Rudy Giuliani’s revealing interview with Sean Hannity, annotated

The lead attorney on President Trump's private legal team, Rudolph W. Giuliani, revealed in an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity on Wednesday that Trump reimbursed another lawyer, Michael Cohen,  for a $130,000 payment to silence porn star Stormy Daniels. Daniels claims to have had an affair with the president more than a decade ago.

HANNITY: Joining us now for the exclusive interview, he's the former mayor in New York City. He is the current president of — attorney for the president, President Trump, Rudy Giuliani is with us.

All right.

GIULIANI: Nice to be back, Sean.

HANNITY: Good to see you, Mr. Mayor.

GIULIANI: It's been a while.

HANNITY: We've been through a lot together. I was here when you were mayor, of course.

GIULIANI: Yes.

HANNITY: And the city is still benefiting from your —

GIULIANI: Thank you so much. That's so kind.

HANNITY: Just — why don't we start as simple — give us the status of the special counsel and what's going on with the president?

GIULIANI: Well, the special counsel would like to interview the president. There's no secret about that. Every lawyer in America thinks he shouldn't be. We, meaning myself and Jay Sekulow, and the Raskins, and all the people involved in the investigation, and now, our new colleague, Emmett, we're going to have to decide, probably — it falls more on us because he's on the government side, whether the president should grant an interview.

Here's what it's all about. It's real simple. The American people can follow this along with me. Are they objective?

HANNITY: Are they?

GIULIANI: Well, right now, a lot of things point in the direction of, they made up their mind that Comey is telling the truth and not the president. When you look at those questions about what does the president think, what does the president feel, what does the president really desire, those are all questions intended to trap him in some way in contradicting what is in fact a very, very solid explanation of what happened.

He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn't a target of the investigation. He's entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that. And, he couldn't get that. So, he fired him and he said, I'm free of the guy, and he went on Lester Holt. Lester Holt's interview was as good as anybody could do, better than I think any of the people around Mueller could have done, and Lester Holt asked him, why did you do it? He said, I did it because I felt that I had to explain to the American people the president was not the target of the investigation.

And even Jake Tapper pushed him, like, really hard, I'm talking about Comey. Comey had no answer for why he didn't say this, even though he had done the same thing for Hillary.

So, you can't blame the president for feeling, I am not being treated the same way they were. I mean, I don't expect that we are going to have an interview with exonerating —

HANNITY: Exoneration?

GIULIANI: Already written.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I have a lot of questions for you.

GIULIANI: I can — I would like to get one, not under oath. I'd want it videotaped, not videotaped, but audiotaped, I want to make sure they don't misrepresent his answers. But this is an outrageous miscarriage of justice. Please consider whether you are Republican or a Democrat, whether you hate President Trump or you love him like we do, or like I do —

HANNITY: I think people know I am pretty supportive. I think the secret is out of the bag.

GIULIANI: Okay, I want to let you off the hook, Sean —

HANNITY: Full disclosure now, everything. Rudy Giuliani and I once had a meal together. Okay, go ahead.

(LAUGHTER)

GIULIANI: I don't remember who paid.

So, you can't possibly — you can't possibly not feel as a citizen of the world, that his negotiations with North Korea are much more significant than this totally garbage investigation.

HANNITY: You know, let me — let me ask you first about the legal team.

GIULIANI: Good.

HANNITY: Ty Cobb, John Dowd, they are out. My understanding is Ty Cobb had been saying for some time he was going to retire. What happened there?

GIULIANI: Ty has been enormously helpful. He certainly helped me with my orientation. We wouldn't be where we are today, which is in a very strong position, if it wasn't for him and John.

John has been my friend and colleague for 35 years. I have nothing but the utmost respect for John Dowd. He had the right instincts about this, which is, you are going to get him to testify over my dead body because you are trying to trap him. He had those instincts way back when it was harder to see those. So, all that work didn't go for nothing. We got it all.

Jay has been the rock. He's been — Jay Sekulow.

HANNITY: Jay Sekulow.

GIULIANI: He's been through this — I couldn't do it without Jay. And I think I offer — what I offer to this is something unique. I'm a lawyer who knows the criminal justice system as well as anybody in America. I'm also a very good friend of Donald Trump. And I think I have the respect of Mueller, the FBI, the Justice Department.

HANNITY: You should.

GIULIANI: Jeff Sessions was my colleague, not just in the campaign but back in 1981, when he was U.S. attorney in Alabama.

I don't think I'm going to — they know the decision I make is going to be the best interest, not just of my client, but the United States. If they're objective, we can work something out. If they're not, then we have to shake hands and basically go into a litigation over, do they have the power to subpoena? And I think they lost that power.

This is a completely tainted investigation.

HANNITY: Explain.

GIULIANI: Well, you have an investigation in which Mueller is selected the day after he was turned down for FBI director by Rosenstein who was there when Mueller was turned down. There are thousands of people that could have been selected for that job. Also a friend of James Comey, and James Comey seems to be their core of their investigation. He's telling the truth, the president isn't.

I know James Comey. I know the president.

Sorry, Jim, you're a liar. A disgraceful liar. Every FBI agent in America has his head down because of you. It would have been good for God if God had kept you out of being head of the FBI.

HANNITY: Explain where he lied.

GIULIANI: Well, he lied about his conversation with McCabe. He knew all of McCabe's conflicts. McCabe should testify against him. He lied about his conversations with the president. He only told the truth when the president said, I made — we know Donald — I'm sorry, Mr. President, he was Donald before.

He lied about the fact that they talked about whether the president was a subject or target, then he immediately changed it. It's one lie after another.

HANNITY: Rod Rosenstein — everyone forgets when he wrote that recommendation to fire Comey. He said the FBI cannot be reestablished if he stayed at the helm.

GIULIANI: Yeah, why? Because he's a liar. His conduct of the Hillary Clinton investigation was a total disgrace. If Hillary Clinton had been elected president, he wouldn't have lasted past day one. We know she would have fired him.

I don't think she'd deny that today. She was right. We should have fired him. When I say we, I mean the collective we here, day one.

HANNITY: Let's talk about —

GIULIANI: Let me say one more thing.

HANNITY: Yes, sir.

GIULIANI: This is the best president in my memory. In two years — even my hero, Ronald Reagan, he straighten the economy out the way President Trump did. But he didn't get this far ahead on foreign policy as fast as President Trump has.

Look at what's going on with North Korea. I told the president, you're going to get the Nobel Peace Prize. My proudest moment is when you tell them to shove it. Sorry.

HANNITY: By the way, no, no, no, this is cable. You're — we're good here.

You said about — let's talk about the leak questions. You know, I mean, I have them here in front of me. What are your thoughts? What did you think about Comey? What did you think about Sessions?

GIULIANI: Comey should be prosecuted for leaking confidential FBI information when he leaked his report intended to develop a special prosecutor for the president of the United States. I have never, ever turned over a document — you know me, Sean, you know me when I was U.S. attorney, a lot of allegations —

HANNITY: Took down the mob.

GIULIANI: — never leaked a damn thing. I would have considered resigning if I ever did that, or if one of my assistants did it. Did the FBI leak? Did the SEC leak? I'm sorry, guys, you did.

HANNITY: Let me ask you this. There's so many lawyers that I respect, that you know and respect — Alan Dershowitz, Joe diGenova, these are heavy hitters. Our own Gregg Jarrett —

GIULIANI: All my friends.

HANNITY: The president should never spend a minute — you said it would be narrow and focused today, and you said no more than two or three hours. Do you believe Robert Mueller is setting a perjury trap for Donald Trump?

GIULIANI: Well, I have to remain, and Jay and our team has to remain open-minded about this because even though you and I might see a clear avenue to quickly resolving this for the American people, we may, and we know that our president — we know that our president will seek a resolution that gets him a clear path to getting it resolved.

So, I would — I would say right now, the odds are, he wouldn't be interviewed. I don't close my mind to it.

HANNITY: I — when we are talking about — I mean, this is really important, because we are talking about a subpoena. And the subpoena, that means that the president of the United States — I always said they should have the Hillary standard, and the Hillary standard is really simple. Not under oath, not —

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Well, wait a minute. And you have a guy who hates Hillary and loves Donald Trump during the interview. That would be the Hillary standard. That's not going to happen with Robert Mueller.

GIULIANI: We're not going to get that. Could we accept something less than that? Yes. Could we accept a situation in which they are telling us basically we believe Comey, who is now a pathological liar, as opposed to Donald Trump? Then the answer to that is no.

HANNITY: All right. I have been probably the most outspoken, loudest critic in the country besides the president, about Robert Mueller, and a team of Democratic donors, no Republicans. People say, well, he's a Republican and he's a veteran — okay, I applaud him for serving his country. I mean that.

Andrew Weissmann, tens of thousands of people lost their jobs, Mr. Mayor, at Enron, tens of thousands, a 9-0 decision against Andrew Weissmann. Who gets 9-0? Four Merrill executives in jail for a year, overturned by Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and he was excoriated twice for withholding exculpatory evidence.

That appointment alone, sir, tells me that this is a biased team.

GIULIANI: Let me give you two different views of Bob. What do I know of Bob that I could testify to under oath? A patriot, an extraordinarily good man.

HANNITY: He served his country.

GIULIANI: He served his country. Did a good job with the FBI. I don't think he would be affected by malice or prejudice. However, I don't have an explanation for the people that he hired, not all of them. I've dealt with them very briefly. I think they are processional.

HANNITY: Weissmann?

GIULIANI: I did not deal with Weissmann much. Quarles, very good man.

HANNITY: Are you disturbed by his record?

GIULIANI: Yes, but, you know, he'd probably be disturbed by mine, too.

I have an open mind about Bob. I don't about Comey. I've closed my mind about Comey. I know Comey much better. I have the indignity of unfortunately of having hired him for his first big job. And I'm embarrassed that I hired him.

HANNITY: Let me go to a tweet by the president. This is — and he tweeted, John Dowd. This isn't some game. You're screwing with the work of the president of the United States of America. John Dowd, 2018. North Korea, China, the Middle East, so much more. There is not much time to be thingking about this, especially since there is no Russia collusion.

Mr. Mayor, it's been going on, how many congressional investigations? This has been going on now almost a full year. There's no evidence of Trump- Russia collusion. How did we end up from there to Stormy Daniels?

GIULIANI: Because this is — I think this is being done behind Mueller's back in a sense because they come to him with all kinds —

HANNITY: He doesn't read a newspaper?

GIULIANI: Yes, self-serving statements. This has become a witch hunt like the president said. And if you look at the questions that are being asked, they're trap questions. A first-year prosecutor would do better than that.

So, he's in very good hands now. I don't just mean me. I mean Jay and the whole team. And Ty gets a great deal of credit for all this, because he orchestrated it. I'm looking forward to working with Emmet, who handled the Clinton situation —

HANNITY: Very well respected attorney.

GIULIANI: And then Bush, and then Bush. So, this is not a political guy.

HANNITY: You said, if their objective meaning Mueller and his team, more likely will be willing to cooperate, less objective than we would be foolish to do that, you said. You also said there would be a decision in just a couple of weeks.

GIULIANI: Well, I can't imagine it would take much longer. It's coming to a head right now, and there's not much more to think about. If they can — if they can — if they can get us in a position where we can recommend to the president — you know President Trump.

HANNITY: Of course.

GIULIANI: You know he wants to be interviewed, right?

HANNITY: Yes, I do.

GIULIANI: If he doesn't, it's going to be because Jay and I and —

HANNITY: Others say no.

GIULIANI: And the Raskins and we would stand up there and say, you — look, we're lawyers, you got to listen to us, Mr. President. I think, I think I'm there because I'm his friend.

HANNITY: Well, I think your background as an attorney, all the years and mayor — the president — I agree with the president's statement. And I have been very open in this and saying this, that this is a setup, that this is a subpoena, this is a perjury trap.

And let's walk through what if they issue a subpoena? What if they tell — if he's decided not to talk, they send him before a grand jury because it becomes tricky, as Alan Dershowitz has described on this show. If the president pleads the Fifth, which he doesn't want to do, he said he doesn't want to do, then they give him immunity, then what?

GIULIANI: Okay. So, let's look at that. I think Alan pointed this out a bit last night on your show but not in detail. If they issue a subpoena, that will be — that will be unprecedented in the sense that it's pretty clear that a president can't be subpoenaed to a criminal proceeding about him. Now, why is that? And fortunately — or maybe unfortunately — we have the real life circumstance going on that the Founding Fathers thought about, which is a president cannot be distracted by a criminal investigation. You can always prosecute him after. They can get him when he leaves the White House. You can always prosecute him after.

But we — I could not — if Mueller said to me tomorrow, bring him in, two hours, like you want, no questions that you don't want, and we're pretty much ready to clear him. I could not go to the president and say, take two days off to get ready for that and screw the whole thing with North Korea. I — how can any American do that?

He's our president. He is going to negotiate, I believe, a non-nuclear situation on the Korean Peninsula.

HANNITY: Nobody thought about it.

GIULIANI: All right. And you're going to interfere with that? That's why the Founding Fathers created this immunity from prosecution and subpoena. Now, if it's a civil case, Clinton submitted because it was a civil case.

HANNITY: Why not written answers to or proffer?

GIULIANI: Which Ronald Reagan did.

HANNITY: Why not that?

GIULIANI: Because they said no to that. They said no to that.

HANNITY: So they want to then — so the president says he'll do an interview and then they're going to what?

GIULIANI: At this point, I'm not sure I'd give them written answers because they're going to try to contradict them. I believe, I believe that attorney general sessions, my good friend, and Rosenstein, who I don't know, I believe they should come in the interest of justice, end this investigation. There's been too much government misconduct. The crimes now have all been committed by the government, and their agents, the lies by Comey.

HANNITY: I'm going to go through this in a minute. Let me ask you —

GIULIANI: Oh, come on. It's terrible.

HANNITY: What are the parameters that you would insist on for any interview with Mueller beyond two to three hours narrowing the scope?

GIULIANI: Never beyond two or three hours. Not going to happen. I'm not going to have my client, my president, my friend, and a president that's achieved more in a year and a half against all odds than anyone had a right to expect — I'm not going to let him be treated worse than Bill Clinton, who definitely was a liar under oath. Not going to let him be — I mean, he's being treated much worse than Hillary Clinton, who had no right to any of that stuff.

So, I'm not going to let him be treated worse than Hillary Clinton. I think Jay and I will insist that they're going to have to treat him the same way as Clinton. Two and half hours, we end, we walk out, give us your questions in advance. He's ready to —

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: I know him. I've interviewed him.

GIULIANI: He's ready to go.

HANNITY: I've interviewed him before he ran.

GIULIANI: And I — you know, if we weren't careful lawyers, we would just let him go. I mean, he's about — I remember the debates that I prepared him for in part with Chris Christie, Kellyanne Conway —

HANNITY: There's a real story behind that, I bet.

GIULIANI: Oh, wow. But did he execute?

HANNITY: He did.

GIULIANI: I saw you after every debate.

HANNITY: You did.

GIULIANI: And he got better and better.

HANNITY: You know, I — I've got to now talk about something that I never thought I'd talk about — this is going to be a long-winded lead up to a question. I've been pointing out on this program, 18 USC 793, mishandling classified information, the Espionage Act, and destroying it. By the way, it would apply to a lot of people.

I've talked about if I was subpoenaed, from all my emails, and I deleted 33,000, and then I acid washed my hard drive, nobody heard of Bleach Bit until Hillary Clinton, and Bleach Bit, and then had an aide bust up all my devices, like she had happen — I never heard of an exoneration being written in May before you interview 17 key witnesses and the main person, Hillary Clinton, in July. The person that does the interview hates the opponent of Hillary Clinton. Then they exonerate her for I believe obvious felonies.

GIULIANI: Right.

HANNITY: Then they talk about Russia collusion, Hillary Clinton and the DNC funneled money through a law firm, Perkins Coie, and unbelievable to me, a foreign national who we heard wasn't supposed to be involved in our elections, Christopher Steele, gets Russian sources.

The FBI never verifies it, they present it to a FISA court to spy on an American citizen, a Trump campaign associate weeks before an election.

They never verified, they never corroborated, and they never told those judge in the original application, three subsequent applications that Hillary paid for it and they never verified it. Mr. Mayor, were lost broken? Let's start with Hillary. Did she —

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Yes. I've been on, look, we go back three years with this, Sean, when I produce my chart.

HANNITY: I remember.

GIULIANI: Thirteen crimes she committed.

HANNITY: Yes.

GIULIANI: Then we got up to about 18. I'm sorry, Hillary, I know you're very disappointed you didn't win. But you're a criminal. Equal justice would mean you should go to jail. I do not know why the Justice Department is not investigating her.

HANNITY: The James Comey?

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: James Comey fixed the whole case.

HANNITY: It was rigged.

GIULIANI: Well, you can't read that stupid report that he wrote, which is the beginning of his destruction, in which he said we're not going to prosecute — no reasonable prosecutor would indict her. No honest reasonable prosecutor wouldn't indict her.

HANNITY: He said today or yesterday, Comey, he said, Hillary deeply respects the rule of law. Comey said that.

GIULIANI: Wow. This is a very perverted man. I feel so sorry.

HANNITY: Do we have a two-tier justice system in America?

GIULIANI: Yeah, we have one for Hillary and all of those Democrats, Bill Clinton.

HANNITY: Is equal justice under the law at risk?

GIULIANI: You and I have talked about this. I am very afraid, not just for our president, but for our country. There's going to be a witch hunt against Republicans. You had a man on who's lost all his money, for what reason, he didn't do anything wrong.

The president of the United States didn't do anything wrong. We are lucky that we have a president who can focus. In a way it almost hurts him because they feel they can do anything to him and he's going to remain focused on North Korea, Iran, what do we with China, how do we help Israel, what do we do about taxes?

HANNITY: The economy has an incredible story the media never focuses on. I actually had to write this down. If we have the Hillary standard, the interview would never be under oath, it would never be recorded, never be transcribed, and by the way —

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: And all the witnesses that are favor with whom would be in the room, immunized. Jared would be immunized, Cohen would be immunized —

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: We'd write the exoneration before the interview then we would agree to destroying incriminating evidence, like they did in the case of Cheryl Mills and Hillary, and either you or Rush Limbaugh would do the interview.

GIULIANI: Rush and I would not object.

HANNITY: Or Mark Levin.

GIULIANI: Mark Levin.

HANNITY: Yes. There is a political report today basically suggesting Mueller would now consider Ivanka Trump a target. Look at Hope Hicks as one example.

GIULIANI: Come on.

HANNITY: She paid more in lawyers than she was ever paid.

GIULIANI: Hope is, I wish the American people could get to know her. Hope is one of the nicest human beings you're ever going to meet. Yes, she's very loyal to Donald Trump. But I think the president would say this, she could stand up to him when she had to. What they did to her is outrageous. Absolutely outrageous.

Ivanka Trump? I would — I think I would get on my charger and go right into their offices with a lance if go after Ivanka.

HANNITY: At this point, sir, I honestly agree with you I fear for the country. Let me go to —

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Now if they do do Ivanka, which I doubt they will, the whole country will turn on them. They are going after his daughter?

HANNITY: What about his son-in-law, they talked about him.

GIULIANI: I guess Jared is a fine man, you know that. But men are, you know, disposable. But a fine woman like Ivanka? Come on.

HANNITY: Andrew — let's go through the different issues that we have brought up and spoke about almost exclusively on this show.

For example, you mentioned Hillary Clinton, she obviously committed felonies, we know what they are, you've identified them. I believe as you do, Comey rigged that. Comey. Look at Peter Strzok and Page. They hate the president, they hated the candidate, they talk about an insurance policy. All — Andrew McCabe lying under oath, James Comey leaking for the purpose of getting a special counsel.

GIULIANI: Also Comey and McCabe contradicting each other. One of them has to be lying. I mean, I actually think Comey is lying. I think Comey is a big liar than McCabe. McCabe isn't a situational liar. He's a much big liar.

So, if this were equal system of justice, they'd all be prosecuted.

HANNITY: Let me ask you because —

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: It's my biggest regret, I'm sorry I have to say this —

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: You were offered the job.

GIULIANI: Yes. It's my biggest regret in not having taken that job. I wanted to be secretary —

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: My biggest regret, and I like Jeff Sessions, but he never should have recused himself.

GIULIANI: Well, he never should have appointed Rosenstein.

HANNITY: I've never heard of somebody being appointed or confirmed and recuse the next day.

GIULIANI: Do you know that Rosenstein was with Mueller the night or the day he was interviewed by President Trump to be FBI director? Walked out, knew that he was turned down and then appointed him the next day? There are- —

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Did you know Rod Rosenstein, apparently, according to reports that we have on this program, signed off on one of the FISA extensions? The one with the unverified dossier, the bulk of information as the Grassley-Graham memo said? That he personally signed off, does that not conflict him out of all of this?

GIULIANI: How about he's also a witness to critical information. For a Justice Department that pontificates — I told you. The only crimes committed here are by the government.

HANNITY: Let me ask about them. Andrew McCabe said without the dossier, there would've been a FISA application. I would ask you, doesn't the FBI, according to FISA, a law you're very familiar with, an FBI protocol mandate that they verify, corroborate what they present to a FISA judge, isn't that mandatory? Wouldn't it be mandatory to identify that the dossier was created by an opposition party candidate and not as a political asterisk?

GIULIANI: Absolutely.

HANNITY: Is that a crime?

GIULIANI: Yes. Yes, obstruction of justice. Invasion of people's privacy on no basis at all. It's a civil rights violation.

HANNITY: Unreasonable search and seizure.

GIULIANI: Yes, civil rights violation. If they searched you or me based on that we'd sue them for civil right violation. This is a Justice Department completely unhinged and out of control. It breaks my heart, Sean. I devoted most of my life to the Justice Department.

I work for great attorney — attorneys general. My friend Michael Mukasey was one of the greatest. And I watch it with great admiration —

HANNITY: Your partner.

GIULIANI: My partner. Great admiration for Michael. To watch this happen under a man that I love, Jeff Sessions, I just feel bad. I know the president is heartbroken over this. It isn't that he's angry, he's heartbroken. He never expected this from Jeff.

The two of them can redeem themselves, Sessions and Rosenstein. They should order the investigation over.

HANNITY: I don't think that's going to happen.

GIULIANI: Well, I don't think it's going to happen either, but if they understood Justice Jackson's admonition to prosecutors this that I always live by, which is we're not supposed to get convictions, we're supposed to do justice.

HANNITY: Let me stay focused on this FISA issue for just a second. Because Rod Rosenstein after they had subpoenaed the documents went into Paul Ryan's office begging him not to release it. We never would've had the Nunes memo or the Grassley-Graham memo that said the bulk of the application was the dossier Hillary paid for.

So my question is this. Not only that, there were three subsequent renewals with the same false information, the same lying by omission, if you will, by not telling the FISA judges that it was — that Hillary paid for it.

HANNITY: If I stand up in court at some point in the next three or four months where I really like to be and I recite these facts, I think the judge is going to look at me and say, I don't believe that's true.

How could the Justice Department have gone so far away from the fair and honest administration of justice under decent people? But I think the pressure on them was so great, they just caved in. And I — once again I say, there is one way to redeem themselves, get control of this — remember Senator Stevens's case?

HANNITY: Sure. Yes. He lost an election, and then the judge overturned at all because they withheld exculpatory evidence.

GIULIANI: Because of government misconduct.

HANNITY: That's correct.

GIULIANI: Well, there's been more government misconduct in this case than there has been conduct.

HANNITY: Are you concerned, this was supposed to be about the Trump campaign Russia collusion.

GIULIANI: Gone.

HANNITY: It's gone. Okay. Never happened.

GIULIANI: He's been cleared of that.

HANNITY: So my question is, are you concerned in the process of this we did discover that a foreign national, Christopher Steele was paid through Fusion GPS, used Russian sources that not only weren't verified, were debunked — are you concerned that that was paid for, to manipulate the American people in the lead-up to an election?

GIULIANI: Isn't that closer to the mandate than Michael Cohen?

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Why isn't that — where is Mueller on that, sir?

GIULIANI: Having something to do with paying some Stormy Daniels woman $130,000, I mean, which is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. That money was not campaign money. Sorry, I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. It's not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. So —

HANNITY: They funneled it through a law firm.

GIULIANI: Funneled it through a law firm and the president repaid it.

HANNITY: Oh. I didn't know. He did?

GIULIANI: Yes.

HANNITY: There's no campaign finance law?

GIULIANI: Zero.

HANNITY: So the president —

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Just like every, Sean —

HANNITY: So this decision was made by —

GIULIANI: Sean, everybody — everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasn't. I knew how much money Donald Trump put in to that campaign. I said $130,000? He's going to do a couple of checks for $130,000.

When I heard Cohen's retainer of $35,000 when he was doing no work for the president, I said that's how he's repaying — that's how he's repaying it, with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.

HANNITY: But do you know the president didn't know about this? I believe that's what Michael said.

GIULIANI: He didn't know about the specifics of it as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this. Like, I take care of things like this for my clients. I don't burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people.

HANNITY: What did you think of the raid on his office?

GIULIANI: One of the reasons we would hesitate to cooperate any further, and I think this is the breakdown with Dowd during — during back in January, that took them by surprise. That's beyond anything — that is an outrageous violation of attorney-client privilege beyond Donald Trump's attorney-client privilege. A lot of innocent people.

HANNITY: I gave him 10 bucks or 20 bucks.

GIULIANI: How about innocent people like —

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: All right. We got to continue.

GIULIANI: We called you that night?

HANNITY: I'll talk to you about that. We'll get back more with the mayor, the president's attorney next, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. As we continue our exclusive interview with President Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

I want to report to the American people the truth. And when I talk about a rigged investigation of Hillary, and I talked about the crimes that she committed and I interviewed you and other great attorneys. And I talked about FISA abuses and the FISA judge and a two-tiered justice system, equal justice under the law, have I been wrong at all? Tell me, I would love to tell the American people.

GIULIANI: God, you were right way back in, I don't know, was it 2015 when we first started focusing on that big chart that I made, I still have it on my cellphone.

HANNITY: I'll bring it up tomorrow.

GIULIANI: And they are still not investigated. No, you're not wrong.

HANNITY: But Russia collusion was wrong with Donald Trump.

GIULIANI: Russian collusion is a total fake news. Unfortunately, it has become the basis of the investigation. And Mueller owes us a report saying that Russia collusion means nothing, it didn't happen. That means the whole investigation was totally unnecessary.

All the rest of it that came out of it, whether it's the personal things or the political things. None of it is relevant. Meanwhile, the man is trying to deal with North Korea, come on.

HANNITY: Denuclearization of the Korean —

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GIULIANI: Right. And they want me to go to him and say let's take two weeks off to get you ready for a deposition that never should takes place in the first place?

HANNITY: I think this has gotten personal for those that are after the president.

GIULIANI: Of course it has, yeah. Of course, it's totally personal. Look at that — look at the whole press corps. Look at the correspondent's dinner on Saturday night.

HANNITY: All right. This was a short segment, we got to take a break — it was horrible. Going after Sarah Huckabee —

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Abortion applauding — applauding —

HANNITY: — Kellyanne.

GIULIANI: — slaughtering embryos?

HANNITY: More with Rudy Giuliani. A longer segment, I promise that, straight ahead.

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HANNITY: As we continue with President Trump's attorney, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, I want to clarify something because I was asking you about Perkins Coie and you said the money was not campaign money — I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know, it's not campaign money, no campaign violation and I said because they funneled through a law firm. I think we were talking about two different things there. I want to make sure —

GIULIANI: Sure. I was talking about the $130,000 payment.

HANNITY: Right.

GIULIANI: A settlement payment, which is a very regular thing for lawyers to do. The question there was, the only possible violation there would be was it a campaign finance violation, which usually would result in a fine by the way, not this big storm troopers coming in, breaking down his apartment and breaking down his office.

That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do out of his law firm funds or whatever funds, it doesn't matter. The president reimbursed that over a period of several months.

HANNITY: But he had said, I distinctly remember, that he did it on his own —

GIULIANI: He did?

HANNITY: — without asking.

GIULIANI: Look, I don't know, I haven't investigated that, no reason to dispute that, no reason to dispute my recollection. I like Michael a lot, you like Michael a lot.

HANNITY: A long time.

GIULIANI: I feel very bad he's been victimized like this. The president feels even worse. The fact is, just trust me, they're going to come up with no violations there.

HANNITY: All right. You mean, the payment —

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GIULIANI: Yes, payments are perfectly legal.

HANNITY: Let me go back to the main crux —

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GIULIANI: All documented.

HANNITY: Let me go back to the main crux, and the crux is that we have a two-tiered justice system. The president is right when he says witch hunt?

GIULIANI: Yeah. Sure. You can't explain this any other way. First of all, there never should have been an investigation. There was no Russian collusion. We're now a year and a half, two years into this, no Russian collusion, case over.

In falling all over themselves to investigate him, they have committed numerous violations including lies which are criminal, deception, outrageous search warrants like the one on Cohen. How about we go back to Manafort, breaking into his house?

HANNITY: In 2005 —

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GIULIANI: What is he, what is he, a drug dealer? I remember, this was crazy, he wasn't a — he wasn't violent criminal —

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Where does this end, sir? I —

GIULIANI: What they did to Manafort, I used to do to the mafia not —

HANNITY: Drug dealers, mafia members.

HANNITY: And killers.

HANNITY: How was this — how do you see this ending? And you talk to Mueller.

GIULIANI: You know, they're going to write a report. They cannot indict him. I don't believe they can subpoena him. They are going to have to write a report, if we don't be interviewed or if we do get interviewed, they'll write the report based on the interview. They won't write it before like Hillary got, because he's not a special person; he's just entrusted with the safety of the world.

HANNITY: Is this election in 2018 going to be a referendum on Donald Trump?

GIULIANI: Yes. We're going to go to the American people and say the following.

HANNITY: Real quick.

GIULIANI: You want to vote for impeachment? You want to impeach the president? They're not going to — you want to have Nancy Pelosi running the House of Representatives? Forget it.

HANNITY: Mr. Mayor, thank you for being with us.

GIULIANI: Sean —

HANNITY: Always good to see you.

GIULIANI: — you're a patriot.

HANNITY: Thank you, sir.