Nick Akerman, a former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, called Rudy Giuliani a “shill” for President Trump and accused Giuliani of “undermining our system of justice,” following Giuliani’s interview with Fox News earlier this week.
Akerman’s comments were prompted by MSNBC host Joy Reid asking him if Giuliani’s statements following the interview were examples of “bad lawyering,” and then asked Ackerman to clarify “what’s going on here.”
“What’s going on here is the chief lawyer is Donald J. Trump,” Akerman said. “He’s taking all of his queues from Donald Trump. He is basically just a shill for Donald Trump and what I think is most upsetting is that he’s also taking on the entire rule of law and undermining our system of justice and attacking the FBI, attacking the U.S. Attorney’s office. I mean, he actually referred to the FBI agents who executed a valid search warrant on the office of Michael Cohen as a bunch of stormtroopers.”
Federal agents raided the home and office of Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen last month. The raid was overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, and was reportedly authorized by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Giuliani, a former New York City mayor who recently joined Trump’s legal team, made the “stormtrooper” reference during an interview Wednesday with Fox News host Sean Hannity, where he also disclosed that Trump had repaid Cohen the hush money meant to silence porn star Stormy Daniels about an alleged affair with Trump. Giuliani later walked back that assertion.
Former FBI Director James Comey, who previously served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, slammed the Giuliani for comparing federal agents to “Nazis” by calling them stormtroopers.
“I know the New York FBI. There are no ‘stormtroopers’ there; just a group of people devoted to the rule of law and the truth. Our country would be better off if our leaders tried to be like them, rather than comparing them to Nazis,” Comey wrote in a tweet Thursday.
I know the New York FBI. There are no “stormtroopers” there; just a group of people devoted to the rule of law and the truth. Our country would be better off if our leaders tried to be like them, rather than comparing them to Nazis.
— James Comey (@Comey) May 3, 2018
