After months of negotiations with the House Jan. 6 Committee, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani abruptly abandoned his agreement to testify in front of the panel on the eve of the interview, which had been scheduled for Friday.
The committee stated on Thursday that Giuliani, who spearheaded ex-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election steal scheme, pulled out of the interview after the panel shot down his last-minute demand to be allowed to videotape the session.
“Mr. Giuliani had agreed to participate in a transcribed interview with the Select Committee,” committee spokesperson Tim Mulvey said in a statement on Thursday. “Today, he informed committee investigators that he wouldn’t show up unless he was permitted to record the interview, which was never an agreed-upon condition.”
Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, told the New York Times that his client “simply doesn’t trust” members of the committee, believing that the panel would somehow deceptively alter its records of his sworn testimony.
Giuliani is still leaving the door open to testify, Costello said, as long as the committee agrees to his demand.
“If they changed their mind and they said, ‘Listen, we’ll jointly record the interview,’ then we would participate,” Costello told the Times.
However, the committee seems more inclined to play hardball with the Trump goon at this point: Mulvey in his statement gestured at the idea that the panel could have Giuliani held in contempt for the stunt.
“Mr. Giuliani is an important witness to the conspiracy to overthrow the government and he remains under subpoena. If he refuses to comply, the committee will consider all enforcement options,” the spokesperson said.
The committee and the House itself have already recommended contempt charges for four other Trump cronies who’ve refused to comply with the panel’s subpoenas: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, plus White House advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino.
The Justice Department indicted Bannon but has not acted on the other three criminal referrals, much to the Jan. 6 committee’s frustration.
