in a Fox News interview that President Trump had in fact repaid Michael Cohen for the hush money he paid Stormy Daniels. Until that point, Trump had denied knowing anything about the payments.

Join now to continue reading.

Members get exclusive analysis, bonus features and no advertising. Learn more.

If you’re already a member, sign in to your account.

Filed Under: Members, White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Courts Business Abroad While Working for Trump

December 13, 2018 at 7:15 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Times: “The government-run Bahrain News Agency featured a photo of Mr. Giuliani meeting in a royal palace with King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. The story said the king discussed ‘Bahraini-U.S. relations’ with Mr. Giuliani, who was described as leading a ‘high-level U.S. delegation.’ But Mr. Giuliani was not in Bahrain, a country with a record of human rights abuses, on official business.”

“He was there to seek a lucrative security consulting contract with the government. The trip was part of a concerted push Mr. Giuliani has undertaken in the last few weeks to win business from governments around the world — including in Africa and South America — for a firm he owns called Giuliani Security and Safety.”

Said Giuliani: “I’m probably the most ethical person you ever met.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Tells Mueller to ‘Wrap the Damn Thing Up’

December 12, 2018 at 8:52 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rudy Giuliani unloaded on special counsel Robert Mueller, the FBI and Trump’s one-time fixer Michael Cohen in a Yahoo News interview.

Said Giuliani: “Our strategy is … to do everything we can to try to convince Mueller to wrap the damn thing up, and if he’s got anything, show us. If he doesn’t have anything, you know, write your report, tell us what you have, and we’ll deal with it. He can’t prosecute him. All he can do is write a report about him, so write the goddamned thing and get it over with now.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Robert Mueller, Rudy Giuliani

Quote of the Day

December 8, 2018 at 11:42 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Believe me, he can’t handle jail.”

— Rudy Giuliani, describing “pathetic” Michael Cohen’s “sad” attempt to avoid jail time to the Daily Beast.

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani

Party for Giuliani Nixed Because No One Wants to Go

November 30, 2018 at 3:04 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Plans for a party celebrating the 25-year anniversary of Rudy Giuliani becoming the mayor of New York City are “fizzling out” because he is “too toxic,” the New York Daily News reports.

Said the source: “Rudy wanted it to appear to come together organically.”

Filed Under: City Hall Tagged With: Rudy Giuliani

Giuliani Says Manafort Has Not Implicated Trump

October 22, 2018 at 6:54 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Under an unusual arrangement, Paul Manafort’s attorney has kept President Trump informed about the former campaign chairman’s meetings with prosecutors investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and, according to Rudy Giuliani, Manafort has not said anything damaging about the president, Reuters reports.

“Giuliani said the conversations were occurring under a so-called joint defense agreement, which allows lawyers who represent different clients to exchange information without violating attorney-client privilege. Legal experts said it was unusual for such an agreement to remain in effect after a person pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate with prosecutors as Manafort has done.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Paul Manafort, Rudy Giuliani

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • …
  • 7
  • Next Page »

Your Account

Sign in

Members Only

  • Trump’s Succession Plan Just Imploded
  • No Principles Allowed
  • A Few More Thoughts on War with Iran
  • The Midterm Primary Season Kicks Off
  • The War Powers Test Trump Didn’t Take

Trial Balloon

Add Trial Balloon to your podcast player to get new episodes each week.


About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

Praise for Political Wire

“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”

— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”

“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”

— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report

“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”

— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report

“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”

— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia

“Political Wire is a great, great site.”

— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”

“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”

— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post

“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”

— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit

“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”

— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.

Copyright © 2026 · Goddard Media LLC | Privacy Policy | Corrections Policy

Political Wire ® is a registered trademark of Goddard Media LLC