MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-05-01 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Untolerable use of law enforcement shatters the
|
Giuliani is being criminally investigated by Meredith Garland for being
a representative of the Ukraine... which is CLEAR BULLSHIT.
This is OPEN USE of law enforcement to suppress political speech and
investigation and it makes Watergate look like small potatoes
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rudy-giulianis-contacts-with-former-ukrainian-officials-sought-11619823795?mod=hp_lead_pos10
wsj.com
WSJ News Exclusive | Rudy Giuliani’s Contacts With Former Ukrainian
Officials Sought
Rebecca Ballhaus and Rebecca Davis O’Brien
9-12 minutes
Manhattan federal prosecutors are seeking to examine Rudy Giuliani’s
communications with an array of former Ukrainian officials, people
familiar with the matter said, as investigators home in on whether the
former Trump lawyer’s push to remove a U.S. diplomat in Kyiv violated
foreign lobbying rules.
The search warrants executed by federal investigators on Wednesday at
Mr. Giuliani’s New York City apartment and office sought evidence
related to Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whom
Mr. Giuliani pushed to oust in the spring of 2019, as well as
communications with any U.S. government officials or employees regarding
the former ambassador or her position, the people said.
Former President Donald Trump ordered Ms. Yovanovitch’s removal in the
spring of 2019 after an extensive push by Mr. Giuliani, who personally
lobbied the president and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The warrants also sought communications with or regarding associates who
worked with Mr. Giuliani to push for Ms. Yovanovitch’s ouster and for an
investigation by Ukrainian authorities into the Biden family’s
activities in the country, the people familiar with the warrants said.
President Biden was at the time considered one of Mr. Trump’s top
Democratic rivals.
The warrants specifically sought evidence related to former Ukrainian
prosecutors general Viktor Shokin and Yuriy Lutsenko, former Ukrainian
prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk and former Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko, the people said.
Mr. Giuliani has denied ever serving as a lobbyist or agent of a foreign
government. The former New York mayor was serving as a personal lawyer
for Mr. Trump when he was pushing for the Biden investigations and for
the ambassador’s removal.
“From the time I got out of being mayor, I didn’t want to lobby,” Mr.
Giuliani said on Fox News Thursday evening. “And I can prove it. Just
give me an opportunity.”
Marie Yovanovitch, who was ousted as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine by Mr.
Trump in 2019, arrived to testify at a House impeachment hearing in
Washington, D.C., in late 2019.
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News
The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office has been investigating Mr.
Giuliani’s work in Ukraine for over a year, but the seizure of his
personal electronic devices on Wednesday marked an escalation in the
probe. Mr. Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine were at the center of Mr.
Trump’s first impeachment on charges he abused his power by seeking
Ukraine’s help in his 2020 election bid. Mr. Trump was impeached by the
Democratic-led House and acquitted by the Republican-led Senate.
Mr. Giuliani alleged that Mr. Biden as vice president engaged in
corruption when he called for the ouster of Mr. Shokin, then the
Ukrainian prosecutor general, who had investigated a Ukrainian gas
company where Mr. Biden’s son Hunter Biden served on the board. The
Bidens have denied any wrongdoing, and ousting the prosecutor was a goal
at the time of the U.S. and several European countries.
Federal prosecutors have pursued a theory that hinges on the idea that
Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to remove Ms. Yovanovitch were done at the behest
of Ukrainian officials in exchange for damaging information about the
Bidens, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Such an exchange,
even if it involved no financial payment, could violate federal lobbying
laws, the Journal reported.
Mr. Giuliani has said that Ms. Yovanovitch was an obstacle to his
efforts to push Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and that she displayed
an anti-Trump bias in private conversations.
As ambassador, Ms. Yovanovitch had openly criticized the office of Mr.
Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s top law-enforcement officer, for its poor
anticorruption record. In early 2019, Mr. Lutsenko met twice with Mr.
Giuliani and his associates to discuss possible investigations into the
Bidens. Mr. Lutsenko was removed from the prosecutor-general office in
August 2019.
In her 2019 testimony to impeachment investigators, Ms. Yovanovitch said
Mr. Lutsenko spread false allegations about her. “I do not understand
Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me,” she said. “What I can say is
that Mr. Giuliani should have known those claims were suspect, coming as
they reportedly did from individuals with questionable motives and with
reason to believe that their political and financial ambitions would be
stymied by our anticorruption policy in Ukraine.”
More on Giuliani
Mr. Lutsenko later recanted his allegations about Ms. Yovanovitch and
has defended his handling of anticorruption efforts as prosecutor
general. Mr. Kulyk couldn’t be reached for comment. Mr. Shokin has said
he was fired illegally.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Mr. Poroshenko said that he and Mr.
Giuliani had discussed little besides Russian aggression and
U.S.-Ukraine strategic ties. “When meeting Poroshenko as president of
Ukraine, Giuliani had never raised issues that are now under the U.S.
probe,” the spokeswoman said. “Absolutely not.”
The warrant also sought evidence related to three Giuliani associates
who were arrested in 2019 on campaign-finance charges— Lev Parnas, Igor
Fruman and David Correia—as well as two lawyers close to Mr. Giuliani,
Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova, and conservative columnist John
Solomon. Investigators on Wednesday executed a search warrant for Ms.
Toensing’s phone.
A spokesman for Ms. Toensing’s law office has said she was told she
wasn’t a target. Mr. diGenova declined to comment. Mr. Solomon didn’t
respond to a request for comment.
Messrs. Parnas and Fruman helped Mr. Giuliani gather information on the
Bidens and in private conversations touted their role in the removal of
Ms. Yovanovitch, according to people in the U.S. and Ukraine who spoke
to them at the time.
Messrs. Parnas and Fruman weren’t charged in connection with Mr.
Giuliani’s Ukraine efforts, though the charges against them referred to
their efforts to push for the ambassador’s removal.
Messrs. Parnas and Fruman have pleaded not guilty to the
campaign-finance charges and are tentatively scheduled to go to trial
later this year.
Mr. Correia pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in February to a
year and a day in prison for lying to federal election authorities and
for duping investors in a fraud-insurance company.
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Scoops, analysis and insights driving Washington from the WSJ's D.C. bureau.
Some of the Giuliani associates mentioned in the warrant entered into
financial arrangements with some of the Ukrainian officials named.
In the spring of 2019, Ms. Toensing signed an agreement to represent Mr.
Shokin to collect evidence related to his March 2016 firing from his
prosecutor general post and any role Mr. Biden had played as vice
president in his firing, according to documents obtained by impeachment
investigators that year. Ms. Toensing also signed contracts that spring
to represent Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Kulyk in meetings with U.S. officials
about alleged evidence of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S.
elections, according to a report by impeachment investigators.
Mr. Giuliani told the Journal in 2019 that Mr. Lutsenko had asked him to
represent him, but that he turned down the case after drafting retainer
agreements for a total of about $500,000.
Robert Costello, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, earlier this week described
the execution of the search warrant as “legal thuggery,” and Mr.
Giuliani has complained that the seized electronics contain
communications protected by attorney-client privilege.
Mr. Giuliani and his advisers are now strategizing on how to respond,
considering whether to file a lawsuit or whether to ask a judge to
review the seized communications for privilege, according to a person
familiar with the deliberations. The team has also reached out to
representatives of Mr. Trump, whose communications with his lawyer could
have been seized on Wednesday, about whether he would sign on to a
lawsuit, the person said.
Mr. Giuliani has also reached out to constitutional-law professor Alan
Dershowitz, who represented Mr. Trump during his first impeachment, for
legal advice.
Mr. Dershowitz in an interview said executing a search warrant against a
lawyer was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits
“unreasonable searches and seizures,” and said he had advised Mr.
Giuliani and his lawyer to “take all constitutional remedies,” including
asking a judge to conduct a review of the seized materials.
Mr. Dershowitz, whose advice to Mr. Giuliani was first reported by the
Daily Beast, said he isn’t a formal member of Mr. Giuliani’s legal team.
“He’s going to fight back,” he said. “Rudy is a fighter.”
—Brett Forrest contributed to this article.
Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus-at-wsj.com and Rebecca Davis
O’Brien at Rebecca.OBrien-at-wsj.com
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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