I can't figure Rudy out. Did he honestly not know better or did he just give in to Trump and decide to be his fall guy?
Neither.
You have to go back to September 11th, 2001.
Rudy was the center of the universe after the attacks, much more so than President Bush at the time. It went right to his head. Flash forward 15 years to 2016 and that's where it all starts.
While Obama was still president, a Turk named Reza Zarrab was arrested by the feds on behalf of SDNY for running a multi-billion dollar money laundering scheme. What this guy did was masquerade as a gold dealer. What he was in fact doing is laundering money in a manner so that people could deal with Iran without anybody finding out about it. He was funded almost exclusively by Turkey.
Turkey immediately started attacking the state department, the SDNY lawyer and the judge overseeing the case.
Now, we didn't know it at the time, but then Trump Security Advisor Michael Flynn was on the Turkish payroll to the tune of 500,000 dollars per year. The Turks offered him untold millions if he could do something to get Zarrab off the hook.
Meanwhile, who does Zarrab hire as an attorney? Good old Rudy!
So Flynn starts talking to Rudy behind more than a few closed doors. This is Rudy's chance to get back into the spotlight he so desperately wanted. It was like September 11th, 2001 all over again. He's on the news, he's in the headlines, things are looking up!
But then shit hit the fan rather badly. Turns out the FBI was looking into Flynn. By this time, Trump was in the White House. The last thing Trump wanted was for the FBI to find out that Flynn was on Turkey's payroll and was trying to help Rudy get his client a deal for some major bucks.
So then Trump puts the heat on Comey to "let it all go". When Comey doens't, Trump fires him.
So then Trump goes to then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and tells him to tell the Justice Department to drop this whole Flynn/Zarrab thing. Rex Tillerson tells Trump flat out, "I understand what you want to do and how you want to do it, but that is illegal."
Rex Tillerson is fired.
Pompeo is hired and Barr is hired. Suddenly, things start going Trump's way. Zarrab finally gets a deal to "cooperate" and not face major time in prison. Turkey is happy as much as it could be given the circumstances. And to top it all off, Rudy gets thrown a bone by the President for his help in setting it all up to begin with - he's hired on as a personal attorney.
But that wasn't enough for good old, ground zero, center of the Universe Rudy Giuliani. He started running all manner of conspiracy theory in Trump's ear. Rudy's hope was to be the indispensible, counted on, most trusted confidant of President Trump.
Trump's stupidity let it all happen. The rest we all know. It's an episode of "Rudy gone wild" that closely resembles a Mel Brooks movie.
In his desperation to be the center of the universe once more, Rudy has indeed made himself the center of the universe.
We also now see Trump distancing himself from Rudy over just the last two days. I'll bet a million dollars I don't have that Rudy is fired by the end of the month.
