The actual lawyering, in fact, occurred quite removed from Giuliani (who had not practiced in decades), leaving Rudy to be the public media face: a performance at times so outlandish and, many assumed, drunken that it actually might have helped distract from and confuse the investigation.

At the same time, Rudy, ever money hungry, continued his other occupation: representing dubious international figures, many with issues before the U.S. government. Rudy went from defending the president against charges that he had conspired with Russian state interests to helping (likely, encouraging) him to conspire with or strong-arm Ukraine government interests to aid him in the upcoming 2020 campaign, resulting in Trump’s Christmas impeachment in 2019. “What happened to Rudy?” became a significant American political question. The need to be at the center of attention, regardless of what he had to do to get there, had smashed his reputation as New York City’s crime-fighting mayor and 9/11 hero. Asked at one point during the Ukraine impeachment trial if he had concerns about his legacy, Giuliani said: What did it matter? He’d be dead.

Much of the State Department, the intelligence community, the White House Counsel’s Office, the president’s family, and Trump’s allies in Congress placed blame for the Ukraine fiasco on Rudy—so overt and heedless was Rudy in his actions that it might even seem to excuse Trump’s responsibility. Rudy, after the impeachment, was cast out into the cold again.

But a Trump given is that he is always looking for affirmation, dialing for affirmation.

So, with Bossie and Meadows out of the picture, and with his son-in-law and just about everybody else hardly to be found from November 8 to 11, that crucial dead zone after the networks called the election, Trump was talking almost exclusively to Rudy. Rudy had found his way back in again, and Trump—while hard to believe he needed one—had found his inner demon.

Still, there was resistance, a resistance that Giuliani would use to help argue that only he was prepared to fight for the president to the death.

Kushner directed the campaign lawyers to meet with Giuliani, but with the clear caveat not to hand over the keys.

Bernie Kerik, Giuliani’s longtime wingman, who signed on to the election challenge as its chief investigator, showed up to meet the mayor at campaign HQ in Rosslyn, expecting to find a war room preparing for battle—this was, after all, an effort bigger than the Florida recount of 2000. They would need hundreds of lawyers, a crisis operation, comms professionals, and volunteers ready (to use one of the mayor’s favorite expressions) to go to the mattresses. The Giuliani team, without resources or, hardly, contacts of its own, needed the campaign to produce a legal infrastructure to support its as-yet-unclear strategy.