Rudy Giuliani revealed he was interviewed by the FBI in February about his 2016 comments about a “surprise” coming before the presidential election that would benefit then-candidate Donald Trump.
Giuliani, a member of Trump’s legal team, told the Huffington Post the interview with a pair of agents, one male and one female, took place in his room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., this year.
“That’s all they asked about,” he told the Huffington Post. “What was I talking about in terms of ‘surprise?’ What was I talking about when I was talking about new information?”
Giuliani worked on the Trump campaign and hinted in an interview with Fox News in October 2016 there would be a “pretty big surprise” coming.
The remarks came just before former FBI Director Jim Comey notified Congress the bureau had effectively re-opened the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server after emails were discovered on a laptop belonging to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.
Giuliani’s comments raised concerns that information about the probe was leaked to him by FBI agents, though he told the Huffington Post that was not the case.
“Did I get any leaks from the FBI? I said no,” he said.
The “surprise” he was referencing was a TV ad he was pushing Trump to buy, Giuliani said.
The former New York City mayor said the agents “definitely told me they were investigating for the [inspector general]” and asked him only about his comments predicting a surprise late in the campaign.
Giuliani said he had only been speaking with former FBI employees, and together, they believed some in the bureau were going to be mad about Comey’s decision not to recommend charges against Clinton.
“We speculated from our knowledge of FBI agents,” he told the Huffington Post. “The thought was that the agents were going to leak that they were very upset with the Comey decision.”
He added that he was “totally shocked that Weiner got dragged into it” and did not know Comey was going to re-open the Clinton email probe.
“They said they were satisfied,” Giuliani said of the agents. “If they want to interview me all over again, they can interview me all over again. … Maybe they’ll come raid my office like Michael Cohen.”
A report released by the Justice Department’s inspector general last week detailed the role that the fear of leaks played in Comey’s decision to notify Congress about the emails discovered by the FBI.
In an interview with the Office of the Inspector General, then-FBI general counsel Jim Baker said “the discussion was somebody in New York will leak this.”
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch also told the inspector general that she and Comey discussed that there was a “cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred” of Clinton.
