Rudy Giuliani said his recent calls for the Justice Department to suspend special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were a bluff he never thought would happen, according to an interview with Politico on Monday.
“That’s what I’m supposed to do,” Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lead attorney for issues related to Mueller’s Russia inquiry, told Politico. “What am I supposed to say? That they should investigate him forever? Sorry, I’m not a sucker.”
Last week Giuliani told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Mueller’s probe should be suspended within 24 hours after the release of a Justice Department report that chastised the behavior of FBI leadership during the 2016 election. The agency’s inspector general was critical of former FBI Director James Comey, calling him “insubordinate,” and said several leaders exhibited a bias against then-candidate Trump.
“Mueller should suspend his investigation, and he should go see Rod Rosenstein, who created him, and the deputy attorney general and Attorney General Sessions, who should now step up big time to save his department,” Giuliani told Hannity last Thursday. “Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions have a chance to redeem themselves, and that chance comes about tomorrow.”
But the former New York City mayor, known for making brash comments to the press, said he had no expectation anyone would carry out such a suspension.
“I didn’t think it would,” he told Politico, “but I still think it should be.”
Trump has continued to lash out at Mueller’s ongoing inquiry following the release of the Justice Department’s report from its inspector general, saying there was a “total bias” with the FBI. He also said the 500-page document “totally exonerates” him.