Latest in Rudy Giuliani
John Bies’s Sept. 30 post (“Giuliani Cannot Rely on Attorney-Client Privilege to Avoid Congressional Testimony”) is informative but doesn’t quite explain the full scope of a lawyer’s confidentiality responsibilities, nor does it address the implications of Congress compelling an attorney to breach them.
President Trump’s personal lawyer—former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani—appears to have played a pivotal role in orchestrating the president’s designs with respect to Ukraine. Assuming the part of an unofficial diplomat, Giuliani reportedly met with a Ukrainian prosecutor and with a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in order to press for an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden.
As the House of Representatives launches its impeachment inquiry with a focus on President Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine, the question has been raised whether the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, will testify before Congress. According to CNN, Giuliani has said that he would need to consult with Trump before testifying before Congress because of the attorney-client privilege.
The chairmen of the three House committees—Oversight and Reform, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence—issued a subpeona to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to produce documents related to the Trump administration's interractions with officials associated with the Ukrainian government.
The coming week may bring not just one but three reports on the Mueller investigation. Of principal interest, of course, is the original document by Robert Mueller. Then there is the redacted version of the report that Attorney General William Barr will release.
In posing a hypothetical that a president could not be indicted for committing murder, Giuliani appears not to have considered the serious questions that raises about his positions on the president’s immunity from liability for obstruction of justice and abuse of the pardon power.