Giuliani made some amazing remarks today, which are explained in this article in the Washington Post.

There is more in the story that is fascinating, but I can’t repost in full.

“Whenever Rudolph W. Giuliani makes a new round of television appearances saying false, curious or just bizarre things in defense of his client, President Trump, some people inevitably ask why he keeps getting invited back on these programs. But there’s a great value to Giuliani’s appearances. They tell us what the president is thinking about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into the Russia scandal — and what he’s afraid of.

“They also serve as a kind of briefing to Trump’s supporters: Here’s the new defense of Trump’s actions, so you’d better get ready to repeat this argument, however ridiculous it might be.

“This morning, Giuliani appeared on Fox & Friends and CNN’s New Day, and said some very interesting things. Let’s begin with this portion of the CNN interview, in which he was trying to argue that Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman who is about to go on trial for a panoply of crimes, barely had anything to do with the campaign or Trump himself:

[Guiliani said:] “Four months, they’re not going to be colluding about Russians, which I’m not even [sure] if that’s a crime, colluding about Russians. You start analyzing the crime, the hacking is the crime, the hacking is the crime. Well, the president didn’t hack! He didn’t pay them for hacking!

“There’s something else important Giuliani said on CNN, but before we get to that, here’s how he reiterated the point on Fox:

[Guiliani said] “I’ve been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find “collusion” as a crime. Collusion is not a crime.

“In a very strict sense, Giuliani is right that there isn’t a particular crime called “collusion.” But that’s kind of like saying that if you walked into an Apple Store, stuffed an iPhone in your pants and walked out, you’re innocent because the criminal code makes no specific reference to “stuffing an iPhone in your pants.”

“Now it’s possible that Trump himself, or someone on the Trump campaign, could have “colluded” with Russia to commit an act that is not illegal and, therefore, they wouldn’t be guilty of any crime. For instance, they could have colluded to find the best taco truck in Manhattan. They could even have discussed some kind of policy initiative that they would cooperatively pursue if Trump became president. But the real problem with the “collusion is not a crime” argument is that if they cooperated to do almost anything that helped Trump in his election campaign, then it would have been illegal.

“As Randall Eliason lays out here, there are multiple crimes under which any cooperation between the Russian government and the Trump campaign could potentially fall. If the campaign sought and/or received damaging information on its opponent from sources connected to the Russian government, it would almost certainly be in violation of this statute, which prohibits “a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution” from a foreign national for the purpose of a political campaign. A contribution could be money, but it could also be any other “thing of value,” and dirt on your opponent would seem to qualify. In addition to the crime of accepting the contribution, they could also be charged with conspiracy to violate election laws, or with aiding and abetting another person’s crime.

“It’s important to remember that the Trump defense on Russia has gone through numerous iterations, ranging from outright lies to laughable assertions. First they said nobody on the campaign ever talked to any Russians. Then they said they may have talked to Russians but didn’t have any planned meetings. Then they said that they had a planned meeting with Russians but didn’t collude with Russians. And now they’re saying that even if they did collude with Russians, that’s okay because collusion isn’t a crime.”

Isn’t it time to admit that our politics have crossed over into Cloud Cookoo-Land?