Wednesday night scoop that illuminates how much influence Rudy Giuliani had over President Trump and U.S. foreign policy - dating back to 2017. With @SalehaMohsin, @StephaniBaker and @JenniferJJacobs bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Trump asked Tillerson to talk to Giuliani and help get the Department of Justicr to drop a sanctions-busting case against Reza Zarrab, a client of Giuliani’s. Tillerson refused.
Giuliani’s work representing Zarrab was known at the time. What wasn’t known was that Trump himself leaned on his top aides to try to make the case go away. Getting Zarrab’s case dismissed had also been a priority for Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Here's what Rudy told us in response to this story, when we asked if he raised the case with the president: "“Suppose I did talk to Trump about it -- so what?...Maybe at some point I dropped his name in a conversation." bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The president's critics highlight what they believe is Turkey's undue sway over the president. Four issues come to mind:
1. His raising Zarrab case with Tillerson
1. His raising Zarrab case with Tillerson
2. The White House has so far sat on a sanctions package recommended by State and Treasury to punish Turkey for buying the S400 system. Read about that here:
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
3. so far there has been no movement on a fine against Halkbank, the Turkish bank at the center of the Iran sanctions-busting scheme that Reza Zarrab helped orchestrate.
4. The phone calls in which President Erdogan appears to have persuaded President Trump to reduce troop numbers in Syria and get out of the way of a military operation in the northeast.
