This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/giuliani-trump-relied-on-his-claims-about-us-diplomat/2019/12/17/2cfb468e-20ce-11ea-b034-de7dc2b5199b_story.html

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Giuliani: Trump ‘relied on’ his claims about US diplomat Giuliani brags about forcing out Trump’s Ukraine ambassador
(about 8 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, says he provided the president with information that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was impeding investigations that could benefit Trump politically. Within weeks, she was recalled from her post. WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, is now openly admitting that he pushed President Donald Trump to dismiss the former ambassador to Ukraine — a key factor in the Democrats’ impeachment case against his boss.
In an interview with The New York Times, Giuliani portrayed himself as directly involved in the effort to oust Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and he provided details indicating Trump’s knowledge of that effort. In a series of interviews ahead of Wednesday’s historic impeachment vote by the House of Representatives, Giuliani bragged that he “forced” out Marie Yovanovitch and provided the president with information allegedly showing that she impeded investigations that could have benefited Trump politically.
Giuliani’s interview, published Tuesday, comes as Trump is facing near-certain impeachment Wednesday by the House for abuse of power over his pressure on Ukraine to announce investigations of Democrats while he was withholding aid to the Eastern European nation. Within weeks, she was recalled from her post.
Giuliani said he passed along information to Trump “a couple of times” about how Yovanovitch had frustrated efforts that could help Trump, including efforts to have Ukraine investigate political rival Joe Biden. The admission from Giuliani, who does not work for the U.S. government, is the latest example of his highly unusual meddling in official diplomatic channels. It also underscores his ongoing efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals — the very pressure campaign the House is poised to impeach Trump for later this week.
Trump, in turn, passed the information on to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Giuliani said. Within weeks, Yovanovitch was told Trump had lost trust in her and she was recalled as ambassador. “I forced her out because she’s corrupt,” Giuliani said in an interview with Fox News late Monday, offering his most unabashed claims of responsibility yet.
Trump has said he did nothing wrong and his pressure on Ukraine was aimed at rooting out corruption there. Yovanovitch, a respected career diplomat, had been pressing the Ukrainian government to address long-standing concerns by the U.S and others about corruption.
Early last year, Giuliani said, he told Trump that Yovanovitch was impeding investigations in Ukraine that could benefit Trump. Giuliani’s comments come as Trump is facing near-certain impeachment by the House for abuse of power over his administration’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations, including one into former vice president and 2020 candidate Joe Biden and his son’s dealings in Ukraine. The push came as Trump’s administration was withholding crucial security aid from the Eastern European nation that was needed to counter Russian aggression.
“There’s a lot of reasons to move her,” Giuliani told the Times. He said Trump and Pompeo “relied on” his information, likely leading to Yovanovitch’s ouster last April. Trump maintains he did nothing wrong.
As part of his ongoing campaign on Trump’s behalf, Giuliani recently traveled to Kyiv, Budapest and Vienna to gather additional evidence he claims bolsters debunked theories. All the while, Republicans in Congress have largely turned a blind eye to Giuliani’s efforts. And White House officials, long weary of Giuliani’s influence with the president, have tried to tread carefully, distancing themselves from the former New York City mayor without openly criticizing him.
In an interview with The New York Times on Monday evening, Giuliani portrayed himself as directly involved in the effort to oust Yovanovitch. He said he’d passed information to Trump “a couple of times” allegedly showing that Yovanovitch was impeding investigations in Ukraine that could benefit Trump politically, including the push to have Ukraine investigate the Biden family and other Democrats.
Trump, in turn, passed the information on to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to Giuliani. Within weeks, Yovanovitch was told Trump had lost trust in her and was recalled to the U.S.
Giuliani said Trump and Pompeo had “relied on” his information as they considered Yovanovitch’s future, including a charge that she blocked visas for Ukrainian prosecutors to come to the United States to present evidence that Giuliani claimed could be damaging to Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
“I just gave them the facts,” Giuliani said. “I mean, did I think she should be recalled? I thought she should have been fired. If I was attorney general, I would have kicked her out. I mean — secretary of state.”“I just gave them the facts,” Giuliani said. “I mean, did I think she should be recalled? I thought she should have been fired. If I was attorney general, I would have kicked her out. I mean — secretary of state.”
Testimony in the Trump impeachment inquiry showed that the claims about Yovanovitch were either unsubstantiated or taken out of context. Testimony in the Trump impeachment inquiry has shown accusations against Yovanovitch were either unsubstantiated or taken out of context.
In the Times interview, Giuliani portrayed himself as directly involved in the effort to derail Yovanovitch’s career. He said he told Trump and Pompeo that Yovanovitch was blocking visas for Ukrainian prosecutors to come to the United States to present evidence that he claimed could be damaging to Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. Yet Giuliani continued to press his case in an article published by The New Yorker on Monday.
“I think I had pointed out to the president a couple of times, I reported to the president, what I had learned about the visa denials,” Giuliani said, as well as claims that she ordered one Ukrainian prosecutor to drop cases. “I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,” he told the magazine. “She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.
According to an article published Monday in The New Yorker, Giuliani said that he needed Yovanovitch “out of the way” and that she “was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.” On Fox, Giuliani further claimed that Yovanovitch “committed perjury” when she testified that she turned down a prosecutor’s visa requests because he was corrupt.
“I forced her out because she’s corrupt,” Giuliani told Fox News on Monday. He claimed that Yovanovitch “committed perjury” when she said she turned down the visa requests for a prosecutor because he was corrupt. Giuliani claimed he had witnesses “who will testify that she personally turned down their visas because they were going to come here and give evidence either against Biden or against the Democratic Party. ” Giuliani claimed he had witnesses “who will testify that she personally turned down their visas because they were going to come here and give evidence either against Biden or against the Democratic Party. ”
Yovanovitch, testifying in October in defiance of Trump, said there was a “concerted campaign” against her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.” “She should have been fired if the State Department weren’t part of the deep state,” he said.
In a tweet Tuesday, Giuliani insisted, “Yovanovitch needed to be removed for many reasons most critical she was denying visas to Ukrainians who wanted to come to US and explain Dem corruption in Ukraine. She was OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and that’s not the only thing she was doing. She at minimum enabled Ukrainian collusion.” Giuliani continued to press his case on Twitter on Tuesday, insisting that, “Yovanovitch needed to be removed for many reasons most critical she was denying visas to Ukrainians who wanted to come to US and explain Dem corruption in Ukraine.”
Trump and his allies falsely claim that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. The special counsel’s investigation, as well as U.S. intelligence agencies, found that Russia, not Ukraine, meddled in the election. “She was OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and that’s not the only thing she was doing. She at minimum enabled Ukrainian collusion,” he wrote. There is no evidence to support those claims.
Yovanovitch, testifying in October in defiance of Trump, described a “concerted campaign” against her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
Trump and Giuliani have been pushing the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, even though U.S. intelligence agencies have blamed Russia, not Ukraine.
At the White House, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway sidestepped questions about whether Giuliani was helping or hurting the president, telling reporters: “He’s been his personal attorney, I assume he still is.”
Nonetheless, she said she gets “a little tired of people ... not showing the former mayor of New York the respect he deserves for bringing this country through our darkest darkest days after 9/11 and being a fantastic mayor there.”
Asked whether he was comfortable with Giuliani’s comments, Marc Short, the vice president’s chief of staff, stressed on MSNBC that Giuliani is the president’s “personal attorney.”
“He’s not a part of this administration, and I think that that’s a conversation between Rudy and the president,” he said.
__
Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
__
Follow Colvin on Twitter at twitter.com/colvinj
Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.