It is also true that Trump is finding it hard to hire lawyers. For some reason, they don't want to work with a client who doesn't take instructions or advice from lawyers.
This^ can't be overstated. Any law firm in the history of this nation that would've gotten a call from the POTUS asking them to even quietly consult the POTUS on legal matters wouldn't have had to think about it. The discussion wouldn't have been whether they should represent, but who and how many lawyers to send. The issues wouldn't have mattered. Any firm would've jumped at the opportunity.
But Trump is so historically fucking toxic that he could ruin the reputation of any law firm in the nation; so they stay away.
Instead, Trump now has a guy who hasn't practiced law in decades shambling in to try and help him.
Plus, Giuliani knows where all the bodies are buried—and helped bury them, figuratively speaking—so this is a smart strategic move on his part. He can now claim attorney-client privilege for anything he was involved in (short of having helped to actually bury a body).
Plus, Trump thinks he’s a mob boss and believes it’s all about back-room connections. And he’s not wrong in that belief were it not for the fact that he’s the President and not a fucking mob boss.
He’s clearly counting on loading the deck in NY, but he is not just deeply hated in NY, he owes very large amounts to a LOT of connected people, so the payoffs would have to be enormous. I don’t mean mere millions. We’re talking hundreds of millions; the kind of nouveux riche payoff that old money is offended by. Which is where Giuliani comes in. Not as an attorney; as his new “fixer.”
But I believe the desire to finally see Trump go down in flames—and the removal of what most New Yorkers have bitterly tolerated for years; his garish name on every building—is stronger than any pathetic attempts to pay people off. Some might take the money, of course, but I would almost guarantee that many then turn around and fuck him over anyway, because that’s precisely what he has done to them time and time again.
No one has ever loved Trump in NY. Well, no one that matters I should say. They have always shunned him and considered him to be way beneath them (because he is). That is a powerful tide against him, made all the more powerful by how he’s shat all over the White House, our standing in the world and his naked shorting of the market, causing considerable disruption and unease among the very people he—and Giuliani—would be counting on to fix things for him.
Look for any statements/tweets that favor NY economically in the coming weeks/months (though any such arrangements will likely be hidden in the back pages). He’s certainly not going to pay anything out of his own pocket, so it’s going to be taxpayer supported payoffs like infrastructure subsidies or the like.
ETA: My guess would be the
Gateway funding Trump yanked (and likely why he yanked it; so he can now put it back in as part of his payoff).
