It’s been four months since Rudy Giuliani joined Donald Trump’s legal defense team, and when the former mayor got to work, he was confident that he could help Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to its conclusion quite quickly.
Giuliani told a CNN reporter he thought the whole mess could be wrapped up in “a couple of weeks.”
About a month later, after his projected date came and went, Giuliani appeared on a Fox News radio program and was asked when he expected Mueller’s investigation to end. “I think September,” the presidential lawyer said, calling it a “realistic timeframe.”
More specifically, Giuliani told CNN that the investigation, at least insofar as Trump’s actions were concerned, could be wrapped up by Sept. 1.
Reuters quoted a U.S. official familiar with the probe describing Giuliani’s timeframe “entirely made-up.” That official was apparently onto to something: Sept. 1 is Saturday, and there’s nothing to suggest Mueller and members of their team are packing up their office.
I suppose it’s possible that the special counsel will close up shop tomorrow, but barring that unlikely event, Trump World is poised to miss yet another predicted end to the investigation — which would probably be less embarrassing if it weren’t for all of the previous failed predictions.
Now seems like an excellent time to review the list:
Last year, for example, one of the president’s lawyers originally told Trump the whole unpleasantness “would conclude by Thanksgiving.”
The president was then led to believe the investigation would end “by the end of the year.”
The Wall Street Journal soon after reported, “Attorneys for the president … have said the date could stretch to the end of January.”
About a month later, a Trump lawyer pointed to the end of March as an expected endpoint. Then Giuliani looked at early May as when it’d be all over. When that didn’t happen, he revised his prediction to Sept. 1, which will also apparently be wrong. As we discussed a while back, I’m curious about the behind-the-scenes dynamic. It’s possible, for example, that Trump is optimistic about the looming end of the investigation because his lawyers keep feeding him dubious good news that he chooses to believe. In other words, it’s possible they keep saying, “This will all be over very soon, Mr. President,” to which a delighted Trump responds, “Sounds great.” But isn’t there a point at which Trump gets annoyed by the blown deadlines?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
