WASHINGTON - Rudy Giuliani claimed Wednesday night that he "never said there was no collusion" between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
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In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the president’s lawyer was accused of contradicting his own past statements about collusion as well as what Trump and his supporters have repeatedly asserted. On Twitter, Trump has used the phrase “no collusion” dozens of times, and a number of those instances were direct denials that his campaign was involved with the Russian government.
Giuliani's declarations - several of which Cuomo called out as being false - quickly sent the Internet into a tailspin as many wondered what could have prompted the former New York mayor to suddenly change course.
The heated exchange, one of many that occurred during the roughly 20-minute long interview, began shortly after Giuliani raged about the amount of "false reporting" on the Russia investigation.
"Mr. Mayor, false reporting is saying that nobody in the campaign had any contacts with Russia," Cuomo responded. "False reporting is saying that there has been no suggestion of any kind of collusion between the campaign and any Russians."
Giuliani jumped in.
"You just misstated my position," Giuliani said. "I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or between people in the campaign."
Cuomo's face contorted into an expression of disbelief. "Yes, you have," he shot back.
As recently as July, Giuliani was asked by Fox News contributor Guy Benson, "Regardless of whether collusion would be a crime, is it still the position of you and your client that there was no collusion with the Russians whatsoever on behalf of the Trump campaign?"
"Correct," Giuliani responded at the time.
But on Wednesday, Giuliani appeared to amend his previous comments on the subject.
"I said the president of the United States," he protested, arguing that he had only ever said Trump himself was not connected to any Russian meddling in the 2016 election. "There is not a single bit of evidence the president of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspired with the Russians to hack the DNC."
On CNN, Giuliani and Cuomo then proceeded to tangle over the president's past statements that "nobody" associated with his campaign colluded.
"He didn't say nobody, he said he didn't," Giuliani said of Trump, which Cuomo immediately noted was not true.
Giuliani said Thursday that his comments on CNN "have been misinterpreted"and that he wanted to clarify them.
"I represent only President Trump not the Trump campaign," he said in a statement. "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."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In December 2017, Trump adamantly told reporters outside the White House that there was "absolutely no collusion, that has been proven."
On Twitter, the president has been even more passionate when defending himself and his campaign, repeatedly using words such as "hoax" and "witch hunt" to describe the accusations and special counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing probe.
Just last month, the president tweeted, "'Democrats can't find a Smocking Gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey's testimony. No Smocking Gun . . . No Collusion.'"
During the interview, Giuliani also falsely stated that the news that Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort had shared polling data with a man believed to have ties to Russian intelligence came from "leaks," which he claimed had been done "probably unethically." The information was inadvertently made public by Manafort's lawyers in a poorly redacted court filing, The Washington Post has reported.
Social media instantly exploded with reactions to the interview. Did Giuliani just admit Trump's campaign had colluded? Were his comments foreshadowing a major development to come in the Mueller probe? Was this yet another attempt by the Trump administration to tone down its collusion denials?
By early Thursday morning, Giuliani's name was trending on Twitter.
Some accused the lawyer of once again engaging in "goal-post moving," described by The Washington Post's Aaron Blake as "constantly watering down previous denials and raising the standard for what would constitute actual wrongdoing." (Giuliani has repeatedly argued that "collusion is not a crime.")
Others, however, saw the interview as another opportunity to poke fun at Giuliani.
On his show, which aired immediately after Cuomo's, Don Lemon summed up the exchange for his viewers.
"Man, Rudy Giuliani out-Giulianied himself tonight," Lemon said.
Here are samples of how the Trump team’s previous collusion denials have evolved.
1. November 2016: No communications, period
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks: "It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign."
2. February 2017: There were no communications “to the best of our knowledge”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders: "This is a non-story because, to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place."
3. March 2017: There were communications but no planned meetings with Russians
Donald Trump Jr.: "Did I meet with people that were Russian? I'm sure, I'm sure I did. . . . But none that were set up. None that I can think of at the moment. And certainly none that I was representing the campaign in any way, shape or form."
4. July 8, 2017: There was a planned meeting at Trump Tower, but it was “primarily” about adoption and not the campaign
Trump Jr.: "We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at that time and there was no follow-up."
5. July 9, 2017: The meeting was planned to discuss the campaign, but the information exchanged wasn’t “meaningful”
Trump Jr.: "No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information."
6. December 2017: Collusion isn’t even a crime
President Trump: "There is no collusion, and even if there was, it's not a crime."
Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow: "For something to be a crime, there has to be a statute that you claim is being violated. There is not a statute that refers to criminal collusion. There is no crime of collusion."
Technically speaking, the criminal code doesn't use the word "collusion," but it's generally understood as a broad term that could encompass more specific, codified crimes. And even special counsel Robert Mueller's team has used it in court filings.
7. May 16, 2018: Even if meaningful information were obtained, it wasn’t used
Giuliani: "And even if it comes from a Russian, or a German, or an American, it doesn't matter. And they never used it, is the main thing. They never used it. They rejected it. If there was collusion with the Russians, they would have used it."
The Trump campaign did use the information.
8. May 19, 2018: There was a *second* planned meeting about foreign help in the election, but nothing came of it either
The New York Times reported Sunday on yet another meeting about getting foreign help with the 2016 election. This one came three months before the election and featured Donald Trump Jr. and an emissary, George Nader, who said the princes who lead Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates wanted to assist Trump.
Alan Futerfas, Trump Jr.'s attorney: "They pitched Mr. Trump Jr. on a social media platform or marketing strategy. He was not interested, and that was the end of it."
9. July 16, 2018: Trump couldn’t collude, because Trump didn’t even know Putin
Trump: "There was no collusion. I didn't know the president. There was nobody to collude with."
10. July 30, 2018: Collusion isn’t a crime, and Trump wasn’t physically at the Trump Tower meeting
With Michael Cohen alleging that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting in real time - despite many previous denials - Giuliani told both CNN and Fox News that Trump wasn't physically at the meeting.
"I'm happy to tell Mueller that Trump wasn't at the Trump Tower meeting," Giuliani told CNN, adding that "Don Jr. says he wasn't there."
He added on Fox: "He did not participate in any meeting about the Russia transaction. . . . And the other people at the meeting that he claims he had without the president about it say he was never there."
Giuliani also argued that collusion isn't even a crime.
"I don't even know if that's a crime - colluding with Russians," Giuliani said on CNN. "Hacking is the crime. The president didn't hack. He didn't pay for the hacking."
And on Fox: "I have been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. Collusion is not a crime."
11. January 16, 2019: Trump didn’t collude, but no guarantees on others in the campaign