Republican Strategist: Giuliani's Collusion Claims Are All for Show
*By Christian Smith*
President Trump's attorney and close adviser Rudy Giuliani made the cable news rounds Monday morning, claiming that collusion is not necessarily a crime on "Fox and Friends" and CNN's "New Day."
But Giuliani's media blitz is all a show, said Republican strategist Rick Wilson, who once worked for the former New York City mayor. And maybe it's the silence that speaks more than the noise.
"The more they project about things that aren't there, the more you know that they know those things are there," Wilson explained in an interview with Cheddar Monday.
It's all part of a deliberate effort to stunt media coverage of the latest on Russia's alleged election tampering during the 2014 and 2016 cycles, Wilson added.
Giuliani's comments follow former FBI Director James Comey's assertion during a CNN town hall in [April](https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/30/politics/rudy-giuliani-collusion-crime-cnntv/index.html) that, "\[Collusion\]"is not actually a thing that exists under the federal laws of the United States."
As the trial of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort looms on Tuesday, Wilson says the administration is trying to stage a distraction for Trump supporters.
"What you're doing here is watching an exercise in the creation of 'the message of the week' bubble for the Trump folks," Wilson said.
But there's more ahead: Wilson expects that there will be new developments "coming down the pipe from Robert Mueller."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/rudy-giuliani-makes-controversial-claims-in-cable-news-interviews).
U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez returns to court Monday to enter an expected not guilty plea to a conspiracy charge alleging he acted as an agent of the Egyptian government when he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Hamas militants on Friday freed two Americans -- a mother and her teenage daughter who had been held hostage in Gaza since militants rampaged through Israel two weeks ago, the Israeli government said.
A Texas judge has ruled that Infowars host Alex Jones cannot use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billion to families who sued over his conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.
Former President Donald Trump was fined $5,000 on Friday after a disparaging social media post about a key court staffer in his New York civil fraud case was allowed to linger on his campaign website after the judge ordered it deleted.
Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday just as jury selection was getting underway in his trial on charges accusing him of participating in efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election in Georgia.