Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer, said Tuesday that the president has asked him to brief the Justice Department and Republican senators on his findings from a recent trip to Ukraine ahead of a likely Senate impeachment trial.
However, it is unclear whether GOP senators or Justice Department officials want information from Giuliani, whose meetings in Europe last week with Ukrainian sources drew condemnation from Democratic lawmakers and winces even from some Republicans.
In a recent interview, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he had no plans for Giuliani to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched an inquiry into former vice president Joe Biden and his communications with Ukrainian officials. Attorney General William P. Barr has counseled Trump in general terms that Giuliani has become a liability and a problem for the administration, as The Washington Post previously reported.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations said that Trump did not instruct Giuliani to go to Ukraine. The president’s advisers were displeased about the trip, although Trump has not expressed those concerns, they said.
Indeed, on Saturday, Trump appeared happy with his lawyer’s work, telling reporters that Giuliani was going to “make a report” to the attorney general and Congress.
“He says he has a lot of good information,” Trump said, adding, “I hear he has found plenty.”
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in New York are scrutinizing Giuliani’s ties to two recently indicted associates and his consulting business as part of a broad probe of possible foreign-lobbying violations and other potential crimes, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Giuliani said Tuesday that he has unsuccessfully sought to learn why he is under investigation in the Southern District of New York, the office he led as U.S. attorney in the 1980s.
“They are refusing to tell us why they are investigating,” he said. Giuliani said he wants to present evidence that he is innocent to prosecutors but has not been given the chance.
He said his former office is pursuing the “most unfair, vindictive investigation they have ever conducted.”
“I believe that the leaks and the investigation is intended to intimidate me as the president’s lawyer,” Giuliani said. “I am fully confident that I did not commit any crimes of any kind. They’re going after the wrong guy. The more they try to intimidate me, the more I think, I better go get additional evidence.”
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.
Giuliani said he returned Saturday from a trip that took him to Ukraine, Hungary and Vienna, where he said he was looking for documents and witnesses to buttress unproven claims he has made about Biden’s son Hunter, as well as the unfounded assertion that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
Giuliani said he had gotten new documents and additional witnesses to participate in his effort, though he declined to provide details.
He was accompanied by correspondents from the conservative One America News Network, which is producing a documentary about his work.
While Giuliani was in Kyiv, he met with Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker who told The Post that he handed Giuliani documents on allegations relating to inefficient expenditure of U.S. government money on projects in Ukraine and other matters.
Derkach, an independent lawmaker who was formerly a member of a pro-Russian party in parliament, went to the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow. He is the son of a KGB officer who later served as head of Ukrainian intelligence.
Giuliani said he also wanted to meet with former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, but the latter was unable to travel to meet him, he said.
“I’m fearful Mr. Shokin is not healthy, and it is important to memorialize his testimony on tape,” Giuliani said.
Devlin Barrett in Washington and Shayna Jacobs in New York contributed to this report.
