Giuliani Butt-Dials Journo: 'We Need a Few Hundred Thousand'

NBC News' Rich Schapiro got not one, but 2 accidental calls from Trump's personal attorney
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 26, 2019 6:00 AM CDT
Giuliani Butt-Dials Journo: 'We Need a Few Hundred Thousand'
This Aug. 1, 2018, file photo shows Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, in Portsmouth, NH.   (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

The Washington Post calls it "the butt dial heard round the world," courtesy of Rudy Giuliani. NBC News reporter Rich Schapiro relays the president's personal attorney recently called him accidentally not once, but twice—the first time on Sept. 28 while Schapiro was at a relative's birthday party, and the second on Oct. 16 in the late-night hours. In the first call, the day after Schapiro had talked to Giuliani for a story he was doing, the ex-Big Apple mayor unknowingly left a three-minute voicemail (Schapiro's phone automatically cuts off recording after three minutes) in which he spent the entire time ranting to an unknown person about the Bidens. Then, right before the voicemail ends: "And the Ukraine, they're investigating him and they blocked it twice. So what the president was [unintelligible word], 'You can't keep doing this. You have to investigate this.' And they say it will affect the 2020 election."

Schapiro was sleeping when the Oct. 16 call came in, and Giuliani used those three minutes to fill the voicemail with more eyebrow-raising info, though much of the call is garbled. "Let's get back to business," Giuliani says to someone apparently in the room with him. "I gotta get you to get on Bahrain." He also asks for a man named "Robert"—who's apparently in Turkey, per Giuliani's unidentified companion—and, then, a whole lot of funding. "The problem is we need some money," Giuliani said, remaining silent for nearly 10 seconds before adding, "We need a few hundred thousand." It's still unclear who Robert is—one theory is Robert Mangas, an attorney who's also a registered agent for the Turkish government—and what Giuliani meant by his mention of Bahrain or most else in the call. "I have yet to receive an intentional or unintentional call back," Schapiro said during an MSNBC appearance. (More Rudy Giuliani stories.)

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