Fox anchors allow Giuliani to spout conspiracy theories about the Trump Tower meeting and the origins of the investigation

Giuliani claims, without pushback, that the Trump Tower meeting was “a set-up” and that warrants used by investigators were “illegal”

From the April 18 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

Video file

BRET BAIER (FOX NEWS ANCHOR): In this report it says the president became aware of emails setting up that June 9th meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians who offered derogatory information on Hillary Clinton as part of Russia and it's government's support for Mr. Trump. “On multiple occasions,” quoting from the report, “in late June and early July 2017, the president directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails and then he dictated a statement about the meeting to be issued by Donald Trump Jr. describing the meeting as about adoption,” is what is written in the report. 

RUDY GIULIANI (PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY): Well, the reality is it was about adoption. Everyone concedes that. That meeting was a set-up. I mean, the day before the meeting the Russian woman Natalia [Veselnitskaya] met with the person who ran Fusion GPS. Boy, that's a coincidence, right? And this guy testified under oath they never talked about the meeting they were going to have the next day. And then she met with him the day of the meeting and then she met with him the day after the meeting. They set up the meeting on the pretext that it's going to be about dirt on Hillary. Nobody has any dirt on Hillary. They don't talk about dirt on Hillary. They talk about the Magnitsky Act and Russian adoptions. And then they walk out and they never really seriously call back and follow up on it. And several of them are counter intelligence operatives. That was a pure set-up, that meeting. 

...

CHRIS WALLACE (FOX NEWS ANCHOR): You have suggested that this counter intelligence investigation did not begin because of this comment from George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor -- although that may be overstating his role. That was back in June or July of 2016. What do you think was the start of the investigation and what do you think was the genesis for the start of the investigation? 

GIULIANI: So I begin -- I have for about six months questioned whether that flimsy little allegation that the Russians had dirt on Hillary could start this gigantic investigation, could allow the Department of Justice to put under investigation a presidential candidate of a major party, not warn him about it or tell him that maybe he is being invaded or intruded. Since the electronic surveillance was obtained with an affidavit that has several serious perjurious statements, including not describing the Steele affadavit correctly -- or the Steele dossier correctly, those warrants are illegal. They were obtained under false pretenses with false statements. So, to say that they were spying on him, you know, you could say it a couple of ways: unauthorized or illegal electronic surveillance, or surveillance that could be declared to be illegal because there were false statements, about four or five of them, in the affidavit. So I don't know where it started. 

WALLACE: But Mayor, to go back to my original question, what do you think was the genesis and when do you think the investigation of Donald Trump started? 

GIULIANI: I think it started before the first meeting with Papadopoulos. I think [Joseph] Mifsud, the diplomat -- Malta, I think? From Malta. The diplomat from Malta who has a counter intelligence background who planted -- I mean this information didn't come from Papadopoulos. He met with a guy in Italy who turns out to be a counter intelligence operative, either Maltese or Italian. They tell him, this guy tells him oh, the Russians have dirt on Hillary. And then a month later another guy, Australian operative walks in on him in London, gets him around to that subject and he gives the information to him and then they record it as if it comes from Papadopoulos. But it was fed to Papadopoulos. I don't know, Chris. I used to do this -- sounds like a counter intelligence trap to me. Where does it go back before that? I have my suspicions. 

WALLACE: Wait, wait, wait. Are you suggesting that the whole thing was a set-up from the very start --

GIULIANI: No, oh -- 

WALLACE: -- by intelligence officials to try to frame Donald Trump? 

GIULIANI: I don't know who. I don't know who. Somebody -- it wasn't just an accident that Mifsud met with him and gave him the information and then they ran somebody into him to pick it up after. I do not have sufficient information or evidence to feel secure in telling you anything beyond that, except -- in fact all I have beyond that are a couple of hypothesis. 

Previously

Fox anchor repeats Trump's lawyers' claims that the Trump Tower meeting was a “set-up” by Fusion GPS

Fox's Chris Wallace suggests it's normal for attorneys general to “protect [the president] from getting in trouble”

Fox anchor Bret Baier claims William Barr was “laying it out straight, cut and dry” in press conference prior to Mueller report release