You know, it really is a surprise to find American's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, at the heart of a whisper/smear/cloud-of-FUD campaign against Trump's electoral opponent - There's corruption! Look! An investigation! Don't trust Biden!

Well, it would be if you don't remember 2016.

Once, in his days as New York’s chief federal prosecutor and later as the city’s mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani was a master of releasing damaging leaks aimed at the kneecaps of opponents. Sometimes, they were true.

Now Mr. Giuliani works the other end of the information slurry, and he has had a hard time keeping his stories straight, one day boasting of his inside sources, then denying that they exist.

At a Senate hearing this week in Washington, Democrats took turns at the microphone to ask about the furies that — depending on which version of Mr. Giuliani you believe — ran from the F.B.I. office in New York to Mr. Giuliani during the closing weeks of the 2016 presidential election.

One Democratic senator asked the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, if the pipeline was still running.

“Can you assure the American people there are no ongoing leaks from any office of the F.B.I. to Rudolph Giuliani?” Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut asked.

“Senator, I’m certainly not aware of any,” Mr. Wray replied.

Sure.

And days before the election, FBI director Comey announced an investigation into a newly-discovered laptop full of emails tangentially relating to Clinton - an announcement that likely played a big part in her losing the election.

How did that announcement, which went against FBI policy, come to happen? Well, it's suspected that Comey announced it in an effort to get ahead of leaks about the investigation. Comey denies it, but that's at odds with other people who involved.

So who was driving those rumors?

The former attorney general, Loretta Lynch, told investigators that Mr. Comey “said, ‘It’s clear to me that there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.’ And he said, ‘It is deep.’”

Mr. Comey said he found it “stunning,” Ms. Lynch told the investigators. She replied to him: “I’m just troubled that this issue — meaning the, the New York agent issue and leaks — I am just troubled that this issue has put us where we are today with respect to this laptop.”

The self-proclaimed tribune of that F.B.I. antipathy was Mr. Giuliani, now a lawyer for President Trump.

On Oct. 25, 2016, three days before Mr. Comey’s stunning announcement, Mr. Giuliani appeared on a Fox morning television show.

“We got a couple of surprises left,” Mr. Giuliani said.

He chortled, and when asked to expand on the subject, replied, “And I think it’ll be enormously effective.”

So, yes, it's a big surprise to see Rudy G running around, spreading rumors about, and trying to get someone to announce an investigation into another of Trump's (likely) opponents. If you didn't read anything I quoted above, that is.