President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has reportedly renewed his effort to get Ukrainian authorities to ramp up investigations into potential 2016 election interference and the involvement of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son in a Ukrainian gas company. According to The New York Times, Giuliani has spoken on the phone and had a meeting with a top representative of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky within the past few weeks. He specifically asked for the country to pick up probes into whether Ukrainian officials moved to damage Trump’s campaign in the 2016 election, and whether Joe Biden’s diplomatic efforts in the country had any overlap with Hunter Biden’s involvement in energy company Burisma Holdings. The lawyer had pushed for these investigations previously, prompting Congressional Democrats to consider opening an investigation into his actions.
Giuliani told the Times that he “strongly urged” the official, Andriy Yermak, to “just investigate the darn things”—and said he was “pretty confident they’re going to investigate it.” He claimed he was acting as a private citizen during the discussions, and claimed the State Department was assisting him on the matter. He would not say whether Trump was aware or approved of the effort.
Read it at New York Times
