“There was no collusion by President Trump in any way, shape or form,” Giuliani said in a statement on Thursday, reiterating the president’s long-standing defense against accusations that his campaign secretly coordinated with Moscow to help swing the election to him. “Likewise, I have no knowledge of any collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked on the campaign.”
He added, “The only knowledge I have in this regard is the collusion of the Clinton campaign with Russia which has so far been ignored.”
Giuliani was seeking to clarify an interview on Wednesday night in which he stopped short of defending Trump campaign aides, drawing speculation that he might have inside knowledge of possible coordination with Russia.
“I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign,” he told CNN. He added, “I said the president of the United States. There is not a single bit of evidence the president of the United States committed the only crime you could commit here, conspired with the Russians to hack” the Democratic National Committee.
Giuliani’s backpedaling was the latest in a series of conflicting comments he has made about the investigation of the special counsel, Robert Mueller. The evolution of his statements have suggested shifts in the president’s defense strategy, often following developments in the investigations. On Tuesday, prosecutors for the special counsel filed a 200-page, mostly redacted court document related to the case against Trump’s one-time campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. Among the little information that was not blacked out were details about his relationship with a Russian whom prosecutors have said has ties to Russian intelligence.
In an interview with Fox News in late July, Giuliani asserted that the Trump campaign did not coordinate with Russia’s election interference.
“When I say the Trump campaign, I mean the upper levels of the Trump campaign,” Giuliani said during that interview. “I have no reason to believe anybody else did. The only ones I checked with obviously are the top four or five people.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.