The rumor mill is humming along on Tuesday, as issues involving President Donald Trump‘s attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. have bubbled to the surface.
Vanity Fair‘s Gabriel Sherman, a frequent quoter of anonymous sources close to “Trumpworld,” wrote Tuesday that Giuliani recently told a friend that he expects special counsel Robert Mueller‘s final report on the Russia investigation to be “horrific.” Giuliani apparently did not respond to a request for comment. The remark on the Mueller investigation was relayed by a person said to have been “briefed on [Giuliani’s] conversation.” That person also spoke of gossip and speculation that Trump “could do a deal and resign.”
It’s not the first time Sherman has reported on doom and gloom purportedly being intensely felt behind closed doors. Who could forget in June when it was said that Trump feared Michael Cohen as much as he did Robert Mueller? Again, unnamed friends claimed that Trump allies were just as worried about Cohen as they are that Mueller‘s investigation was “going to hit the fan pretty soon.”
“Donald is very worried,” a Republican described as close to Trump said at the time. A former White House official would add, “Trump should be super worried about Michael Cohen [flipping].” “If anyone can blow up Trump, it’s him,” that official said.
Cohen would end up turning on Trump in July to put his “family and country first.” The next month, he pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York on the same day former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia. Cohen pleaded guilty to bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance violations. He said that Trump (Individual-1) “directed” him to commit campaign finance violations, putting Trump front and center of a hush payment scheme to keep porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal quiet about affairs before the 2016 election.