In an interview with investigators from the Department of Justice’s Inspector General into leaks coming from the FBI, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani admitted that he completely made up a claim he made in October 2016 about agents telling him they were investigating Hillary Clinton, the Daily Beast reports.
During the interview, Giuliani attempted to furiously backpedal from a statement he had made during an October 28th radio appearance, claiming he was in contact with “active [FBI] agents” who verified that the FBI was investigating Clinton. Earlier, Giuliani had said in an October 26th Fox News interview, “I think he’s got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”
On October 28th, FBI Director James Comey made an unusual public statement announcing the Bureau was opening an investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified information. The statement, days before the 2016 presidential election, is seen by many pundits as staining Clinton’s reputation, even though no evidence of wrongdoing was ever found.
According to the Inspector General’s report:
Giuliani told the OIG that he had not received any information about any ongoing FBI investigations, including then Director Comey’s decision to re-open the Hillary Clinton email investigation. In response to a specific question about the October 28 notification to Congress concerning the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Giuliani responded, “[Director] Comey’s statements were a shock to me. I had no foreknowledge of any of them.” Giuliani also said he had not been in contact with any active FBI agents in October 2016, and stated that he had only spoken with former agents who did not have any direct or indirect knowledge of FBI investigations in October 2016, and that the extent of his conversations with former agents was “gossip” about Comey’s decision-making in 2016. He stated that his use of the term “active” was meant to refer to retired FBI agents who were still actively working in security and consulting.
The OIG looked into phone records of four agents it believed had contact with Giuliani in the weeks before the election. During interviews, all four denied contacting Giuliani or passing along information to him. Phone numbers called by the four were identified by the OIG as being affiliated with Giuliani, but the calls were either to a general line to the law firm Giuliani was associated with at the time, or out-of-date numbers Giuliani had prior to 2007.