Thread by @SethAbramson

I'm not a fan of Dreyfuss, nor he of me, and his magazine has straight-up lied about me in its pages, but he's *certainly* no fan of Trump—so if he says the Giuliani-Bakalova scene is less sexual than the major-media outlets who saw it implied it was, I want readers here to know.

https://twitter.com/bendreyfuss/status/1319001450597396480

1/ Most of the reaction on Twitter came without the film having been seen by the authors—me included—though most of it *was* reacting to major-media reporters who'd seen the scene (or claimed to have done so). The scene is problematic whether or not Giuliani was touching himself.

2/ We're told Giuliani was flirting, drinking, asking for Bakalova's number/email, and—after agreeing to retire to a bedroom with her—touching her inappropriately (as Dreyfuss confirms). He believed her to be a foreign national from a former Soviet republic seeking info on Trump.

3/ We know this happened while Giuliani was (is) under federal investigation for conspiracy to commit bribery, fraud, and working as an unregistered foreign agent; we also know this happened while he was (is) working as Trump's election-tampering intermediary to Kremlin agents.

4/ We're told Giuliani rushed from the room when Cohen entered, and wanted to cover his bases sufficiently—creating a record of having done nothing wrong—that he called the cops. We know he's a pathological liar who takes bribes from foreigners and tries to tamper with elections.

5/ There should be no sexualized contact or romantic entreaties between the president's lawyer and a foreign national trying to get intel on the president. None. *Ever*. Under any circumstances. Especially given what Giuliani is being investigated for and what we know he's doing.

6/ The Guardian (UK) story was poorly written, permitting the conclusion that Giuliani had cause to think Bakalova underage. We still don't know what footage was cut from the scene—we don't know what Giuliani "knew" or was told—but the early reports were unnecessarily confusing.

7/ My first reaction to all this was that if a comedian can effortlessly get Giuliani alone in a videotaped bedroom with alcohol and a woman from a former Soviet republic who he wants to sleep with, is touching inappropriately and is willing to give info about Trump to, it's bad.

8/ I said that if Cohen can do *this*, it means Putin's GRU, SVR or FSB can *effortlessly* do the real thing to Giuliani with an equally videotaped bedroom, equally tasty alcohol, and a woman from Russia or a former Soviet republic he equally wants to sleep with. I stand by that.

9/ I actually didn't find the reaction on Twitter to be obsessed with the masturbation aspect of the story or even the underage-girl aspect of the story; I think the main thing was Trump's lawyer on camera in a hotel room with a foreign national in a generally sexualized context.

10/ Who knows what Rudy was thinking in that bedroom? (Though we can guess.) Who knows what Rudy wanted to see happen in that room? (Again, we can guess. Or not guess—but speculate reasonably based on the context clues that are in no way refuted by anyone, Dreyfuss or otherwise.)

11/ But the main thing is this: it didn't matter. Media ran with the story as a harmless prank—missing the national security component entirely. Many outlets either didn't cover it or covered it as a pop-culture story. So it's hardly the case that *anyone* got this exactly right.

12/ But everyone—from conventional journalist to metajournalist to citizen journalist to non-journalist—should want to get the story right. And "right"—in this case—doesn't involve masturbation/pedophilia (it seems) but involves national security implications still being ignored.

13/ It'll be tempting to blame Twitter for getting this "wrong." But the initial *major-media* reports were misleading—apparently—and the *follow-up* major-media reports appalling in their dismissiveness. I just don't see a winner on this one. But there should be one clear loser.

14/ Giuliani acted in an inappropriate way that underscores how reckless he is with intelligence about Trump, how heedless he is of intelligence concerns he's been warned about, how ready he is to engage in compromising scenes with someone he *should* have worried could be a spy.

15/ When "Borat 2" is available for free on Amazon on Friday, I expect I'll see a scene that underscores the near-certainty that the Kremlin has compromising material on Giuliani, and that he would engage in illicit quid pro quos. And *that's* what finally matters in all of this.