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Rudy Giuliani's Op-Ed Defense Of Donald Trump Backfires Spectacularly

Twitter critics are pointing out a major flaw in the piece that the president's personal attorney penned for The Wall Street Journal.
Lee Moran
By 

European correspondent, HuffPost

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Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney to President Donald Trump, on Tuesday penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal arguing why his client should not be impeached.

But one line, in particular, garnered attention on Twitter.

And not for the reason that Giuliani might have hoped.

Giuliani, in the piece titled “The Case for the Impeachment Defense,” attempted to defend Trump by noting how the president spent only a fraction of his July phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky (which sparked the impeachment inquiry) asking him to investigate potential 2020 rival Joe Biden allegedly in exchange for withheld military aid.

“The focus was on Ukrainian corruption broadly speaking and out of a five-page transcript Mr. Trump spent only six lines on Joe Biden,” Giuliani wrote on the eve of the public impeachment hearings.

Critics ridiculed Giuliani over the defense:

"Out of a whole lifetime, John Wilkes Booth spent only six seconds assassinating Abraham Lincoln" https://t.co/697dpaZnqs

— Krister Johnson (@KristerJohnson) November 13, 2019

this is what a free lawyer would say. https://t.co/fp4iaWz8si

— Jim Swift (@JimSwiftDC) November 13, 2019

Originally: Perfect Call

Next: Ok, not perfect, but not a quid pro quo.

Now: But it was just a FEW lines of extortion, really! https://t.co/fuOn0WZLW9

— Ronald Klain (@RonaldKlain) November 13, 2019

"For the duration of WWIII, which lasted 28 years on the part of the planet that was still inhabitable, my client only spent 0.12 seconds pushing the nuclear button." https://t.co/G0bHiFtkjL

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) November 13, 2019

Out of all the days he was president, Nixon only spent a handful orchestrating a burglary and cover-up https://t.co/bAC9NJdzPB

— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) November 13, 2019

That’s all ya got? A word count is NOT a good defense to a crime. 🙄⚖️ https://t.co/CJf7FebjKJ

— Ciara Torres-Spelliscy (@ProfCiara) November 13, 2019

Crimes are not mitigated by the shortness of their enactment. Some of the worst crimes happened quickly!

— (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) November 13, 2019

Out of 19 gun shots only one hit and it was fatal https://t.co/89AvuySCvs

— Lea Black (@LeaBlackMiami) November 13, 2019

Out of the 35 minutes I was driving drunk I only spent a few seconds crashing through the wall of a Culver's. https://t.co/t93zpf5kzB

— zach heltzel (@zachheltzel) November 13, 2019

“Out of six bullets in this gun, my client only fired one into the victim’s body.” Great argument, Rudy.

— David Slack (@slack2thefuture) November 13, 2019

Giuliani... was a lawyer. Wow.

— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) November 13, 2019

But they were a powerful 6 lines. It's sort of like a guy who goes into a store and buys 6 magazines with one of them being pornography. It's the pornography they REALLY want. pic.twitter.com/w8TvNwblPX

— Geraldo (NOT Rivera)💧 (@gvravel) November 13, 2019

Welcome to The Resistance Rudy Giuliani!! https://t.co/J3y18ua1cU

— Tom Arnold (@TomArnold) November 13, 2019

Read the full op-ed here.

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