President Trump told Energy Secretary Rick Perry and two other top State Department officials to speak with his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in May when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to meet with him, CNN reports. Perry, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, the former State Department’s special representative to Ukraine, had all reported back to Trump at a May 23 meeting that they had a favorable impression of Zelensky after attending his inauguration, and hoped for a meeting between the two. Trump still believed that Ukraine was corrupt, however, and said that Giuliani would have to be convinced of a meeting with Zelensky, according to CNN. Giuliani’s role as a gatekeeper for the president is stronger than previously disclosed by one of the May 23 meeting’s participants in a statement to the House of Representatives last week. One of the main accusations in the whistleblower complaint that prompted the impeachment inquiry into Trump is that Giuliani had been presenting a different policy from the views of U.S. diplomats and officials.
