head of the justice department s criminal division and lawyers from the division s fraud section met with mr. giuliani to discuss the bribe case in which he and other attorneys were representing defendants. that meeting took place before u.s. attorneys in manhattan publicly charged two giuliani associates lev parnas and igor fruman with breaking campaign finance laws and trying to unlawfully influence politicians. here was the statement the doj put out that sunday. quote, when they met with mr. giuliani they were not aware of any investigation of mr. giuliani s associates in the southern district of new york. they would not have met with him had they known. at the time nobody exactly knew what that meeting was or who this was facing bribery charges, who giuliani got into the justice department. nobody knew what that meeting was about, who that meeting was about. now we know. now we know. turns out according to the washington post tonight rudy giuliani was at the justice
connection but it is clear if there s a connection there would be potential liability. there s two possibilities for cohen or trump to be in hot water. i would say both are remote. the first is the actual out reach. it didn t go through. on the other side of things, as you say, the supreme court has pretty well foreclosed a liability for a straight quid pro quo for just access. that s a potential straightforward bribe case. that s a lot of facts for mueller to fill in there. anything that goes beyond access potentially grounds criminal liability. is there any indication that mueller is investigating this? well, there s indication that mueller is investigating
for his own access, it is about that sort of lack of credibility on other matters, including stormy daniels, that raises eyebrows to say, well, it s hard for people to say you had an epiphany as opposed to you re trying to simply cover something up. i just want to say one thing about the idea of the bribe case, et cetera. the supreme court has made it particularly difficult for prosecutors to be able to prosecute crimes for true quid pro quo and the bribery john and i are describing. remember there was the virginia former governor, bob mcdonald who had an issue about something very similar where he was being accused of engaging in bribery as opposed to simple lobbying on behalf of a natural supplement provider. and the court there said, listen, if it is not an official act, if you re just paying for access, this happens in washington, d.c. all the time. no politician would be on notice that s actually wrongdoing if we now choose to criminalize it. so you have michael cohen ironically g