Tag: Rudy Giuliani

State officials dissolved company long before $500K deal with Giuliani

‘Fraud Guarantee’ linked to Ukrainian American accused of illegal campaign contribution to Trump PAC

State officials in Florida may have dissolved a company linked to a Ukrainian-American businessman facing campaign finance charges long before Rudy Giuliani’s consulting firm reportedly was paid $500,000 to provide business and legal advice.

The company in question is called Fraud Guarantee. Its website lists as its co-founder and CEO Lev Parnas, who allegedly worked with Giuliani to urge Ukrainian officials to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Parnas was indicted last week on charges that included making an illegal campaign contribution through a shell corporation to a PAC that supported President Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

Parnas also listed himself as the CEO of Fraud Guarantee when making large contributions to Republican candidates and PACs in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records.

View the complete October 17 article by Joshua Eaton and Ed Timms on The Roll Call website here.

US Ambassador Sondland says Trump directed officials to work with Giuliani on Ukraine

The Hill logoU.S. diplomat Gordon Sondland will tell House lawmakers on Thursday that President Trump directed administration officials to work with his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on Ukraine matters, according to his prepared remarks for testimony as part of the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

The U.S. ambassador to the European Union offers a forceful rebuke as he seeks to distance himself from Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate one of the president’s top 2020 political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.

“We were also disappointed by the President’s direction that we involve Mr. Giuliani. Our view was that the men and women of the State Department, not the President’s personal lawyer, should take responsibility for all aspects of U.S. foreign policy towards Ukraine,” he will say, according to a copy of his opening statement obtained by The Hill.

View the complete October 17 article by Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Giuliani pressed Trump to eject Muslim cleric from U.S., a top priority of Turkish president, former officials say

Washington Post logoRudolph W. Giuliani privately urged President Trump in 2017 to extradite a Turkish cleric living in exile in the United States, a top priority of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to multiple former administration officials familiar with the discussions.

Giuliani, a Trump ally who later became the president’s personal attorney, repeatedly argued to Trump that the U.S. government should eject Fethullah Gulen from the country, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition on anonymity to describe private conversations.

Turkey has demanded that the United States turn over Gulen, a permanent U.S. resident who lives in Pennsylvania, to stand trial on charges of plotting a 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan. Gulen has denied involvement in the plot.

View the complete October 15 article by Carol D. Leonnig, Ellen Nakashima, Josh Dawsey and Tom Hamburger on The Washington Post website here.

Giuliani was paid $500,000 by company founded by arrested associate

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani was paid $500,000 last year by a company founded by one of his business associates who was arrested last week and charged with campaign finance violations.

Giuliani told The Washington Post late Monday that he was confident the money he received for work conducted on behalf of the Florida-based business called Fraud Guarantee, which was co-founded by Lev Parnas, was legitimate and originated in the United States.

I know exactly where the money came from. I knew it at the time,” he said. “I will prove beyond any doubt it came from the United States of America.”

View the complete October 15 article by Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s former Russia aide met with White House lawyer over Giuliani

Fiona Hill departed the administration days before Trump’s July 25 call to Ukraine.

President Donald Trump’s former top Russia aide Fiona Hill told House impeachment investigators on Monday that she had at least two meetings with a National Security Council lawyer about Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to convince Ukrainian officials to investigate the president’s political rivals, according to a person who was in the room for the testimony.

Hill told lawmakers and aides that then-national security adviser John Bolton, after learning of Giuliani’s efforts, told her to speak with lawyer John Eisenberg, the person said. Hill testified that she met with Eisenberg briefly on July 10, the same day she attended a meeting with Ukrainian officials at the White House. Hill said she had a longer meeting with Eisenberg on July 11, the person added.

Hill also told House impeachment investigators that Bolton told her, “I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy and Mulvaney are cooking up,” referring to the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, whom Hill believed was involved in the discussions about Ukraine. Hill also said Bolton described Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, as “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

View the complete October 14 article by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.

Bolton Objected to Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Calling Giuliani ‘a Hand Grenade’

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The effort to pressure Ukraine for political help provoked a heated confrontation inside the White House last summer that so alarmed John R. Bolton, then the national security adviser, that he told an aide to alert White House lawyers, House investigators were told on Monday.

Mr. Bolton got into a tense exchange on July 10 with Gordon D. Sondland, the Trump donor turned ambassador to the European Union, who was working with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to three people who heard the testimony.

The aide, Fiona Hill, testified that Mr. Bolton told her to notify the chief lawyer for the National Security Council about a rogue effort by Mr. Sondland, Mr. Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to the people familiar with the testimony.

View the complete October 14 article by Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos on The New York Times website here.

Jake Tapper Exposes Pompeo, Graham and Giuliani’s ‘Stunning’ Hypocrisy

The CNN anchor said that anyone who remembers Benghazi “may find it stunning” to see Republican members of Congress “trash-talking the oversight responsibilities of the House.”

It’s easy to forget just how different some of President Trump’s most loyal servants felt about oversight and impeachment when there were Democrats in the White House. On Sunday morning, CNN anchor Jake Tapper made sure his viewers remembered.

In the final moments of his State of the Union broadcast this week, Tapper said that the White House’s outright refusal to “participate” in the House impeachment inquiry means that the president is “seemingly thumbing his nose at the very notion that the U.S. government was designed with three co-equal branches, specifically to offer checks and balances on each other.”

“When President Obama was in the White House, the Republican-led House of Representatives conducted lots of oversight,” Tapper continued, “on the Fast and Furious scandal, on the Benghazi tragedy and more.” He said that anyone who covered or followed the Benghazi saga “may find it stunning to see Republican members of Congress trash-talking whistleblowers and inspectors general and trash-talking the oversight responsibilities of the House.”

View the complete October 13 article by Matt Wilstein on the Daily Beast website here.

Amid Show of Support, Trump Meets With Giuliani Over Lunch

New York Times logoThe president’s multiple shows of support for his personal lawyer on Saturday seemed meant to tamp down questions about Mr. Giuliani’s standing.

WASHINGTON — President Trump had lunch on Saturday with Rudolph W. Giuliani amid revelations that prosecutors were investigating Mr. Giuliani for possible lobbying violations, and speculation that his position as the president’s personal lawyer was in jeopardy.

The lunch, at Mr. Trump’s golf course in Sterling, Va., was among several shows of the president’s support for Mr. Giuliani on Saturday. They seemed meant to tamp down questions about Mr. Giuliani’s status with a client famous for distancing himself from advisers when they encounter legal problems of their own.

Mr. Trump, during a Saturday night appearance on Fox News, called Mr. Giuliani “a great gentleman” and said he is still his lawyer. “I know nothing about him being under investigation. I can’t imagine it,” he told the host Jeanine Pirro.

View the complete October 12 article by Kenneth P. Vogel and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Trump tells reporters he doesn’t know if Giuliani is still his attorney

Washington Post logoPresident Trump told reporters Friday that he didn’t know whether Rudy Giuliani was still his personal attorney, adding that the two hadn’t spoken since Thursday.

“I don’t know,” Trump said, responding to a question about the lawyer as he prepared to leave the White House for a rally in Louisiana Friday evening. “I haven’t spoken to Rudy. I spoke to him yesterday briefly. He’s a very good attorney, and he has been my attorney.”

In a text message to The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey shortly after the president’s comments, Giuliani confirmed that he’s still representing Trump.

View the complete October 12 article by John Wagner and Reis Thebault on The Washington Post website here.

Ousted ambassador Marie Yovanovitch tells Congress Trump pressured State Dept. to remove her

Washington Post logoThe former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whose abrupt ouster in May has become a focus of House impeachment investigators said Friday in remarks before Congress that her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Trump placed on the State Department to remove her.

The account by Marie Yovanovitch depicts a career Foreign Service officer caught in a storm of unsubstantiated allegations pushed by the president’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and a cast of former Ukrainian officials who viewed her as a threat to their financial and political interests.

She told lawmakers that she was forced to leave Kiev on “the next plane” this spring and subsequently removed from her post, with the State Department’s No. 2 official telling her that, although she had done nothing wrong, the president had lost confidence in her and the agency had been under significant pressure to remove her since the summer of 2018.

View the complete October 11 article by John Hudson, Karoun Demirjian, Rachael Bade and Paul Sonne on The Washington Post website here.