A crime boss knows that underlings are useful until they’re not. Which is why, on the radio last night, Donald Trump threw Rudy Giuliani under the bus.

We all knew this would happen. The fuzz have been closing in on Rudy – he’s now under federal investigation for a range of potential crimes – and his name seemed to resurface every five minutes during the impeachment hearings, when our foreign service professionals fingered him as Trump’s Biden-hunter in Ukraine. Which means, of course, that Trump suddenly don’t know nuttin’ about what Rudy wuz up to.

Trump was a guest last night on Bill O’Reilly’s radio show. I had no idea that O’Reilly even hosted a radio show, but it makes sense that Trump would visit, given the synergy of those two misogynists. Anyway, O’Reilly asked him: “What was Rudy Giuliani doing in Ukraine on your behalf?”

Trump’s reply: “Well, you have to ask that to Rudy. You know, Rudy has other clients, other than me…He’s done a lot of work in Ukraine over the years.”

Congenital liars tend to believe whatever they say in the moment they say it. Even though, in this particular case, it’s well documented that Rudy was Biden-hunting for his overseer. Rudy himself boasted last May, in The New York Times, that Trump “basically knows what I’m doing, sure, as his lawyer.” Rudy has said the same in a string of tweets.

And, most importantly, Trump implicated himself during the “beautiful” and “perfect” July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky. According to the White House’s own phone summary, Trump told Zelensky: “Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man…and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you…Rudy very much knows what is happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great…I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call.”

Bill O’Reilly, on the radio last night (and to his credit), was so startled by Trump’s evasive response that he asked a follow-up question: “You didn’t direct him to go there on your behalf?”

Trump: “No, I didn’t direct him.”

Hang on a sec: Hadn’t Trump claimed, for months, that he’d done “nothing wrong” in Ukraine? If everything was so perfect and beautiful, and if (as Mick Mulvaney said) this is how foreign policy is always conducted, then why is Trump distancing himself from Rudy – and trying to signal that if there is something wrong, it’s Rudy’s fault and not his?

Simple: Because that’s how a crime boss rolls. Trump suddenly knows nuttin’ about his phone pal Gordon Sondland (“I hardly know the gentleman”), and he’s suddenly dumb about Rudy goon Lev Parnas (“You’d have to ask Rudy, I just don’t know”), even though Parnas’ lawyer says that Trump directed Parnas to help Rudy dig for Biden dirt in Ukraine. And lest we forget, this has long been Trump’s pattern. Last year he threw personal lawyer Michael Cohen under the bus – claiming he didn’t know that Cohen had secretly paid hush money to Stormy Daniels prior to the ’16 election; naturally that turned out to be lie, because it was Trump himself who signed the checks.

So what happens next? Rudy has boasted that he and Trump have “a very, very good relationship,” but will Trump’s radio lies rupture their purported bromance? Rudy has long refused to testify on Capitol Hill, citing attorney-client privilege, but since Trump is now claiming that he was not Rudy’s client, doesn’t that clear Rudy to testify? If so, would Rudy try to protect himself by dishing what he knows about Trump? After all, he recently told Fox News that Trump wouldn’t dare to dump him: “I’ve seen things written like he’s gonna throw me under the bus…When they say that, I say, ‘He isn’t, but I have insurance.'”

This is typically what happens when a criminal conspiracy falls apart. There is, indeed, no honor among thieves.

—

By the way, can we stop saying “under the bus”? That cliche has surely run its course. I’d vote for any of these:

over the cliff, into the trash, off the ledge, up the chimney, down the toilet