Trump and Jerome Corsi Have a Defense Agreement, Giuliani Confirms - The Daily Beast

President Donald Trump, who built his political rise on promoting far-right birther claims against President Barack Obama, does in fact have a joint defense agreement with leading birther conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, The Daily Beast has confirmed.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney handling special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, said in a brief phone interview morning that the joint defense agreement that Corsi had earlier claimed existed does actually exist. Giuliani said he confirmed this with Jane Raskin, another member of the Trump legal team, adding that the agreement is a recent development. Giuliani also said he has talked about the agreement and Corsi with President Trump in recent days, and that Trump told him he “vaguely knows” Corsi, but “doesn’t remember the last time they spoke.”

The Trump lawyer added that he knew of Corsi’s work years ago on the “birther stuff.”

The Daily Caller first reported on Tuesday that Corsi, a former InfoWars journalist, Harvard Ph.D., and prominent birther conspiracist, wrote in an upcoming book about his experience in the crosshairs of the special counsel investigation that he has a joint defense agreement with President Trump. Such an agreement, relatively common in criminal cases with multiple witnesses and defendants being investigated by the same prosecutor, allows witnesses and subjects of an investigation to share information about the case.

“After debating the pros and cons, we had decided that anytime we could get the attorney for the president of the United States to offer assistance to us, we needed to say to be thankful and accept,” Corsi writes in the book, titled Silent No More: How I Became a Political Prisoner of Mueller’s ‘Witch Hunt.’

In October, Giuliani told Politico that team Trump had 32 joint defense agreements with others being investigated by the special counsel’s office. The issue of such deals re-emerged in the Mueller probe this week after the Caller story and a New York Times report that former Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort’s lawyers were still communicating with Trump’s legal team even after Manafort’s conviction and agreement to cooperate with the government.

Corsi, who said earlier this month that he expects to be charged with lying to federal investigators, told CNN that he was offered a plea deal, but has refused to accept the offer.

“They can put me in prison the rest of my life. I am not going to sign a lie,” Corsi told CNN. Corsi was questioned by Mueller about his links to Trump associate and longtime GOP operative Roger Stone, who has been under investigation for his interactions with WikiLeaks. According to draft court documents obtained by NBC News, Corsi sent an email to Stone tipping him off that there would be document “dumps” two months before WikiLeaks released emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

“Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps,” the email reportedly read. “One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

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