Current Events > Giuliani reveals State Department text messages about his Ukraine dealings

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https://www.newsweek.com/giuliani-state-department-ukraine-text-messages-trump-biden-whistleblower-1461741

File this under "Giuliani shoots himself and everyone else on his side in the foot...again"

The president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani has revealed text messages of conversations between himself and senior officials at the State Department that he says show they endorsed his controversial dealings with Ukraine.

Giuliani is named in the intelligence whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump's conduct towards Ukraine. In a call with Ukraine's President Zelensky, Trump urged him to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

Trump also said he wanted Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr to call Zelensky, describing his lawyer as a "very capable guy" who "very much knows what's happening." Zelensky acknowledged that one of his officials had spoken to Giuliani already.

Behind the scenes, Giuliani had been meeting with Ukranians who were touting information about dubious corruption allegations involving Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who was on the board of a gas company in Ukraine.

The lawyer had been working on his own, claiming the FBI would not investigate the allegations, after a group of Ukrainians approached him last year. Then, he said, the State Department contacted him in July about meeting with Zelensky's aide Andriy Yermak.

During an appearance on Fox News show The Ingraham Angle last night, Giuliani revealed 15 text messages between himself, U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker, and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland.

"Volker and Sondland congratulated me for what I was doing," Giuliani said. "[Volker] should step forward and explain what he did. The whistleblower falsely alleges that I was operating on my own. Well, I wasn't operating on my own.

"I went to meet Mr. Zelensky's aide at the request of the State Department. Fifteen memos make that clear. I didn't know Mr. Yermak. On July 19, you see it right there, 2019 at 4:48 in the afternoon I got a call from Volker, Volker said would you meet with him, it'd be helpful to us, we really want you to do it.

"Four, five conversations later I met with him, that was in Madrid, I reported back to them a rather lengthy conversation. I spoke to Ambassador Sondland four times, I spoke to Volker eight times. They basically knew everything I was doing."

Giuliani said his discussions with Ukrainian officials were conducted with the authorization and at the request of the State Department.

He also said he had one final text in which "there's a big thank you about how my honest and straightforward discussion led to solving a problem in the relationship. I think I should get some kind of a reward."

The former New York City mayor added: "They're all over me, you know, asking me to do it. I was happy to do it. I helped my country get this relationship in good shape."

According to the whistleblower complaint, U.S. officials were deeply concerned about Giuliani's "circumvention of national security decision-making processes to engage with Ukrainian officials and relay messages back and forth between Kyiv and the president."

Moreover, the complaint alleges that State Department officials, including Volker and Sondland, spoke with Giuliani to "contain the damage" to U.S. national security, and that the two ambassadors were trying to "help Ukrainian leaders understand and respond to the differing messages they were receiving from official U.S. channels...and from Mr. Giuliani."

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"Let me tell you the facts. They called me, I didn't call them," Giuliani said on Fox News.

"They asked me if I would take a call from Yermak and if I would meet with him. And I did. And I reported it back to them. And the conversation was completely normal and there was no bribery, there was no extortion."

There were suggestions in the whistleblower complaint that the Trump administration's recent withholding of military aid from Ukraine could be linked to the president's pushing for Kyiv to investigate the Biden family.

House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into President Trump off the back of the Ukraine affair. They say it shows he is courting a foreign government to intervene on his behalf in the 2020 election by using his White House powers to target Biden.

The Washington Post reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and State Department officials never authorized Giuliani's actions and in an August statement, the department said Trump's lawyer acted in a private capacity and did not speak for the U.S. government.

Maggie Haberman of The New York Times reported that Pompeo is "angry" with Giuliani over his Ukraine dealings. But Giuliani said he did not care.

"I actually think they should all congratulate me because if it weren't for me nobody would have uncovered and faced massive corruption by the vice president of the United States," Giuliani told Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

"In fact, I'm a legitimate whistleblower. I have uncovered corruption that this Washington swamp has been covering up effectively for years and this State Department asked me to do this, so Mike, if you're unhappy with me, I'm sorry but I accomplished my mission."

"I have no idea if he's unhappy with me or not. I frankly don't care. I'm the president's lawyer. The president is clear on this charge completely."

The State Department did not respond immediately to Newsweek's request for comment.

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well....this isn't gonna help.
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Also Kurt Volker randomly resigned the other day after being mentioned in the Whistleblower report

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/27/politics/kurt-volker-resigns/index.html
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...DAMn..
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Giuliani is so inept.
Maybe the worst lawyer possibly ever
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It does not matter if there was bribery or extortion. Just the act of asking a foreign government to investigate a political opponent is illegal in itself.

All
This
WInning!!

so funny seeing the trump lovers on the board shirk away lately
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"It's not a crime if someone else asked me to do it"

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Hornezz posted...

"It's not a crime if someone else asked me to do it"

They're honestly just trying to throw each other under the bus at this point
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Why is Trumps personal attorney with no government title even allowed to be doing diplomatic relations with other countries?
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Jerkoff Giuliani
Jackass Giuliani
Ridiculous Rudy
Repugnant Rudy
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thronedfire2 posted...

Why is Trumps personal attorney with no government title even allowed to be doing diplomatic relations with other countries?

Because the people who should care don't care because he's on their "side".
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When Trump said he would drain the swamp, I didn't think he'd mean he'd be personally drowning them with himself.
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What corrupting is he (Giuliani) referring to? So far I thought this all about starting a new investigation ...

Does Rudy Colludly actually think this is an effective way to spin this scandal? Is this the best he could come up with?
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