After fiercely defending the president throughout the Mueller probe—sometimes with not-so-stellar results—Rudy Giuliani‘s tenure on President Donald Trump‘s legal team may soon be coming to an end. Despite recent reports suggesting that the attorney could soon be put to work on Trump’s 2020 campaign, Giuliani said in an interview with the Washington Examiner Thursday that he expects his work with Trump, which is unpaid, to be reaching a close. Giuliani said that while he will continue to handle the non-congressional legal fallout from the Mueller investigation, which includes current legal issues being handled by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and the New York attorney general’s office, he would “probably not” stay on as the president’s lawyer once those investigations have concluded. (The congressional inquiries resulting from the Mueller report are being handled by the White House’s legal team.)
Giuliani told the Examiner that after he ends his work with Trump, which currently also includes “following up on evidence” concerning the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, the lawyer would return to his non-governmental work, which includes giving expensive speeches that have netted him millions of dollars. Giuliani will do more of “what I am doing now: security analysis and consulting all over the world and legal cases I am interested in,” the attorney explained. Yet while Giuliani insisted he has “no plan” to join the Trump administration, the Trump attorney didn’t close the door on continuing his tenure as Trump’s legal lackey entirely. He left open the possibility of staying on as Trump’s lawyer if the president wanted him to, saying it “depends on if I’m needed.”
The Examiner interview comes as Giuliani appeared poised to play an even bigger role on the Trump team, after Politico reported in late May that the lawyer was expected to pivot to a new position on Trump’s campaign team. “We’ll see where they have holes and where they need help,” Giuliani told Politico. “I’m available to do a lot of it.” White House aides quoted by Politico appeared to have a dual view of Giuliani, acknowledging that he can be a boon to Trump while also cringing when his television appearances go awry. “I think [Giuliani] has the potential to be very effective in certain circumstances,” one Trump campaign adviser told Politico. “He also has the potential to be unhelpful at times.”
Lately, Giuliani’s behavior has mostly been in “unhelpful” territory, which perhaps could hint at the reasoning behind the lawyer’s seeming change of heart. Giuliani’s pet project of a “counter-report” to combat the Mueller report’s damaging findings never materialized, and the lawyer’s most recent efforts to persuade the Ukranian government to investigate matters related to Joe Biden‘s son Hunter Biden blew up after people rightfully pointed out that the whole thing looked like Giuliani was asking Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election. (The Ukranian government, for its part, maintains Biden is not guilty of any wrongdoing and says it wants “to stay away from [the Giuliani controversy] as much as possible.”)
But will the Trump team actually be able to let Giuliani go? Even as they acknowledge the often damaging effect of his TV appearances, the administration still seems to recognize the key role Giuliani plays, suggesting they could be inclined to have him stick around. “We view him as a necessary component to the overall picture, because there are frequently messages that the president absolutely needs and wants to get out and he serves that role ably and cheerfully,” one adviser to the president told Politico about Giuliani. “That’s the best way to characterize him. If there wasn’t a Rudy Giuliani, we’d have to invent one.”
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