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Rudy Giuliani Joins Trump's Legal Team – What it Means for the Russia Probe

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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is hiring outspoken supporter Rudy Giuliani to bolster his legal team.

Before being elected mayor of New York City, Giuliani served as a US attorney and will be a fierce defender of Trump in the media.

Trump's personal attorney, Jay Sekulow, says Giuliani will focus on the Russia probe as the White House works to bring the president's involvement with the investigation to a close.

"We want to get the investigation over with, done with, put it behind us and we have to get back to business," the president told reporters Wednesday during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In recent days, the president has appeared more relaxed about the investigation, suggesting he's put the notion of firing special counsel Robert Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who's in charge of the Russia probe on the back burner.

And we now know last week Rosenstein told the president he's not the target of any part of the special counsel's investigation or the probe into his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, according to reports.

"As far as the investigation, nobody has ever been more transparent than I have – instructed our lawyers be totally transparent. I believe we've given them 1.4 million pages of documents if you can believe that," the president said.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice, amid subpoena threats from Republican lawmakers, has given Congress copies of several of James Comey's infamous memos written while he was director of the FBI. They're his accounts of what took place during his meetings with President Trump before he was fired. 

"Given the nature of the person, as I understood the president-elect, he might not tell the truth about those if it ever became an issue so I needed a written record," Comey said during an appearance on MSNBC Thursday.

But in a joint statement, chairmen of three congressional committees say the memos show Comey never wrote he felt obstructed or threatened.

"Former Director Comey's memos show the president made clear he wanted allegations of collusion, coordination and conspiracy between his campaign and Russia fully investigated," Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Devin Nunes (R-CA) wrote.

And they went on to point out something else.

"He chose not to memorialize conversations with President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, Secretary Clinton, Andrew McCabe or others, but he immediately began to memorialize conversations with President Trump," they noted.

The president tweets that the memos prove what he's said all along.

It's the latest in an investigation the White House will be happy to see wrap up.

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About The Author

Jennifer
Wishon

As Senior Washington Correspondent for CBN News, Jennifer covers the intersection of faith and politics - often producing longer format stories that dive deep into the most pressing issues facing Americans today. A 20-year veteran journalist, Jennifer has spent most of her career covering politics, most recently at the White House as CBN's chief White House Correspondent covering the Obama and Trump administrations. She's also covered Capitol Hill along with a slew of major national stories from the 2008 financial crisis to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and every election in between. Jennifer