LISTEN: President Trump is now distancing himself more than ever from lawyer Rudy Giuliani, claiming he did not direct Giuliani to act on his behalf in Ukraine in a new interview with Bill O’Reilly. pic.twitter.com/6JaP9oOLMI
— TheBeat w/Ari Melber (@TheBeatWithAri) November 26, 2019
Funny, but also deeply absurd, based on the known facts:
Trump told Zelensky on July 25 call: “I will tell Rudy to call” and “If you could speak to him that would be great”
And Rudy told WaPo: “I don’t do anything that involves my client without speaking with my client”
But I say, take Trump at his word, and subpoena Rudy to testify. No attorney-client privilege, it seems.
The other big news of the day is a New York Times story that states that Trump was aware of the whistleblopwer complaint when he decided to release the military aid to Ukraine and when he stated “I want nothing. I want nothing. No quid pro quo” to Sondland. Two weeks before Trump released the Ukraine aid, White House lawyers briefed him on whistle-blower’s complaint — a key detail about what Trump knew when he made a critical decision at the heart of impeachment investigation.
But we already knew that.
Another connection…
In a deposition released yesterday, a budget official said he learned on June 19 that Trump had inquired about military aid to Ukraine after seeing a media report.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 27, 2019
That night, Trump went on Hannity and promoted the Ukraine-CrowdStrike conspiracy theory. https://t.co/ni4yJvcvuv pic.twitter.com/2QxKB0x614
UPDATE from the NY Times. Rudy Giuliani negotiated earlier this year to represent Ukraine’s top prosecutor for at least $200,000 during the same months that Giuliani was working with the prosecutor to dig up dirt on Biden, according to people familiar.
As Rudolph W. Giuliani waged a public campaign this year to unearth damaging information in Ukraine about President Trump’s political rivals, he privately pursued hundreds of thousands of dollars in business from Ukrainian government officials, documents reviewed by The New York Times show.
Mr. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, has repeatedly said he has no business in Ukraine, and none of the deals was finalized. But the documents indicate that while he was pushing Mr. Trump’s agenda with Ukrainian officials eager for support from the United States, Mr. Giuliani also explored financial agreements with members of the same government.
His discussions with Ukrainian officials proceeded far enough along that he prepared at least one retainer agreement, on his company letterhead, that he signed.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Giuliani played down the discussions. He said that a Ukrainian official approached him this year, seeking to hire him personally. Mr. Giuliani said he dismissed that suggestion, but spent about a month considering a separate deal with the Ukrainian government. He then rejected that idea.
“I thought that would be too complicated,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I never received a penny.”