Tag: Trump attorney Giuliani

Exclusive: New audio of 2019 phone call reveals how Giuliani pressured Ukraine to investigate baseless Biden conspiracies

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Never-before-heard audio, obtained exclusively by CNN, shows how former President Donald Trump’s longtime adviser Rudy Giuliani relentlessly pressured and coaxed the Ukrainian government in 2019 to investigate baseless conspiracies about then-candidate Joe Biden. 

The audio is of a July 2019 phone call between Giuliani, US diplomat Kurt Volker, and Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The call was a precursor to Trump’s infamous call with Zelensky, and both conversations later became a central part of Trump’s first impeachment, where he was accused of soliciting Ukrainian help for his campaign.

During the roughly 40-minute call, Giuliani repeatedly told Yermak that Zelensky should publicly announce investigations into possible corruption by Biden in Ukraine, and into claims that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to hurt Trump. (These separate claims are both untrue.) Continue reading.

Giuliani’s son tells Russian state TV people don’t want to live in America after FBI raided his dad

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The son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani went on Russian TV to push conspiracy theories about the federal investigation of his father.

Andrew Giuliani accused the American government of hacking his father’s iCloud account (the feds reportedly gained access via a warrant).

“The thing that’s been amazing is over the last couple of weeks, how many people — and some of these people are people who haven’t talked to my father in five or ten years — have come out and said, ‘We may not have always agreed with your politics, but we completely agree this is absolutely the wrong thing to see our Justice Department politicize something as badly as they have.’ So it’s been people who have been very strong Trump supporters and some who have not been Trump supporters. They don’t want to live in a country where you’re going to have a Justice Department that is going to politicize something to the point where a former president’s personal counsel is going actually be spied on by the Justice Department,” he claimed. Continue reading.

Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell have disappeared from Fox airwaves

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The Trump-affiliated attorneys were once a regular presence with baseless claims of election fraud. That has changed since a legal pushback from voting-technology companies.

At one point, it was hard for Fox viewers to avoid Rudolph W. Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.

For several weeks starting in November, the Trump-associated lawyers were an almost-daily presence on Fox shows, arguing that the president had been robbed of a second term by a fraudulent process that they claimed they would soon have the evidence to reveal.

But Giuliani and Powell have not appeared on any Fox cable news show in more than a month, according to a review by The Washington Post. Giuliani’s last appearance was Dec. 12 and Powell’s was Dec. 10 on “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” a show that was once a regular vehicle for both her and Giuliani. Ellis has appeared only once on the networks since early December. Continue reading.

Giuliani hit with disbarment complaint, faces possible expulsion from New York lawyers association

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NEW YORK — The New York State Bar Association will consider expelling President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and a state lawmaker is seeking his disbarment after inflammatory comments during a rally preceding last week’s deadly riot inside the U.S. Capitol.

Hours before the pro-Trump mob breached security and stormed the building, Giuliani encouraged the president’s loyalists to fight the election results “by combat.” Five people, including a Capitol Police officer, died during the attempted insurrection.

In a statement Monday, the bar association said it has received “hundreds of complaints in recent months” about the former New York mayor and his failed bid to help Trump overturn his loss to Joe Biden. Continue reading.

Why Rudy Giuliani’s ‘October Surprise’ Blew Up In His Face

There’s a basic problem with the story that Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani have been pushing about Joe Biden’s actions in Ukraine: It’s a lie. Of course, this is politics, and the fact that the story is simply lacking in any facts isn’t necessarily an issue. The real problem with this lie is that it’s an obvious lie. An extremely obvious lie. One that they’ve been trying to pass off for more than a year.

After all, the claims now being made are exactly those that Trump was trying to extort from the president of Ukraine in the scheme that ultimately got Trump impeached. This is the same scheme that the CIA warned that Russia was going to use in an effort to influence the election. The scheme the Russian state-owned media has been pushing for a year. It’s part of the same scheme that Trump confessed back in February. And it’s being pushed by Rudy Giuliani, the guy at the center of a criminal investigation, whose partners have already been indicted, and who pocketed half a million for helping out the henchman of a Russian oligarch.

Giuliani started pushing this same story in 2019 which, somehow, turned out to be exactly what he found on the mystery laptop, which was brought into a Trump-supporting repair shop by an anonymous person, and given to a blind shop owner whose security cameras were on the blink. It is the most amazing coincidence. In fact, the story is so ridiculous, that not only are social media sites tossing it into the trash, the media outlets that reliably ran whatever Giuliani brought them in the past are increasingly reluctant to play along. Continue reading.

Giuliani associate can give impeachment investigators phone data, documents seized by prosecutors, judge says

Washington Post logoNEW YORK — A federal judge in Manhattan ruled Friday that an indicted associate of President Trump’s personal attorney can provide Congress with evidence in his criminal case that is of interest to impeachment investigators.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken granted an application from an attorney for Lev Parnas seeking permission to give lawmakers access to phone data and documents seized by federal prosecutors after his October arrest. The House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed the materials as part of its impeachment inquiry, according to Parnas attorney Joseph Bondy.

The materials are expected to include documents taken from Parnas’s Florida home, along with a complete readout of his iPhone. Bondy has said there is relevant information contained in the materials, though he has not disclosed specifically what that might be.

Ukrainian politician who peddles Biden dirt arrested as Giuliani visits Kyiv

AlterNet logoA former Ukrainian lawmaker who has peddled dirt on Joe Biden’s family was arrested earlier this week in Germany, where he is awaiting extradition to his home country.

Oleksandr Onyshchenko, who had close ties to Ukraine’s former president before fleeing the country to avoid embezzlement allegations, was arrested Friday by German authorities at the request of Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, reported The Daily Beast.

“According to our information, Oleksandr was in the process of seeking international protection and could not be arrested in accordance with Article 33 of the international convention relating to the status of refugees,” said Oleg Ishemko, the former lawmaker’s attorney.

Continue reading

Giuliani, Facing Scrutiny, Travels to Europe to Interview Ukrainians

New York Times logoPresident Trump’s personal lawyer has been in Budapest and Kyiv this week to talk with former Ukrainian prosecutors for a documentary series intended to debunk the impeachment case.

WASHINGTON — Even as Democrats intensified their scrutiny this week of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s role in the pressure campaign against the Ukrainian government that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry, Mr. Giuliani has been in Europe continuing his efforts to shift the focus to purported wrongdoing by President Trump’s political rivals.

Mr. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, met in Budapest on Tuesday with a former Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who has become a key figure in the impeachment inquiry. He then traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday seeking to meet with other former Ukrainian prosecutors whose claims have been embraced by Republicans, including Viktor Shokin and Kostiantyn H. Kulyk, according to people familiar with the effort.

The former prosecutors, who have faced allegations of corruption, all played some role in promoting claims about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a former United States ambassador to Ukraine and Ukrainians who disseminated damaging information about Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in 2016.

Continue reading

A wealthy Venezuelan hosted Giuliani as he pursued Ukraine campaign. Then Giuliani lobbied the Justice Department on his behalf.

Washington Post logoWhen Rudolph W. Giuliani went to Madrid in August to confer with a top aide to the Ukrainian president and press for political investigations sought by President Trump, he also met with a previously unidentified client with very different interests.

While in Spain, Giuliani stayed at a historic estate belonging to Venezuelan energy executive Alejandro Betancourt López, who had hired Trump’s personal attorney to help him contend with an investigation by the Justice Department into alleged money laundering and bribery, according to people familiar with the situation.

A month later, Giuliani was one of several lawyers representing Betancourt in Washington. The lawyers met with the chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division and other government attorneys to argue that the wealthy Venezuelan should not face criminal charges as part of a $1.2 billion money-laundering case filed in Florida last year, said the people, who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

View the complete November 26 article by Rosalind S. Helderman, Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky and Tom Hamburger on The Washignton Post website here.

‘Jaw-Dropping’: Lawyers Blast Giuliani Over Alleged Dealings With Ukraine Oligarch

Rudy Giuliani’s name has come up many times during the public testimony for the House impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, often confirming that in Ukraine, the Trump attorney and former New York City mayor aggressively pushed for an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. And some more information about Giuliani surfaced on Monday, when the New York Times reported that Dmitri Firtash — a Ukrainian oligarch facing criminal charges in the U.S. — had told the publication that Giuliani and two of his associates (Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman) offered to use their U.S. Justice Department connections to help him. And in return, Firtash alleged, they wanted dirt on the Bidens.

Firtash, according to the Times, alleged that when he met with Parnas and Fruman in June, they offered to help him and wanted him to hire attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing — both Trump supporters — to represent him.

On Twitter, Giuliani has flatly denied Firtash’s allegation — posting, “I did not ask anyone to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and certainly not with Dimitry Firtash, who I have never met or talked to.”

View the complete November 25 article by Alex Henderson from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.