Rudy Giuliani is hitting back against claims from former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman’s claim that President Trump knew about the hacked Democratic emails obtained by WikiLeaks before they were released during the 2016 campaign.
“I know she’s lying because I was on the campaign more than she was,” Giuliani said late Tuesday on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time.”
“I was closer to them than she was,” he continued. “I was from about June to November, I was with him 24 hours a day.”
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Giuliani, who is Trump’s lead attorney in the Russia investigation, insisted that Trump was “completely surprised” the first time WikiLeaks released a trove of hacked Democratic emails at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.
“He asked me, ‘Do you think there will be more?’ ” Giuliani said. “I told him, ‘I have no idea, but I heard some reporter on CNN, Fox, I don’t know where, saying [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange has a practice of putting out the weakest ones first, that he builds it up, builds it up, builds it up.’ I said, ‘I think this guy may have more than that.’ “
Giuliani was responding to allegations made by Manigault Newman earlier in the day on MSNBC.
Manigault Newman, who is promoting her new book, “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” claimed without providing any evidence that Trump “absolutely” knew about the emails before they were released by WikiLeaks, adding that campaign officials were told to bring up the emails regularly during the campaign.
U.S. officials have linked the hacked emails to a broader plot by Russia to interfere in the election.
Giuliani disputed her assertions, reiterating to host Chris Cuomo that Manigault Newman was not particularly close to Trump during the campaign.
“We were surprised every time [WikiLeaks] did a disclosure,” he said. “She was not as close to him as I was. If she’s saying this and if it’s not in the book, never said it before, I don’t know if she was interviewed by the special prosecutor or not.”
Manigault Newman confirmed Tuesday she has spoken with special counsel Robert Mueller. She also indicated she would be willing to share with him tapes of conversations she recorded during her time on the campaign and in the White House if Mueller’s team reached out again.