Transcript: Rudy Giuliani on "Face the Nation," June 17, 2018
President Trump and his allies this week seized on a long-awaited report by the Department of Justice's inspector general about the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. The report determined that former FBI Director James Comey was "insubordinate" during the probe, but found no evidence of political bias influencing decision making.
Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, joined us to discuss the IG report, the possibility that Mr. Trump may agree to an interview in the Russia probe and more.
The following is a transcript of the interview with Giuliani that aired Sunday, June 17, 2018, on "Face the Nation."
MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to Face the Nation. We begin today with President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani who joins us from our New York broadcast center this morning. Happy Father's Day to you.
RUDY GIULIANI: Thank you very, very much.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to start off with the report. Roger Stone, a friend of President Trump, has told The Washington Post that during the campaign he met with a Russian who was offering him damaging information on Hillary Clinton. This is now the 11th campaign associate to reveal some kind of contact with Russia. How is this not an attempt at collusion?
RUDY GIULIANI: Well how is it? You have to read the rest of it. Roger Stone met- apparently met with them, I don't know. I haven't talked to Roger. He's never talked to the president about it. So where's the collusion? And he said it was a waste of time. So yeah sure there was contact as there was in that meeting. But that meeting led to nothing. This led to nothing. So if anything it's proof there was no collusion. And as- as- as- I think if you ever were to see the reports done by all those highly biased agents and prosecutors and- I mean Mueller has no evidence of collusion. How about this? There was none. The President of United States did nothing wrong. He was not involved with Russians. They can investigate from here to Timbuktu. They're not going to find a darn thing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Just to clarify what you said, that the president told you that Roger Stone never spoke to him about this meeting?
RUDY GIULIANI: No I haven't had a chance to talk to yet about it. I'm sure-
MARGARET BRENNAN: because you said the president didn't know anything about it.
RUDY GIULIANI: The president doesn't know a darn thing about Russian collusion- from Roger Stone from, anybody else. And I would suspect he never talked to the president about it because it's quoted in The Washington Post. I can't even stand why they're running the story that nothing came of this. That it was, I think he said, quote "a waste of time" close quote.
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK. I want to ask you. You mentioned the special counsel Robert Mueller. He has now indicted 20 individuals. There are five. People who are now cooperating with authorities here. Do you see any limit on the president's power to pardon either now or in the future with some of these indictments?
RUDY GIULIANI: Well I see a practical thing now. He shouldn't do it. It's an investigation still. There are a lot of troubling and unethical behaviors and some illegal behaviors with regard to what came out with the inspector general Horowitz. There's that whole issue of -
MARGARET BRENNAN: You're talking about. That's a Hillary Clinton email investigation. That's separate from this -
RUDY GIULIANI: Actually I'm more concerned about the genesis of that. From that came the Russian probe and that Russian probe is highly suspect because Strzok started it. He was switched from Hillary to that. He stayed with it until a year ago where he was heavily involved with it, and he was engaged in clearly very very suspicious activity. These strange conversations about how he was going to stop Trump. He was going to get them out of the White House. They seemed not be able to do it earlier. So - who's to say that this wasn't a part of that effort. That needs to be investigated.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, he is no longer part of the Mueller probe. And according to the House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy they are pushing for more information on that. He was one of five individuals outlined in this IG report as potentially facing disciplinary action. Are you calling for something sharper than that.
RUDY GIULIANI: Yeah you're darn right. Disciplinary action when he's making comments like that. Not part of the probe. He started it. He was with it for for its for its first couple of months. Mueller kept them on. So how much did he infect that probe with his own very very extreme positions? I don't know but I sure want to find out before I go forward. I mean this is a case where it's crying out for someone to investigate the investigators.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What does that mean?
RUDY GIULIANI: What that means is there should be a full and complete IG report and a grand jury investigation of what happened here after it became the Russia probe. What was the purpose of it? What did they gather? I would really like to know what they gathered because I think they will have gathered the same things that the Washington Post desperately is trying to regurgitate which is no collusion by the president with any Russians. All these things were dead ends. The Stone thing is a dead end the minute Stone says it's a waste of time. Didn't use the information. Even if he did. I don't know what that would mean but he didn't. So I'd like to add all fleshed out. And then I'd like to see who's really at fault here for this investigation which has now consumed over 20 million dollars of the taxpayers funds.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well you've said now July 4th is when you expect to have a decision on whether the president will sit for an interview with the special counsel. Why are you dragging it out? Don't you know what you want to do now?
RUDY GIULIANI: Sure I do. I don't want to do it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You don't want to do it?
RUDY GIULIANI: I'm leaving it open.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you think by July 4th the president might change his mind?
RUDY GIULIANI: Well the president wants to do it. So we have- we have to sort through it. We owe him a presentation of something to the special counsel may or may not offer which- which gets to the point here that the only delay that we are responsible for- and they are responsible for about three months of delays- are- was due to the summit because I couldn't possibly justify troubling the president when he was working on peace with North Korea.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But what do you mean- what- what's something that special counsel or may not offer? What kind--
RUDY GIULIANI: We're- we're--
MARGARET BRENNAN: of area? What would this look like?
RUDY GIULIANI: We are in rather sensitive negotiations with them and for this I will commend them because they've kept an open mind to this, that there might be a narrow aea that we could all agree on it would be helpful. That unfortunately is a little bit now put in question because I'm not sure we can possibly recommend being questioned until we know how badly is this investigation infected by what Strzok did at the beginning when he was with Muller for so long.
MARGARET BRENNAN: There is a hearing June 25th--
RUDY GIULIANI: I think we're entitled to know that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: -- about that so souldn't you get an answer still by July 4th? And what would that interview look like? Do you want a four hour Bill Clinton type interview something at the White House something on tape like what is it that you're negotiation?
RUDY GIULIANI: I don't mind point- first of all yeah we could- we could get. We could get enough facts about what happened before to make a decision about this if we did have it. We'd like it to be. Over basically. I mean obviously we really like is something in writing responded to in writing and it can be under oath as it was with Ronald Reagan over Iran gate. I think that was. However the Clinton model was not a grand jury. I think that was audio recorded and tape recorded. Think we've already agreed that it should be just audio recorded. And then we would- we would- we would limit limited. We would like to see it limited to some specific questions about the heart of the probe. Which is and has become even more the heart of the probe, the Russian alleged collusion. We think that those questions could be answered quickly. I don't know. We think two hours they probably think four, so let's settle with three. That's the way you do a negotiation in good faith in this area. They have been in good faith.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And are you leaning towards saying- I mean are these details going to change your mind? you said you don't want to do it but it sounds like--
RUDY GIULIANI: Well I-I
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know the how and the when?
RUDY GIULIANI: Honestly I can't answer that question nor can Jay Sekulow and Marty and Jane Rascon until we know. The answers to that question. How much was it infected by what was done by Strzok at the beginning? it may be that he did some bad things but it really didn't infect the investigation. Maybe he did some bad things and it left some things there that really changed it so that he would never have to be questioned that anything they did would be illegitimate. So as a lawyer, not for political purposes, as a lawyer. I can't I can't imagine. Imagine if I recommended that the president testify and it turns out that Muller- didn't have a judge finds the mother didn't have proper authority.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You're calling into question his authority. But I want to ask you on another topic here because you are an attorney. Do you agree with Attorney General Jeff Sessions' decision on how to implement border security. This policy of separating parents from their children when they enter the country illegally.
RUDY GIULIANI: You know honestly -
MARGARET BRENNAN: Is that humane?
RUDY GIULIANI: I know Jeff really really well and I think he's you know in certain respects did a great job in some respects, I'm sort of disappointed in him. But here I don't think I should get involved in that because look -
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've talked about other policy issues before.
RUDY GIULIANI: Oh I sure have, but this is what I I've been unattached to for about a year and a half. I'm much closer to the Iran situation probably more than anything else North Korea to some extent. This one I'm not that involved in I mean it seems to me that -
MARGARET BRENNAN: Has the White House given you authority to speak on these issues?
RUDY GIULIANI: No they haven't stopped me from it. I mean - I'm still I'm a private citizen so I'm not binding the White House. I'll give you my view as a private citizen and somebody who enforced the immigration laws for years. It seems to me this all gets resolved if they do some kind of comprehensive bill, and the administration is doing something not terribly dissimilar to what Bush and Obama were forced to do because Congress wouldn't act. Now maybe this administration is doing it more thoroughly. I don't like to see, and I know President Trump doesn't like the children taken away from their parents. I also don't like to see America victimized by a lot of people who are doing it for pure manipulation to get bad people here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What we're going to talk about what you just called for there in terms of comprehensive immigration reform and the prospects of that -
RUDY GIULIANI - Well, I'm a big -
MARGARET BRENNAN: With our next guest. But we'd love to have you back on to talk more about all of these issues.
RUDY GIULIANI: Well, I'm a big supporter of comprehensive immigration reform.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Ok.
RUDY GIULIANI: Now I know I'm going to have a lot of bad letters after this including a path to citizenship. I helped to author Simpson Mazzoli under Ronald Reagan. And I know it had a lot of problems but I think they can be solved by by Senator Graham and by the White House.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Alright, well, sir -
RUDY GIULIANI: Here Jeff. Jeff is not giving the president the best advice.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well so we're going to leave it right there for you. Happy Father's Day.