Giuliani accidentally butt-dials reporter, records himself saying “he needs money” and trashing Biden
Throughout his first term, President Trump and his team’s malevolence has been matched only by their stunning incompetence, and that is showing no signs of letting up as the impeachment proceedings pick up steam.
The president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, loves to talk to the media a little too much. So much so that he accidentally butt-dialed an NBC reporter on October 18th and left a long voicemail in which you can hear him complaining about a need for money.
The conversation begins with references to the Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, where Rudy Giuliani has a host of connections, and a need to call “Robert” soon. Asking if “Robert” is around, another man replies “he’s in Turkey,” to which Giuliani replies immediately that “The problem is we need some money.”
After nine seconds of silence, he adds “We need a few hundred thousand.” The Robert referenced here is possibly Robert Mangas, a registered agent of the Turkish government. “I’d say even if Bahrain could get, I’m not sure how good [unintelligible words] with his people,” replied the other man. “You want options? I got options.”
“Yeah, give me options,” finished Giuliani.
This isn’t even the first time in a month that Giuliani accidentally called a reporter. Just a few weeks ago, on Sept 28th, Giuliani accidentally called back a reporter after an interview and left a three-minute voicemail that showed him trashing the Bidens and bragging about how he’s under attack for the accusations he’s been making against the Bidens.
“I expected it would happen…The minute you touch on one of the protected people, they go crazy. They come after you” begins Giuliani. NBC reports he spends almost the entire three minutes repeating the conspiracy theories he’s been spreading about Hunter Biden’s business connections.
“It’s a sad situation. You know how they get? Biden has been trading in on his public office since he was a senator… When he became vice president, the kid decided to go around the world and say, ‘Hire me because I’m Joe Biden’s son.’ And most people wouldn’t hire him because he had a drug problem…His son altogether made somewhere between 5 and 8 million. A 3 million transaction was laundered, which is illegal.”
While it’s clear that Hunter Biden’s business career has certainly been helped along by his father’s political career, the accusations of financial misconduct are baseless and are an obvious smear campaign from the president’s cronies in order to damage a political rival.
We can only hope that Giuliani’s pockets remain as vocal when it comes time for him and the president to plan their impeachment defense strategy.
Original reporting by Rich Schapiro at NBC News.
